Richard Benson-Armer

Richard joined the Activant team in 2020 as a Partner. He focuses his time supporting portfolio company leaders on the myriad challenges they face as they rapidly scale their companies. Richard’s extensive experience identifying growth opportunities, developing strategies, and scaling businesses across sectors is an invaluable asset to the firm. His passion for developing people is as evident within Activant as it is in portfolio companies.

Prior to joining Activant, Richard was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. Throughout his 20+ year career at McKinsey, he worked in the Toronto, Sydney, Brussels, Seoul, and Stamford offices serving global and local clients in the consumer goods, retail banking, and B2B information services industries on issues of strategy, performance management, and capability building. Richard was the location managing partner in McKinsey’s Stamford office for 5 years and held global leadership roles in the Consumer Goods and Capability Building practices. He previously worked as the Chief Strategy Officer for The Thomson Corporation, head of strategy for South African Breweries (Beer Division) and as a process engineer for Unilever.

Richard grew up and was educated in South Africa where he earned an MBA from the University of Cape Town, BCommerce degree from the University of South Africa, and BSc degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand.