Our Story

AI that earns its place.
Not just its hype.

We are a firm built by people who have sat in your seat, as CIO, CTO, CDO, and CAIO inside professional services organizations, and know exactly what it takes to move AI from conversation to production.

Founded 2026 · New York, NY Middle Market Specialist GovernanceLift™
20+
Years of enterprise technology leadership across law, accounting, and financial services
5
Regulated industry verticals served, where governance is non-negotiable
Middle Market
Big enough to need governance, lean enough to need a partner who does the work
100%
Of engagements define measurable outcomes before implementation begins
How We Got Here

A firm built from the inside out

Most AI consultants have never run technology inside a law firm. They've never navigated the ABA ethics opinions that govern attorney use of AI. They've never explained to a managing partner why their data is the asset, and why governance has to come before the chatbot.

Clifford Forrester has. After more than two decades serving as CIO, CTO, CDO, and CAIO at law firms and professional services organizations, he saw the same pattern repeat: firms getting sold AI solutions that weren't ready for regulated environments, pilots that stalled at governance, and technology decisions made without the people who actually do the work.

Vantara Consulting Group was founded to close that gap, to be the firm that brings enterprise-grade AI strategy and implementation to the middle market, with compliance built in from the start and outcomes defined before a single tool is deployed.

Vantara is a member of the AWS Partner Network (APN). Through our membership, we draw on AWS partner resources, training, and technology to help law firms, accounting firms, family offices, private equity firms, and healthcare organizations explore AI transformation, intelligent automation, cloud modernization, and secure digital innovation.

We don't sell hype. We sell results, and we stay until they're provable.

The Problem We Saw
AI without governance
Professional services firms being sold AI solutions with no compliance framework, no audit trail, and no defensible policy, then left exposed.
Our Response
Governance first. Always.
Every Vantara engagement starts with governance design, before strategy, before roadmap, before implementation. Compliance is not a feature. It's the foundation.
Vantara Consulting Group logo
Founded
New York, NY · 2026
Our Mission

"To make AI real for the firms that can't afford to get it wrong."

Professional services firms operate in regulated, trust-driven environments. They cannot experiment with client data. They cannot deploy AI without policy. They need a partner who understands the stakes, and who has already navigated them.

What We Believe

AI is everywhere.
Results are rare.

The gap between what AI can theoretically do and what actually gets implemented in regulated organizations is enormous. We exist to close it.

⚖️
Governance is not optional
In law, accounting, and finance, AI without governance is liability without limit. Every solution we build starts with a defensible compliance framework, audit trails, human oversight, and board-ready policy.
🎯
Outcomes before everything
We don't measure success in hours billed or deliverables submitted. We define measurable business outcomes at the start of every engagement and hold ourselves accountable to them.
🏗️
Implementation, not slide decks
The consulting world is full of AI strategies that sit in a PDF and go nowhere. We embed inside your environment, work alongside your team, and don't leave until the solution is live and working.
🔑
You own the outcome
We build internal capability, not dependency. Every engagement includes knowledge transfer, documentation, and training so your team owns the solution, and can sustain it, after we're gone.
🤝
The middle market deserves better
Most AI firms chase the Fortune 500. We focus on middle-market professional services firms that are equally sophisticated but underserved by large consultancies, and where the right AI implementation can be genuinely transformative.
📊
Data is the real asset
A law firm's work product, a family office's investment thesis, an accounting firm's institutional knowledge — these are assets. AI that leverages your proprietary data creates durable competitive advantage that no generic tool can replicate.
Clifford Forrester
Our Founder
Clifford Forrester
Founder & Principal

Former CTO at Jackson Lewis P.C., Chief Digital Officer at Citrin Cooperman, and CIO at Berdon LLP. More than 20 years leading technology inside law and accounting firms, now focused on helping firms like yours put AI to work safely.

Read Clifford's story →
How We Work

Strategy, implementation,
and governance as one system

Most consulting firms separate strategy from delivery. We don't. Every Vantara engagement moves through four connected phases, and we stay accountable across all of them.

01
Discover & Map
We audit your workflows, data assets, team structure, and regulatory environment to identify where AI creates genuine leverage, and where it creates risk. No assumptions. No generic playbooks.
02
Design & Govern
Before a line of code is written, we design the governance framework, AI policy, audit trail architecture, and human oversight model. Your compliance team signs off before implementation begins.
03
Implement & Prove
We deploy inside a live, contained environment with real workflows and real data. You measure against the outcomes we agreed. You decide whether to scale, with evidence, not faith.
Phase 04
Transfer & Scale
We build internal capability so improvement continues under your leadership. We document everything, train your team, and transfer ownership of the system, the knowledge, and the results. We don't create dependency — we eliminate it.
Fractional Leadership Option
Stay as your Chief AI Officer
For firms that want ongoing senior AI leadership without a full-time hire, Clifford can serve as your Fractional CAIO, providing strategic direction, governance oversight, vendor management, and board-level AI guidance on a flexible basis.
Client Voices

Proof, in their own words

"

Vantara understood our compliance obligations before they proposed a single solution. That's rare in this space, and it meant we could implement with confidence from day one. No scrambling to fix governance after the fact.

MP
Managing Partner
Mid-size Law Firm, New York
"

The Fractional CTO engagement gave us the senior leadership we couldn't afford full-time. Clifford's team moved faster than any internal hire could have, and held themselves accountable to outcomes, not just deliverables.

RP
CEO
Regional Accounting Firm
"

GovernanceLift™ was exactly what we needed. We went from "we want to use AI" to "we have a defensible, board-approved AI policy" in under six weeks. That clarity gave us the confidence to actually move forward.

DK
COO
Single-Family Office, Northeast
Technology Partners
ChangePond Intellect Technologies AWS Partner Network Member
Community

We don't just advise on transformation.
We invest in it.

Vantara's work extends beyond client engagements. We are committed to expanding access to AI literacy and technology leadership in communities that have historically been underserved by the technology industry.

We believe the professional services firms of tomorrow, especially those in the middle market, will be defined by how well they leverage AI. We want that opportunity to be broadly accessible, not reserved for firms with the largest budgets.

🎓
AI Literacy Programs
Pro bono AI education workshops for nonprofit organizations and small professional services firms navigating AI for the first time.
🌱
Emerging Leaders
Mentoring early-career technology professionals from underrepresented backgrounds pursuing leadership roles in enterprise AI.
📋
Governance Advocacy
Participating in industry working groups and professional associations to advance responsible AI governance standards in professional services.
🤲
Reduced-Rate Engagements
Offering discounted AI assessment and governance services to qualifying nonprofit legal organizations and social services firms.
Cover of the Vantara Consulting Group Capabilities Overview
Capabilities Overview

Everything we do, in five pages.

Who we are, the industries we serve, our services, and GovernanceLift™, in a short PDF that is easy to share with your partners or leadership team.

PDF · 5 pages
Download PDF
Let's build something that lasts

Ready to put AI to work
in your firm?

Tell us where your firm is today and what you want AI to do. We will show you a practical, governed path to get there, and stay with you through the results.

Schedule a Conversation See Our Services