Climb In Consulting
Business & Finance
About
As a management consultant myself I’ve always been lucky to have mentors who have guided me through my career. When I was in house I regularly had quality time with Senior Partners that helped me rapidly accelerate my career and has continued to help since I’ve gone out on my own. While I had this great resource and knowledge bank to draw on I know many friends in Consulting aren’t as lucky with some only speaking with senior partners on a monthly or quarterly basis. That’s why I created this podcast. I wanted to help people like you who want to accelerate their careers in consulting by interviewing leaders in the field to share the advice, tips and strategies that they used to get to the top so that you can to so that you can too.In each Episode I’ll be interviewing a senior figure in the industry so that you can learn from them. We’ll be going deep in to their background, how they succeeded and what their advice would be for you.This podcast is brought to you by Create Engage t
Episodes
- Ep. 163: Make Your Marketing Work: The Framework To Drive Conversations & ROI From Your Marketing
This episode presents a 12-part marketing framework for consultancies, focusing on four core drivers to improve lead generation and client conversations. It addresses common marketing pitfalls and essential setup elements to enhance result…
- Episode 162: From Startup to Sector Leader: The Growth Lessons Behind The PSC’s Growth
In this episode of Climb In Consulting, Nick speaks with Catherine Mulcahy and Dr. Antonio Weiss from The PSC. They discuss the key decisions and strategies behind the consultancy's rapid growth and success in the public services sector, i…
- Episode 161: How to Think (and Sell) Smarter with Paul Craven
Paul Craven, an expert in behavioral science and founding partner of the Cialdini Institute, shares insights on ethical persuasion and understanding human decision-making. The episode explores how psychological principles can transform lea…
- Episode 160: Built to Sell, Led with Heart: How Sue Lohr Scaled and Exited Three Businesses
Nick speaks with Sue Lohr about her experience building and selling two consulting firms and a product business. Lohr shares insights on creating strong cultures, developing clear value and pricing for growth, and applying lessons learned…
- Ep. 159: The Consultancy Built Without Consultants with Gita Singham-Willis
Gita Singham-Willis, co-founder of Cadence Innova, shares the story of building a multi-award-winning transformation consultancy focused on values, diversity, and inclusion. The episode covers their unique hiring practices, including the "…
- Ep. 158: Consulting Salaries, Promotions, and Partner Pitfalls with Richard Longstreet
Struggling to crack senior hiring in your consultancy? You’re not alone, and this episode’s guest has seen it all. Richard Longstreet is the founder of Tarka Talent, a recruitment consultancy focused on management consulting, and he’s help…
- Ep. 157: Consulting’s Next Chapter: Transformation, AI, & Thinking Differently with Chris Tomlinson
What does it take to lead transformation in today’s fast-moving, tech-fuelled world? In this episode of Climb in Consulting, Nick chats with Chris Tomlinson - or ‘Tommo’, as most people know him - a seasoned transformation leader and Manag…
- Episode 156: Profit on Purpose: Peter Czapp’s 7 Levers for Consultancy Growth
What separates consultancies that tick along from those that thrive? According to this episode’s guest, it’s all about one thing: profit on purpose. In this episode, Nick sits down with Peter Czapp - Co-Founder of the Wow Company, The Cons…
- Episode 155: From $2M to $20M - The Alchemist Growth Formula with Stu Packham
What happens when you step into the CEO seat of a small consultancy in a niche market, with big ambitions, PE backing, and a bold growth target? In this episode of Climb in Consulting, Nick Synnott chats to Stu Packham, Group CEO of Alchem…
- Episode 154: From Side Hustle to £8M - Cross 8’s Journey with Tobias Robinson
What does it take to scale a consultancy fourfold, while keeping culture, autonomy, and team spirit at the centre? In this episode of Climb in Consulting, Nick Synnott sits down with Tobias Robinson, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Cro…
- Episode 153: Scaling a Consultancy: Private Equity Insights with Alex Thomson
How do you turn a good consulting firm into a great one - and what role does Private Equity really play in that journey? In this episode of Climb in Consulting, Nick Synnott sits down with Alex Thomson, Partner at Growth Capital Partners (…
- Episode 152: Building for Growth: Leadership, Talent, and Global Expansion with James Constable
James Constable, CEO of Albany Beck returns to Climb in Consulting to share insights on leadership, scaling a consulting firm, and international expansion. Tune in for real-world lessons on growth, strategy, and building a winning team.
