About · Gary McRae · MCR.AE
A practice built on discipline, sequence, and systems that survive.
MCR.AE is the management consultancy of Gary McRae. You get me: no junior team, no white label. What lands at your firm is what I made. I ran digital and marketing technology inside a global law firm before advising firms like yours.
The point of view
Most firms do this in the wrong order.
A partnership rarely has a marketing problem. It has an order problem. A marketing executive hired before anyone decided what the function is. A CRM bought before anyone owned the referral list. Juniors using AI on client work before anyone wrote the rule. It looks like marketing. It is sequence.
The practice fixes the order first. Review, design, stand it up with the firm’s own people, leave. Every engagement has a point where the management committee can stop. Every stage ends in something the partners can hold someone to. That is how the work is still running two years after I have gone.
Some will know this work by another name. What a fractional CMO does inside a company, this practice does inside a partnership, as management consultancy. That is the category the accreditation sits in, the grant funds, and the managing partner buys.
Principles
Four things that are always true of the work.
01
Discipline over volume
A weekly review beats an annual retreat. A named owner beats “the partners”. The first job is not more activity. It is a monthly review someone can be held to.
02
Sequence over speed
Review before you design. Design before you hire. A marketing executive hired into a function that does not exist costs a firm eighteen months and a good person.
03
Systems that survive me
If the work depends on me, the firm has bought a dependency. The deliverable is a function the next person inherits, with a manual, on a date I stop attending.
04
Honesty about fit
If the Review says leave it alone, that is what it says. Some firms need one partner to own the referral list and nothing else. I will say so.
Credentials, in context
Each one changes what I can do for your firm. None is decoration.
PMC. Practising Management Consultant. Accredited by SBACC against SS 680:2021, recognised by Enterprise Singapore. Grants fund management consultancy; PMC is what makes this management consultancy. Enterprise Singapore decides what qualifies.
I ran digital and marketing technology inside a global law firm. As Associate Director of Marketing: the website, the CRM, the systems the firm paid for, under partner governance, with fee earners as my internal clients. I know what it costs a firm when nobody owns business development. I sat inside one.
12+ years in Singapore. The regulator, the grant regime, the professional bodies, the referral networks that decide who gets called. You cannot read this market from outside.
MBA, and the Certificate in AI Ethics and Governance, NTU. I use the second. My own practice runs on AI, from finding firms to keeping records, under the same rules I recommend to yours.
Certified to run the Leadership Circle Profile, a 360 on how a partner leads. Used inside Rainmaking, with the partners who have to own how the firm wins work. Never for assessing anyone.
Or read first
Prefer to see the thinking before the call?
Long-form essays. No sign-up, no email capture. The same arguments I would make on the call.
AI Governance · 10 min read
AI Governance Framework
Your people use AI on client work. Has anyone written down how? IMDA, PDPC, ASAS, eight risks, a one-page policy.
Read the essay
PDPA · 10 min read
PDPA Compliance for Firms
Your client list is personal data. Nine obligations, an eight-step checklist, and the business contact exemption most firms misread.
Read the essay
MarTech · 8 min read
MarTech Audit Framework
Half of what the firm pays for marketing software goes to tools nobody uses. A five-step audit one person runs in a week.
Read the essay