Climb In Consulting

Today’s guest is Dave Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Storm Consultancy, Chairman of CiteAB and non-executive director at I Am compliant. Storm are a software consultancy that help clients create web apps, digital platforms and website designs to engage their audience, elevate their brand, and ultimately grow their business. Dave’s story is a truly unique one and having got to know Dave over the last couple of month I knew he’d make a fantastic guest for this show. Unlike many of my guests who’ve started their businesses having spent years in their field Dave and his co-founder Adam launched Storm, straight out of university, deciding that they’d give it a go and if it all went wrong they’d call it a gap year and go back to the graduate milk round. Needless to say it worked out for them and Storm is now a thriving consultancy with clients ranging from cutting edge start ups to global brands including Samsung, Yamaha and Ubisoft I regularly get messages from listeners considering what to do after they leave university and in this interview Dave shares some great insights on launching your own business and why doing it straight out of university may be one of the best opportunities you have. This interview isn’t just for new graduates though. In growing Storm Dave and his co-founder Adam have built a successful business based on practices that many would not think could work in Consulting, including not working Friday afternoons and unlimited holiday allowances. We go in to detail on Dave’s management philosophy during this conversation and why practices like these and the principles that underpin them have helped Storm achieve the success it has. I really enjoyed this conversation with Dave and it was fascinating to hear how he’s successfully built the business that he wants and a business that clients love while shunning the norms of the traditional consulting model. I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy. Specific things we discussed in the show: Ryan Carson - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryancarson Treehouse - https://teamtreehouse.com/ Executive Foundation - https://www.executive-foundation.com/ Shaw & Co - https://www.shawllp.co.uk/ Jim Shaw - https://www.shawllp.co.uk/about-us/our-people/jim-shaw/ Turning the Flywheel by Jim Collins - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1847942555/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_oXH-CbKEK4GXT Yena - https://joinyena.com/ Storm - https://stormconsultancy.co.uk/ And their address if you want to go and get your copy of Turning the Fly Wheel - https://stormconsultancy.co.uk/contact/

Today’s guest is Charlie Hodgson, former England international and Saracens number 10 and founder of Charlie Hodgson Performance, his leadership coaching business.             As a professional rugby player Charlie achieved everything you could want to over his 16 year career. He won multiple premiership titles with his club Saracens, played for England and went on the 2005 Lions tour. If this wasn’t enough, he is also the all-time record point scorer in the premiership with 2,625 points scored. To put this into perspective if you don’t follow rugby, the closest player too him who’s still playing professionally has 1,569 points – almost a 1,000 points behind Charlie. As I’ve said before on this podcast I’m a big believer that you can and should learn from the best, regardless of their industry, and sport is no different. Given the hyper competitive nature of elite sport, teams are always looking for an edge and given Saracens success over recent years it was fascinating to sit down with Charlie and get his first-hand insights and advice of what led them to be so successful. Since retiring from professional rugby Charlie has combined his experience of developing winning teams at the top level of elite rugby with his coaching training and launched Charlie Hodgson Performance to help executives and their teams leverage the leadership principles from professional sport to develop their own high performing cultures. Charlie shares so many fascinating insights from both his sporting and business careers in this interview including: How his club Saracens were able to go from a midtable side to the best team in the league  and the off field changes they made that were critical to this success. The importance of developing a positive and supportive culture in your organisation and the key elements to consider if you want to develop your own high performing team. How you can break down barriers between the different areas in your organisation and start to help your teams work together better. And much much more! It was great to get the chance to sit down with someone who has spent so long at the top of elite sport and learn what it takes to succeed at that level, both individually and as a team. There’s so much in this conversation that you can apply to your career and your business and I know you’re going to get a lot from what Charlie has to say. You can get in touch with Charlie via email at charlie@charliehodgsonperformance.com And you can find out more about Charlie Hodgson Performance at https://charliehodgsonperformance.com/ This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy. Specific things we discussed in the show: Sarcens RFC - https://www.saracens.com/ The Forgotten Highlander by Alistair Urquhart - https://amzn.to/2Jqsylz Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl - https://amzn.to/2WPH3Ce I used to be a miserable F*ck by John Kim - https://amzn.to/2LQqhCc

