Today’s guest is Charles Vivian, Managing Director and Portfolio Group Lead at North Highland.
Charles leads North Highland’s UK and north eastern US practices, a $100 million dollar consulting business.
While you might be expecting the typical consulting career journey, Charles has had the complete opposite and has a hugely varied career that has spanned working for a global consultancy, founding his own start up, working for a boutique consulting firm and then working his way up to where he is now.
Outside of work Charles has undertaken some phenomenal adventures including climbing Mont Blanc and running the Marathon De Sables, the world’s toughest foot race. In fact the reason that there was a slight delay on releasing this episode was that Charles was flying out the day after our interview to trek across the Artic!
Charles’s approach to growing a business, growing your career and enjoying your life were fascinating and no matter where you are on your journey there’ll be something in here for you.
We cover so many interesting topics in this conversation including:
Charles’ start up journey, what he learnt from failing and his advice to other thinking of going out on their own.
The importance of culture when it comes to building a consulting firm and how North Highland have created a culture that is open and supportive while welcoming challenge from all levels of the firm.
The differences and similarities when it comes to working across the UK and the US and the importance of understanding the culture of the region you’re working in when it comes to building a Consulting business.
How Charles fits adventures like his trip to the artic in to his schedule and his advice for others looking to balance work with doing more of the things they enjoy outside it.
I really enjoyed this conversation with Charles. His unique perspective having worked across such a diverse range of businesses gave some fantastic insights and I know you’ll get a lot from this conversation.
You can get in touch with Charles through his LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-vivian-2931b72/
or drop him an email - Charles.Vivian@northhighland.com
This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy.
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Specific things we discussed in the show:
Quedis - http://www.northhighland.com/en/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/north-highland-announces-qedis-rebranding
Marathon De Sables - https://marathondessables.co.uk/
The First 90 Days by Michael D Watkins - https://amzn.to/2HPIbkL
Get Abstract - https://www.getabstract.com/en/
Harvard Business Review - https://hbr.org/
