Our story

The Acasus story begins with Fenton Whelan.
After nearly a decade at a top-tier management consultancy, where his work included supporting education reforms, Fenton wrote a book on how to reform education systems.

Through this experience, he noticed a pattern: governments were often strong at setting bold visions and strategies, but needed more support to deliver them. They didn’t need clever outsiders to lecture them on what should be done, or philosophers to debate ideas. What they needed were people willing to stand beside them in the dark hours of the night when decisions were 51–49.

Problem-solvers who could help local teams master the small details. That hands-on partnership could make lasting progress possible. In 2013, Fenton founded Acasus to provide exactly that kind of support.

Acasus began with the Punjab Health Roadmap in Pakistan, working with the province’s Chief Minister at the time, Shehbaz Sharif, to drive rapid improvements in primary health care for citizens. Between 2014 and 2017, Acasus supported the Government of Punjab to achieve unprecedented improvements in public health.

Immunisation coverage surged by 35 percentage points – protecting nearly one million additional children annually against deadly childhood diseases – while the percentage of mothers giving birth in the health system rose by 15 percentage points, ensuring 350,000 more children were born each year with medical care in their first moments of life.