Episode 79 – James Constable – Albany Beck

In today’s episode of Climb In Consulting I speak with James Constable, CEO and Founder of Albany Beck, the specialist financial services consultancy that’s disrupting the industry with their unique approach that balances leading subject matter expertise with cost effective delivery. Now full disclosure, Albany Beck are a client of ours, but it didn’t start like that. I originally approached James to appear on the podcast but one thing led to another and here we are. Having worked with James and the Albany Beck team for coming up to six months now, it was great to sit down with him for the podcast and talk about the Albany Beck story from the beginning. While I knew some of the journey he and the team have been on, there was lots I didn’t, and this conversation was my chance to find out all about it. Having started his career in contractor recruitment, James founded and grew Albany Beck to become one of the leading contractor resourcing firms in the banking industry. This success ultimately led him to sell part of the business to private equity. But that’s not where the story ends. Having worked in recruitment for over 15 years, James and his team felt that they could see the problems with both the contracting and traditional consulting models, and knew there must be a better way, so they launched their new consulting offering, or Albany Beck 2.0 as it’s sometimes called. Their unique model, something that James goes in to detail on in our conversation, has seen them go from strength to strength. Growing from a team of just the founders, to over 170 consultants in less than 18 months. And as James explains in today’s episode, that’s just the beginning of their growth journey. We go into a whole host of topics in this conversation, including: – Why James and the team decided to launch Albany Beck and the client conversation that started it all off. – How they were able to scale the business so quickly and their secrets to making their model a success. – And James’s advice for anyone considering striking out on their own, the conversations you should have with your significant other before doing so, and why Jeff Bezos’s wife deserved every cent of the divorce settlement she got. It was great to catch up with James outside of our day-to-day work together and have a conversation for the podcast. Working with the Albany Beck team, we see first-hand the great work they do and the business they’re building, and I really enjoyed having a chat with James to share his insights, learning and experience with you for the podcast. Whether you’re looking for advice on starting your own firm or considering how your consultancy will need to adapt its business model to keep pace with the competition, I know you’ll get a ton from this episode. Get in touch with James at – https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-constable-a7b6633/ Check out Albany Beck at – https://www.albanybeck.com/ Specific things discussed in the show Who Moved My Cheese by Dr Spencer Johnson – https://amzn.to/3ckO3BB Loosing My Virginity by Richard Branson – https://amzn.to/3smAdnL