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Most consulting partners expect pay to rise, but up to a third are open to careers beyond consulting, new Barton Partnership research finds

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A survey of 725 consulting partners across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific finds pay holding firm as AI reshapes the industry, while those considering a move look to corporate leadership and private equity operating roles. The findings sharpen the focus on how firms hire, integrate and retain consulting partners.

LONDON, Oct. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Globally, consulting partners report being well paid and expect to be paid more, according to The Barton Partnership’s 2026 Partner Compensation Reports, which include perspectives of 725 partners across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific (APAC) at Strategy Consulting (including McKinsey, BCG and Bain), Big 4, Large Multi-Disciplinary and Boutique firms. At the same time, up to a third say they may move beyond their consulting partner role within the next three years, most often into corporate leadership positions.

“As AI and margin pressure change how firms deliver and price consulting work, partners are thinking carefully about where their experience creates the most value,” said Oliver Phoenix, CEO of The Barton Partnership.

An overview of key findings:

Pay expectations remain strong. 60% of partners in North America and APAC, and 53% in Europe, expect their compensation to increase over the next 12 months, after a year in which 84% in Europe and 75% in North America saw no reduction to earnings.Up to a third are open to careers beyond consulting. 31% in North America, 25% in APAC and 23% in Europe say they may move beyond consulting within the next three years. Partners in Europe (27%) and APAC (30%) most often cite reduced confidence in the consulting model, rather than pay, as their main reason for considering a move. In North America, the two rank equally (24% each).Corporate leadership is the most likely next step. Among those considering a change, corporate general management tops the list in every region (27% to 29%), followed by a move to another consulting firm (21% to 27%). Between 12% and 16% point to Operating Partner roles, which help private equity firms improve the companies they own, or Chief Transformation Officer roles.

The findings come as AI tops the agenda for consulting partners, with 71% of partners in North America, 69% in Europe and 64% in APAC naming it a critical challenge.

Integrating consulting partners becomes a priority

With experienced partners moving between firms and into new roles, how firms hire, integrate, develop and retain partners has become a commercial priority. In Europe, 29% of partners report higher-than-expected partner attrition, up from 18% in 2024, while 27% of partners in Europe and APAC identify promoting the next wave of partners as a critical challenge.

“Consulting partners are some of the most sought-after leaders in the market, and their pay continues to reflect that,” said Oliver Phoenix, CEO of The Barton Partnership. “As AI and margin pressure change how firms deliver and price consulting work, partners are thinking carefully about where their experience creates the most value, whether that is in another firm, in corporate leadership or in an operating role in private equity.”

The reports point to a shift in what keeps senior talent in place, with pay being only one part of the equation.

“For consultancies, access to high-performing senior talent is the most important source of competitive advantage, which makes partner integration a core part of the business,” said Phoenix. “Whether hiring a lateral partner or developing their own, firms that invest in thoughtful onboarding, transparent reward and a clear path to ownership will have the edge in attracting and keeping the leaders who drive their growth.”

The reports also provide benchmark partner compensation by firm type, tenure, sub-region and ownership structure, alongside equity structures, attrition, working practices and benefits in each market.

To download the reports, go to: https://www.thebartonpartnership.com/blog/2026/10/the-barton-partnerships-2026-partner-compensation-reports.

About The Barton Partnership

The Barton Partnership is a specialist strategic talent solutions provider that helps organizations bridge the gap between strategy and execution. Since 2007, the firm has partnered with FTSE-listed and Fortune 500 companies, private equity firms and their portfolio businesses, global financial institutions, and leading consulting organizations to deliver executive search, interim and independent consulting, and consulting solutions.

Combining deep sector expertise with specialist functional focus, The Barton Partnership connects clients with senior leaders across Strategy & M&A, Transformation & Change, Technology & Data, and ESG & Sustainability. The firm’s integrated approach aligns talent strategies with business priorities, ensuring every placement, whether interim, permanent, or consulting, delivers measurable impact.

The Barton Partnership is a certified B Corp™ and supports clients globally from offices in London, New York, Singapore, and Sydney. Learn more at thebartonpartnership.com.