Specific things we discussed in the show: What Price Climate Change? by Alex Cameron and David Archer - Click here to download Engaging Boards With Climate Change by Alex Cameron and David Archer - Click here to download Engaging Company Boards with Climate Action research by William Cross, Diane Mouradain, James Roberts and Sudhiksha Unnikrishnan for Imperial College Business School - Click here to download The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells - https://amzn.to/2Ur4dgk Accounting for sustainability - https://www.accountingforsustainability.org/en/index.html Task Force on Climate Change Related Disclosures - https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/ How to Set Up Effective Climate Governance on Corporate Boards: Guiding principles and questions by the World Economic Forum - https://www.weforum.org/whitepapers/how-to-set-up-effective-climate-governance-on-corporate-boards-guiding-principles-and-questions

Today’s guest is Michael Mahony, Co-Founder of the Berkeley Partnership. Michael was one of four founding partners of The Berkeley Partnership, growing it from an idea to where it is today. In 2018 Michael retired from Berkeley and now works with a number of consulting firms, helping them shape their business strategies. Founded in 1990, The Berkeley Partnership is an independent Management Consultancy who work with many household names and global organisations helping them to develop strategies and transform their businesses. The Berekely partnership are unique in a number of ways and have successfully grown their business whilst doing the opposite of what most people would consider conventional consulting wisdom. They are industry agnostic, only recruit from the upper grades in Consulting, have an extremely low partner to Consultant ratio and are heavily focused on limiting the amount of travel their consultants have to do when delivering for their clients. The fascinating thing about Berkeley is that they’ve been able to build a thriving business by doing all of this and as Michael explains in our conversation, they’ve create a place that the partners and consultants want to work.  Knowing some of the Berkeley story, I had always been intrigued by their model and how they’d been so successful while pursuing such an unorthodox approach. So when I was introduced to Michael, I jumped at the chance to get him on the show. We cover so many interesting topics in this episode including: What led Michael and his Co-founders to Launch Berkeley and how they managed to survive their early years, launching the business just before the 1991 recession. The Berkeley Partnership business model and how the team decided to set the firm up as they did. And Michael’s advice to others thinking about launching their own consulting business I really enjoyed this conversation with Michael and it was great to get so much advice and insight from someone who has been involved in the industry for as long as he has. If you’re a partner thinking about how to improve your own business or a Consultant thinking about going out on your own then this interview is a must listen. You can get in touch with Michael through his LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmahony1/ This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy. Specific things we discussed in the show: The Berkeley Partnership - https://www.berkeleypartnership.com/ Trust Based Selling by Charles Green - https://amzn.to/2Uynsc6 Managing the Professional Services Firm by David Maister - https://amzn.to/2D0OcYA On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman Dixon - https://amzn.to/2K613Pj

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. Digital Marketing has moved forward, but most consulting firms haven’t. Many Consulting firms still see their corporate blog as their sole Digital Marketing channel and find themselves frustrated when these blogs yield little if any results. To help those of you who want to harness the power of Digital Marketing to grow your Consulting Business but don’t have the knowledge, capacity or in-house capability to do so I launched Create Engage, the first Digital Marketing agency for the Management Consulting Industry. If you’d like to find out more about how Create Engage can help you use Digital Marketing to take your business to the next level then drop me an email at Nick@CreateEngage.co.uk or go to our website www.createengage.co.uk where you can download our free case study that breaks down down the Digital Marketing strategies used by one successful Consulting firm to help them grow over 400% in just 3 years and gives you the secrets they used, so that you can apply them in your own firm. 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/

