Episode 126: The Power of Yes: How one small word can lead to huge success, with Phil Rolfe

In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Phil Rolfe, UK Managing Partner of Valcon. Regular listeners to this podcast will know that we centre the discussion on the various routes our guests’ careers have taken, in order to highlight the endless possibilities and permutations offered by a career in consulting. Phil’s journey is a really interesting one. It starts, as so many consultants’ journeys do, with a post-uni graduate trainee scheme. Working with Eagle Star, (subsequently Zurich), Phil qualified as an accountant and got plenty of experience under his belt before moving on to boutique consultancy, Tillinghast. He then moved to London (and back to Eagle Star) to set up accountancy services for a new life and pensions business, which grew from nothing to 200 to 300 people. A chance meeting resulted in a role with KPMG, where he worked for the next 5 years, including a stint on the NatWest/RBS integration. This led to RBS offering him a job managing major projects. He stayed for 11 years, through to the 2008 crash, when the NatWest Group was taken over by ABN AMRO. Phil then moved to the Netherlands with his family, working with the ABN AMRO team in financial crime. He took their best practices around the world, building financial crime teams for RBS in Poland, Singapore, India and The United States . Ready for his next adventure, Phil left RBS to set up his own financial crime company. Before long, he was approached by P2 Consulting who bought part of the company, before making him CEO of the whole firm. In December 2021, they joined forces with Valcon, with Phil as UK Managing Partner. Nick caught up with Phil to find out more about his amazing journey, and how being open to new opportunities has given him a more diverse and interesting career than he could have imagined. Nick and Phil dive into some fascinating topics in this episode, including… · The decision to move from consulting to an industry role – and how progressing in a consultancy role can be a lot like a Christmas tree · The importance of recognising when you’re not the smartest person in the room - and knowing when to rely on the expertise of the people around you · How scaling a team to 500 (and then 2000!) people informed Phil’s leadership style and approach · The value of being open to opportunities and saying yes to new experiences …and much more besides. In fact, there’s so much content in this episode, it’s almost impossible to summarise! Suffice to say, if you’re starting out on your own consultancy career, thinking of making the leap from consulting to industry, or simply enjoy listening to epic success stories, you’ll love this episode of Climb in Consulting. We hope you enjoy the show! Reach out to Phil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philrolfe1/?originalSubdomain=uk Learn more about Valcon: https://valcon.com/en/ Book mentioned in the show: What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, by Marshall Goldsmith