Media Contact

Brittney Kowalski, The Barton Partnership, 1 6035042024, brittney.kowalski@thebartonpartnership.com, https://www.thebartonpartnership.com/

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SOURCE The Barton Partnership

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commercetools Named a Leader in 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce as AI Reshapes the Market

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commercetools is a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce for the seventh consecutive year.commercetools has been driving AI innovation on how enterprises build, operate and sell, including capabilities like Sphere, Commerce MCP and commercetools for Builders.commercetools is helping global enterprises modernize complex commerce operations and prepare for a future where both people and AI agents discover, shop and transact.

BOSTON, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — commercetools, the digital commerce AI company, today announced it has been positioned as a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Digital Commerce. This marks the seventh consecutive year commercetools has been recognized as a Leader in the report.

As AI reshapes commerce, commercetools is expanding how it supports the enterprises who build and operate commerce experiences, and the shoppers who use them. Global enterprises including JD Sports, Nederlandse Spoorwegen, Chemist Warehouse and Mirion Technologies are using commercetools to modernize complex digital commerce, accelerate growth and adopt new AI-powered ways of operating and selling.

“Commerce is moving from systems that simply respond to human instructions toward systems that can increasingly understand, decide and act,” said Doug McNary, Chief Executive Officer at commercetools. “We’re proud to be named a Leader for the seventh consecutive year. Enterprises shouldn’t have to choose between the flexibility they need today and the autonomy they’ll need tomorrow. Our focus is giving them the technology to support both.”

Over the past year, commercetools has introduced new products and capabilities designed to bring AI across the commerce lifecycle:

Sphere: Brings together commercetools’ AI-native infrastructure and agent governance through Commerce MCP into a unified platform for enterprises to build, operate and sell with AI.commercetools for Builders: Helps anyone build, extend and evolve enterprise commerce faster with AI.AgentSphere: Lets enterprises build and manage AI agents to run commerce operations and agentic shopping, with appropriate guardrails to do so safely and at scale.Modular commerce offerings: Gives enterprises the flexibility to start with the capabilities they need and expand over time, accelerating time to value without requiring a full commerce transformation upfront.Commerce Integration Layer: Centralizes integration logic behind customer-facing experiences. Storefronts, mobile apps and AI agents connect through a unified layer hosted and maintained by commercetools.Smart Data Modeler: Uses AI to accelerate product data modeling, helping teams build the right foundation faster and reduce time-to-launch.

commercetools’ customers include large enterprises across retail, manufacturing, life sciences, healthcare and telecommunications in markets around the world.

To learn more about commercetools’ position as a Leader, download your complimentary copy of the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant report today.

About the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce Platforms, Aditya Vasudevan, Penny Gillespie, Sandy Shen, Jason Daigler, Mike Lowndes, 19 October 2026

Gartner and Magic Quadrant are trademarks of Gartner, Inc., and/or its affiliates.

Gartner does not endorse any company, vendor, product or service depicted in its publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s business and technology insights organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this publication, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About commercetools

commercetools, the global digital commerce AI company, helps enterprises transform commerce for the AI era. Built API-native from the start and AI-first by design, our technology enables agentic shopping experiences, automates commerce operations and gives businesses the agility to modernize faster, innovate continuously and operate more intelligently.

More than 500 global brands, retailers and enterprise companies rely on commercetools to power their digital commerce. Together, they process more than $100 billion in annualized GMV, over 700 million orders and more than one billion customer records on our platform.

Media Contact: comms@commercetools.com 

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Phylo’s Biomni Lab to expand the use of AI agents in scientific research at Bayer

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SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Phylo, Inc. announced today a partnership with Bayer to deploy Biomni Lab, Phylo’s agentic AI platform to accelerate scientific research and evaluation. 

Under the agreement, Phylo will provide Bayer with full access to its agentic platform that helps Bayer scientists bring together scientific literature, biomedical data, and analytical methods in one environment, reducing the manual effort required to assemble and assess evidence. The platform’s inspectable workflows preserve the context behind each result, allowing researchers to review the underlying sources, methods, and execution and apply their own scientific judgment. Bayer scientists will gain access to Biomni Lab for workflows focused on assembling literature and omics evidence for drug discovery.

“This partnership reflects our belief that AI should expand scientific curiosity, not just speed up routine work. Giving our scientists an AI partner that brings rigor to every step lets them explore more ideas, ask bolder questions, and find the insights that move drug discovery forward, ultimately accelerating the pace at which we can bring new medicines to patients,” said Sai Jasti, Senior Vice President, Head of Data Science & Artificial Intelligence, Bayer Pharmaceuticals R&D.

