Hakluyt: The Spooky Spy Firm That Swears It’s Totally Independent (While Still Schmoozing Shell, BP & the British Establishment)

When your clients include Shell, your alumni include MI6, and your letters end up on the desk of a Church of England lawyer… yeah, “independent” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Ah, Hakluyt — the Bond-esque boutique “advisory” firm that insists it’s not spooky anymore, despite being founded by MI6 veterans, crawling with political insiders, and forever orbiting the oily gravitational pull of companies like Shell and BP, those lovable eco-saboteurs who just want to profit while the world burns.

In his first public interview as Hakluyt’s new managing partner, Thomas Ellis reassured us all with a totally believable promise: that the firm is determined to stay “independent” — even as the consulting world consolidates faster than Shell’s ethics in an oil spill.

“We’re a partnership, and we’re full of quite independently minded people… We enjoy the status we have at the moment,” Ellis told the Financial Times, while polishing his cloak of plausible deniability.

Translation: we’re not for sale because our Rolodex already prints money.

Let’s pause here to admire Hakluyt’s glowing financials:

•Revenue up 16% to £131 million

•Operating profits up 13.5% to £29.5 million

•And clients? Oh, just over three-quarters of the top 20 private equity firms and nearly half the FTSE 100, which of course includes dear friends Shell and BP — the twin titans of greenhouse gas gluttony.

MI6 ‘firm’ spied on green groups for Shell and BP

It gets better. Ellis, a former adviser to Tony Blair (no surprises there), took over from Varun Chandra, who stepped down to become chief business aide to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Yes, you read that right: the revolving door between shadowy corporate intelligence and political power is spinning so fast it’s emitting smoke.

Meanwhile, former Tory leader William Hague is now chairing Hakluyt’s international advisory board — because nothing says non-partisan independence like giving a Conservative grandee the keys to your global strategy.

Oh, and let’s not forget Sir Olly Robbins, a Hakluyt partner who casually moonwalked into his new job as permanent secretary for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Everything is above board, obviously.

Hakluyt, Shell, and the Curious Case of the Church of England

If all that weren’t eyebrow-raising enough, let’s talk about Shell — everyone’s favourite sin stock — and its cozy ties to Hakluyt. Former Shell Global Head of Security Ian Forbes McCredie didn’t just work for Shell — he also sat on Hakluyt’s board, blurring the line between intelligence-gathering and corporate oil-spin like a master illusionist in a gas mask.

And then there’s the chef’s kiss of this saga: when a letter from Shell whistleblower Alfred Donovan — addressed to Hakluyt — mysteriously turned up on the desk of Mike Webster, a lawyer at the Church of England. That’s right: the holy institution that preaches stewardship of creation somehow became a postal stop for Shell’s dirty laundry.

Is that a covert op? A divine coincidence? Or just more evidence that Hakluyt’s tentacles reach from MI6 to the altar?

Nothing to See Here (Just a Few Spies, an Oil Giant, and a Lot of Money)

Ellis claims he’s focused on making Hakluyt more profitable, growing beyond its “intelligence” roots, and “moving up the value chain” — whatever that means when your business model already smells like a cross between Spectre and a Shell boardroom.

“We want to deepen relationships with clients. We’re very excited about the opportunity to move up the value chain,” said Ellis.

Sure, deepen away. Just don’t trip over any conflicts of interest while you’re diving into Shell’s offshore files.

Let’s not forget: Hakluyt insists it has “shed” its spooky image. But when your founders are ex-MI6, your alumni are literally running Whitehall, and your clients include Shell, BP, and the private equity monsters funding the climate crisis — the trench coat kind of sticks.

And investors like BlackRock and Vanguard — who continue to bankroll Shell’s climate hypocrisy — should take note: intelligence isn’t just being gathered. It’s being monetised.

Final Thought

Hakluyt may call itself “boutique,” but this isn’t a quaint little shop in Mayfair. It’s a high-octane, high-powered whisper network of former spies, corporate giants, and political insiders — operating in the shadows, just far enough from the public eye to keep pretending they’re just helping clients “understand risk.”

Risk, of course, being code for: How do we keep doing this without getting caught?

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