Today’s episode is a huge milestone for the show. It’s the 40th episode of Climb in Consulting. It’s been a great adventure so far and I’m looking forward to creating the next 40 episodes for you. A big thank you to all of my guests who have appeared on the show so far and a big thank you to you for listening to it! Without you I would have packed this up long ago. To celebrate 40 episodes I wanted to share my advice on one the biggest challenges I find Consultants, Consulting Leaders and Consulting Marketers face - Producing content. I speak to a ton of Consulting leaders and Consulting Heads of Marketing who say that they struggle to get content from their Consultants. Likewise I speak to Consultants who are desperate to create more content but just don’t know how. In this episode I focus on the two reasons that I believe hold Consultants back from creating more content - fear and time. By resolving these two issues you’ll be able to create significantly more content which will only benefit your firm and your own career. Specific people I mention in the show: Nigel Walsh - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelwalsh/ Nigel Walsh’s interview for Climb in Consulting - https://www.climbinconsulting.com/podcast/2018/10/17/episode-31-nigel-walsh-deloitte-digital Natalia Wiechowski - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliawiechowski/ Natalia Wiechowski’s interview for Climb in Consulting - https://www.climbinconsulting.com/podcast/episode-19-natalia-wiechowski This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy. Digital Marketing has moved forward, but most consulting firms haven’t. Many Consulting firms still see their corporate blog as their sole Digital Marketing channel and find themselves frustrated when these blogs yield little if any results. To help those of you who want to harness the power of Digital Marketing to grow your Consulting Business but don’t have the knowledge, capacity or in-house capability to do so I launched Create Engage, the first Digital Marketing agency for the Management Consulting Industry. If you’d like to find out more about how Create Engage can help you use Digital Marketing to take your business to the next level then drop me an email at Nick@CreateEngage.co.uk or go to our website www.createengage.co.uk where you can download our free case study that breaks down down the Digital Marketing strategies used by one successful Consulting firm to help them grow over 400% in just 3 years and gives you the secrets they used, so that you can apply them in your own firm.

Today’s guest is Adil Khan. Adil was one of the founding team of Boxwood, the business transformation consultancy that following years of successful growth was acquired by KPMG in 2015. Since leaving Boxwood Adil now spends his time advising Consulting entrepreneurs on how to successfully grow their businesses and focusing on his own start up, Lifefyle. The goal of Lifefyle is to provide people with a simple, organised platform for their life admin, to give them the freedom to unlock their potential and thrive. You can find out more about Lifefyle at www.lifefyle.com Adil’s story is rather different to what you might consider the typical journey of a Consulting entrepreneur. Unlike most, he didn’t have a long track record in Consulting, having only spent a short time in the indsutry before stepping out to found boxwood with his co-founders who had spent equally little time in Consulting. This limited time in the industry proved to be the key to their success as they set out to create something very different from the typical Consulting model that was common at the time. We go in to detail on some really key parts of the Boxwood journey that I know you’re going to find really interesting including: The importance of culture and how Adil and his co-founders defined their culture from the start and what they did to ensure it remained a core focus as they grew. The challenges of being responsible for both people and finance as Adil was. The natural tensions these functions often come up against and how Adil managed this.  The Boxwood approach to working with clients, why this was so unique and what Consultants in today’s Market could learn from it. And Adil’s contrarian view on building a Consulting business to sell, why expanding internationally can actually reduce the value of your business and the sale of Boxwood to KPMG. A process I know a number of you have wanted to hear more about. I really enjoyed this conversation and it was great to get the perspective of someone who took a less orthodox route to success in Consulting. If you’re not from the typical ‘big 4’ Consulting background and want to know how you can turn this to your advantage or even if you are and want to know how you can use the principle from Boxwood to grow your business or practice area I know you’re going to get a ton from this interview. You can get in touch with Adil through his LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adilkhan/ Or drop him an email - adil@blueastral.co.uk ----------- This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy. Digital Marketing has moved forward, but most consulting firms haven’t. Many Consulting firms still see their corporate blog as their sole Digital Marketing channel and find themselves frustrated when these blogs yield little if any results. To help those of you who want to harness the power of Digital Marketing to grow your Consulting Business but don’t have the knowledge, capacity or in-house capability to do so I launched Create Engage, the first Digital Marketing agency for the Management Consulting Industry. If you’d like to find out more about how Create Engage can help you use Digital Marketing to take your business to the next level then drop me an email at Nick@CreateEngage.co.uk or go to our website www.createengage.co.uk where you can download our free case study that breaks down down the Digital Marketing strategies used by one successful Consulting firm to help them grow over 400% in just 3 years and gives you the secrets they used, so that you can apply them in your own firm.