“For agentic AI to matter in research, it has to earn the trust of the scientists doing the work. Bayer’s selection of Biomni Lab is a strong endorsement of the scientific rigor and AI capabilities we’ve built into the platform,” said Kexin Huang, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Phylo. “Our vision is an AI-native operating system for biopharma, where every scientist can direct a team of AI agents to pursue complex research questions. With Bayer, we aim to show what becomes possible when AI capabilities meet deep scientific expertise: more hypotheses explored, more discoveries made, and new possibilities for medicine.”

About Phylo

Phylo’s mission is to bring the best agentic intelligence to every biomedical scientist. Its enterprise-grade AI platform, Biomni Lab, is the first Integrated Biology Environment—a unified workspace where scientists collaborate with AI agents across literature research, experimental design, biological data analysis, and scientific decision-making.

Biomni Lab is now used by leading global biopharma, including Bayer, Chugai Pharmaceutical and Ono Pharmaceutical. Phylo is based in South San Francisco, backed by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Menlo Ventures.

For more information, visit phylo.bio. To learn more about Biomni Lab, visit biomni.phylo.bio.

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SOURCE Phylo, Inc.

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Sandler Partners Welcomes Bryan Rias as Director, Sales Engineer, West Region

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New Hire Announcement | Independent Technology Distributor Sandler Partners grows its Sales Engineering team, adding Bryan Rias as Director, Sales Engineer, West Region.

REDONDO BEACH, Calif., Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sandler Partners, the leading independent Technology Solutions Distributor, announces the addition of Bryan Rias as Director, Sales Engineer, West Region, further strengthening its dedicated sales engineering team and the technical support available to Partners in the West Region.

Bryan brings more than two decades of experience designing and delivering complex technology solutions, including enterprise and Cloud architecture roles at Lumen/Savvis and IBM focused on infrastructure modernization and customer success. His expertise spans automation, edge computing, disaster recovery, application performance monitoring (APM), and DevSecOps. In his role, Bryan will support Partners across the West Region, aligning early with them on strategy and leading thoughtful discovery to help them find the right fit for each client.

For Bryan, strong relationships and solid values guide his life and form the foundation of his professional success, a perspective that fits naturally within the Sandler Partners community. When he is not working, Bryan spends time with his family, including his wife, three sons, and a grandson, RVing, boating, and biking, along with pursuing his passion for freediving.

“Bryan brings the kind of hands-on experience our Partners value: he’s been in the room on complex deals and knows how to turn a customer’s needs into the right solution,” says Justin Marano, Chief Revenue Officer, Sandler Partners. “He came to Sandler for the freedom to work across best-of-breed Providers, and our Partners in the West will feel that right away. He’s collaborative, grounded, and focused on helping Partners win. I’m excited to have him on the team.”

“I’m excited to get to work alongside our Partners, helping them navigate complex opportunities and bring clarity to technical decisions,” says Bryan. “For me, it all comes back to relationships. When you build them on trust and shared values, the results follow for our Partners and their clients. That’s something that the Sandler community really embodies, and I look forward to getting to work with our Partners!”

About Sandler Partners
Sandler Partners helps empower its network of leading independent Sales Partners to deliver a comprehensive range of technology solutions to organizations worldwide, including Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Connectivity, Cloud, Colocation, Mobility, Internet of Things (IoT), and Continuity. Its community-focused approach enables Partners to identify the right solutions for customers quickly and objectively from a diverse portfolio of 220+ Providers. Partner sales agents, VARs, and MSPs gain access to an innovative suite of sales tools within the Sandler Portal—including SCOUT, Solutions Finder, Scout for Solutions, and the Marketing Center—several of which are AI-powered, all backed by a robust support network, dedicated Sales Engineering expertise, and rich marketing resources. Together, these tools and resources empower Partners to focus on what they do best: delivering quality, value, performance, innovative solutions, unmatched expertise, and exceptional service to their clients. Members of the Sandler Partners community also benefit from the industry’s strongest negotiated agreements and a dedicated team committed to ensuring commissions are accurately identified, tracked, and paid. For more information, visit www.sandlerpartners.com.

Sandler Partners – Media Contact
Tina S. Dyksterhouse
tina@sandlerpartners.com
310-861-2295

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SOURCE Sandler Partners

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