Exciting Company News

Newton Acquires Magnetic to Bolster Strength in Design and Innovation

Newton, the strategic delivery consultancy, is excited to announce its acquisition of Magnetic, an independent human-centred design and innovation company.

The transaction will see Magnetic’s 70+ designers and innovators join Newton’s 450+ consultants across the UK, with both companies’ skills adding depth and breadth to their offerings to clients.

Magnetic will continue to be run as a separate business beyond the transaction and for the foreseeable future, however, both companies will explore opportunities to boost the impact they deliver to clients through partnership. Magnetic will continue to operate under its existing name and branding.

Existing Foundations

Newton and Magnetic have previously worked in partnership for several large clients, also collaborating on the steering groups of various joint projects. Accordingly, they were aware of their similarities in working style and shared beliefs. The acquisition is a natural next step that builds on common aspirations and a shared experience of delivering exceptional client value.

The two companies make a good fit, with complementary skills portfolios, a mutual impetus to disrupt the traditional consulting model, and a strong blend of commercial innovation and creative ingenuity. Both are renowned for helping clients resolve complex, intractable challenges blending a data-driven approach with human-centric design and innovation.

Also, both are driven to give client organisations dramatic improvements in performance, efficiency, and competitive edge. Both Newton and Magnetic have strong credentials in the retail and consumer space, with a shared understanding of consumer business dynamics.

Another common characteristic is that Newton and Magnetic both use a client-centric approach that is industry agnostic​. This approach starts from first principles and is tailored to every client situation. There are many more natural synergies between the two businesses, ​which will be explored in the years ahead.

Design & Innovation

Magnetic, formed in 2021 from the merger of independent consultancies Fluxx and magneticNorth, has thrived by applying a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to create innovative, commercially successful products and services for multinationals, government entities and fast-growing start-ups. An intensely collaborative client engagement approach sees Magnetic teams uncover customer insights that lead to the design of new products and services that address client problems.

With expertise in business design, design thinking, innovation, leadership development, culture change, and building product-led communities, the company continues to pursue a mission of creating better futures for businesses, people, and the planet through design and innovation.

As a collective of people passionate about solving the world’s environmental and social challenges, Magnetic attained B Corp certification in 2023.

Delivering through its combined hub of innovation and digital design, Magnetic has seen a rapid increase in demand from organisations across a range of sectors, including Google, HSBC, Mars, the BBC, Parliamentary Digital Service, adidas and The Economist, amongst its partners.

Meaningful impact

In Newton’s case, success in the areas of healthcare, local and central government, retail, defence and infrastructure, and a focus on translating strategic intent into tangible actions and outcomes backed by a fee guarantee, have seen it maintain a 25% growth rate YOY over 20 years. Newton has worked with more than 100 public sector organisations in the UK, on the nation’s most significant defence programmes and with many of the country’s largest retailers.

As a behind-the-scenes force for creating lasting value within large organisations, Newton builds strong partnerships with client teams, often with a low profile but a critical role in multimillion-pound change and transformation programmes.

Newton’s approach to strategic delivery is uniquely data-driven, forensically detailed, digitally enabled and human-powered. The company’s purpose is unlocking complexity for meaningful impact, and it thrives in highly complex, high-stakes environments. Newton orchestrates programmes that keep citizens, consumers, and taxpayers safer, healthier, better served, and benefiting from organisations, systems and processes that run more efficiently and deliver better outcomes and greater value.

The company remains deeply invested in the impact of its work through an unusually client-centric engagement and commercial model, which sees it fully guarantee all its fees. Newton regularly appears on the rankings of the most desirable companies in the UK for university graduates, with 14,000 applicants contesting 100 new positions in the 2023 academic year.

A Critical Juncture

The acquisition by Newton of Magnetic comes at a critical moment in each company’s respective history. Both are rapidly growing; after more than 20 years in the UK, Newton is poised to broaden its reach into sectors where it already has a substantial presence, while also extending its offer into new industry sectors and international geographies.

“We’re very excited about the new capabilities and capacity for design and innovation that Magnetic brings to Newton,” says Managing Partner of Newton Europe, Steven Phillips.

“Since our first meeting, it was apparent that our respective leadership teams and cultures have much in common,” Phillips continued. “The better we got to know each other, the more apparent it became that we are both motivated by similar things: curiosity and passion to unlock complexity, an optimism about the future and our ability to contribute towards it, and a determination to leave a meaningful impact with our clients, and within society.”

“We believe in the power of design to accelerate progress and create positive, sustainable impact,” said Jenny Burns, CEO of Magnetic. “In Newton, we’ve found kindred spirits with strongly complementary skills that will combine to deliver a more holistic approach for more impactful outcomes. We also believe in designing our future with optimism. It’s a mindset that begins within us and has a ripple effect on the world at large.

“We were convinced that we’d found the right fit with Newton when it became apparent that both companies shared so many similarities — high growth rates, big ambitions to create positive change at scale, and cultures underpinned by strong values. We each have parallel but equally effective approaches to solving client challenges, and we both value the building of close relationships with our clients — relationships that provide the fuel for extraordinary breakthroughs and enduringly positive outcomes.”

Press enquiries: Jassi.porteous@wearemagnetic.com

Magnetic is a design and innovation company that helps design better futures. We’ve worked with global businesses, government organisations and fast growing start-ups to build capabilities, products, services and transform organisations.

Newton partners with clients in strategic delivery across the public and private sectors, unlocking complexity to create meaningful and lasting impact.

Newton has throughout its 20+ year history shaped and delivered programmes across over 100 public sector organisations, multiple defence and infrastructure organisations, and leading retail and manufacturing supply chains. This work has delivered real and lasting impact, including better value offerings for consumers, over £1.5 billion savings on a national defence programme, and over £800m savings in the public sector while also improving outcomes for thousands of people.