Today’s guest is Lyndsey Oliver, AKA the Chief MsChief Maker Lyndsey is the founder and director of M4 Coaching and creator of Back to Work without a Bump® and Making MsChief®, the groundbreaking programmes designed to help retain, support and unleash the true potential of all human beings regardless of their labels. Lyndsey is a champion of working Mums and an advocate of gender balance in the workplace. She’s passionate about helping parents (both male and female), female leaders and female business owners become the best versions of themselves, both in and out of work. I was introduced to Lyndsey by a former colleague and listener to the show who had worked with her through their parental leave and said that I had to get her on the show. The challenges that Lyndsey helps Consultants with are ones that many people in our industry deal with every day but ones that rarely get the attention they deserve. Knowing the positive impact that Lyndsey had had on this listener and others in my network I knew she’d make a fantastic guest and she certainly didn’t disappoint. We cover some really deep topics in this interview including: The barriers that hold women back from climbing the career ladder - both structural and self imposed - and what Consulting firms and female leaders themselves can do to break through these. The relationship challenges that can face some Consultants as a result of the job and the conversations you should be having with your partner to ensure you’re able to manage them. The challenges that parents face when it comes to building a career in Consulting and what their firms and they can do to manage these to help them achieve the balance of home and work life they’re looking for.  And finally, What those of us who are white men, like me, can do when it comes to diversity and inclusion in Consulting and how we can help improve it. This was a fantastic interview and we go in to detail on all of these topics. So much so we got carried away after the interview and kept going. As you’ll hear towards the end of today’s episode I’ve actually put some of our post interview conversation back in because I thought it was such an important topic for you to hear. For any regular listeners you’ll also know that I often ask my guests for resources that they’d recommend you check out if you want to work on any of the things that we discuss. To help you with this Lyndsey has created a free workbook that you can use to help you identify your own biases - both conscious and unconscious - and start to think about how you can make positive changes to reduce these in day to day live.  Whether you’re a senior leader who is looking to be the best role model they can be or a junior consultant looking to understand more about themselves I’d highly recommend checking this out.  If you want to download the workbook you can find it on Lyndsey’s website - www.makingmschief.com/free-workbook and I’ve put the link in the show notes for you. You can get in touch with Lyndsey through her LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndsey-oliver/ Or check out her website - www.makingmschief.com This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy.

Harry Gaskell, Chief Innovation Officer for EY UK and Ireland, discusses the future of consulting, skills needed, and EY's use of emerging technology. Topics include fostering a culture of innovation, evolving consulting career paths, building a diverse and innovative consulting firm, embracing AI in businesses, balancing skills development, and transitioning to value-based billing.

Today’s episode is a little different and I’m really excited to be sharing it with you. Instead of my normal interviews where I’m the one asking the questions, today’s interview is taken from an event I attended last month, hosted by my good friend James Mitra at JBM Consulting. For those of you that don’t know, JBM are an executive search firm that place top talent into high growth tech firms, fintechs and consultancies. They are also the talent partners to the Fintech focused Private equity firm Motive Partners which is where this event was held. When James told me who the speaker was going to be I said that we had to record it for the podcast and it certainly didn’t disappoint. I’m a big believer that you can, and should, learn from the best. Regardless of their field. As you’ll hear in today’s interview, there are so many fantastic insights that are equally applicable to Consulting firms, and their clients, as there are to this guest’s specific industry. For those of you listening to this outside of the UK, or for those of you in the UK who may have been living under a rock for the last 10 years, Moonpig are the UK’s largest online card retailer with over 15 million cards sent through their online platform in 2017 alone. Iain was one of the early members of the Moonpig team and over his time as MD grew the business from a team of just 8 people, turning over £2,000,000 in to a team of over 160 turning over £60m a year. This phenomenal growth ultimately led to Moonpig being acquired by Photobox for £120m in 2011 James and Iain cover some really interesting topics in their conversation and the questions that follow including: Iain’s journey to becoming the MD of Moonpig and the unorthodox approach he took to get there. The importance of using data when it comes to Marketing and how this helped Moonpig achieve it’s rapid growth. How Iain and the team ensured they hired the best talent for the business and their unconventional approach for rewarding their team. The sale to Photobox and the steps they took from deciding to sell through to integrating the business with their new owners And the one I know many of you will want to know. How they decided on the name Moonpig and where the jingle came. It was great to meet Iain and I really enjoyed hearing his story and advice for those looking to grow their business as successfully as he did. This episode is brought to you by Create Engage the Digital Marketing agency for the disruptive Management Consultancy.