- Episode 151: Ride the Recurring Revenue Wave: How to Productise Consultancies, with Jonathan Corrie
Scaling up in a competitive sector, integrating new tech capabilities and responding to the continual push on fees, are all challenges that you’re probably wrestling with for your consultancy right now. And that’s why we invited today’s gu…
- Episode 150: Marking the milestone with some top advice from Climb in Consulting's awesome guests
For our milestone 150th episode of Climb in Consulting, we’re bringing back some of our top all-time guests—the individuals whose insights have resonated most with our listeners. Here’s who you’ll be hearing from in alphabetical order: - A…
- Episode 149: Building for scale: how to unlock 20x growth in your consultancy, with Mark Palmer
How do you take a boutique doing a healthy $2m a year and transform it into an industry leader at $40m. In this episode of Climb In Consulting, Nick is joined by Mark Palmer, former Managing Director of OEE Consulting, to share his story o…
- Episode 148: Unleashing potential: How to nurture a thriving team, with Alan Frost
Imagine building a high-performing consulting team of 40, brick by brick, from the ground up. That's the remarkable journey of Alan Frost, Partner at Forvis Mazars. In this episode of Climb in Consulting, Alan shares his inspiring story, a…
- Episode 147: Building a Sustainable Sales Engine for Your Consultancy, with Alan Morton
Is your firm relying on the same handful of ‘rainmakers’ to bring in business? The latest episode of Climb in Consulting looks at the practical steps consultancies need to take to build a scalable sales engine that fuels growth and removes…
- Episode 146: Advice from the Best in the Business - 2024 Edition
Ready to supercharge your consulting career? Packed with insights, this episode of Climb In Consulting brings you a whole host of valuable advice from some of the industry’s leading figures. Regular listeners will know that we occasionally…
- Episode 145: Niching down to succeed: An hourglass approach to consulting growth, with Joe O’Mahoney
Are you ready to take your consultancy to the next level? Then you’re in the right place! In the latest episode of Climb In Consulting, we delve deep into the world of consultancy marketing with Joe O'Mahoney, Professor of Consulting at Ca…
- Episode 144:Avoiding the growth trap: Secrets to sustainable consultancy success, with Sarah Matthew
Forget climbing the corporate ladder. Today's Climb In Consulting dives into building your own. We welcome Sarah Matthew, founder of The Vibrant Company, as she shares her journey from bootstrapped startups to industry leader. Sarah's care…
- Episode 143: Going global: Negotiating the path to success, with Mark Grice
The global pandemic threw a huge curveball at most businesses. Face-to-face interactions became a thing of the past, and consultancies offering in-person services found themselves struggling to adapt. But for Total Negotiation Group (TNG),…
- Episode 143: Maximise your ROI: 4 secrets to drive your marketing success, with Nick Synnott
In this episode of Climb in Consulting, we're bringing you something a little out of the ordinary, as we turn the tables and put our very own Nick Synnott under the spotlight! Nick recently delivered an insightful and highly practical webi…
- Episode 142: The Art of the Deal: Unlocking M&A Secrets for Consultancies, with David Bailey
In the consulting industry, we talk a lot about exits, most founders will have had the thought about selling their business and sailing off into the sunset, and many do! But there’s another side that’s often less considered, the acquisitio…
- Episode 141: Beyond the bandwagon: How to carve a unique path to success, with Graeme Freeman
We’re all told that ‘land and expand’ is the only way to grow a consultancy. But what if we told you that you could grow a successful firm by doing the opposite, by providing fractional support to clients that will never need a huge team t…
- Episode 140: Unlocking Growth: Proven Strategies for Scaling Your Consulting Firm with Marc Jantzen
There are countless paths to achieving a successful consulting career, and on Climb In Consulting, we thought we’d heard them all. But who knew the secrets to scaling successful consulting firms could be learned while managing a fast-food…
- Episode 139: No Partners, No Promotions: The unorthodox path to consulting success with Simon Dixon
There are countless organisations out there claiming to do business differently. So much so, that ‘disruptive’ has become a permanent fixture in games of buzzword bingo. But very few organisations are actually breaking the mould, and only…
- Episode 138: The Power of Action: The Unconventional Path to Consulting Success with Assad Ahmed
In the latest episode of Climb in Consulting, we welcomed Assad Ahmed, Founder and CEO of Phase 3, the Manchester-based consultancy that provides professional and managed services across HR, payroll, and finance. As a born entrepreneur, As…
- Episode 137: Vision & Values: The Winning Formula Behind Enfuse Group's Success with Graeme Curwen
In the latest episode of Climb in Consulting, we had the huge pleasure of talking to Graeme Curwen, Co-Founder and CEO of Enfuse Group, an award-winning Digital Transformation consultancy that delivers high-performance transformations and…
- Episode 136: Expert Insights From The Consultancy Growth Network Annual Summit
In this episode of Climb in Consulting, we’re bringing you something a little out of the ordinary, as we feature not one, but four industry titans sharing their consulting growth strategies. Nick and Frankie recently attended The Consultan…
- Episode 135: Mental Health, Impostor Syndrome and Making Partner, with Chris Southwell
Welcome to the latest episode of Climb In Consulting! This time around, we were delighted to welcome Chris Southwell, Partner at The Berkeley Partnership, the consultancy that helps organisations transform under the most complex, challengi…
- Episode 134: Changing Tracks: How One Train Journey Changed The Course of a Career, with Paul Pugh
Our guest on the latest episode of Climb in Consulting has an incredibly inspiring – and cinematic - story to tell. Since 2022, Paul Pugh has been CEO at Mason Advisory, an award-winning digital and technology consultancy that solves compl…
- Episode 133: Reinventing Consulting: How adversity led to employee owned success, with Matt Cheung
In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Matt Cheung, CEO at Clarasys, the international business consulting firm, focused on delivering the best possible experiences for their clients and their people. Regular listeners may recognise Matt’…
- Episode 132: The Broken Excel Sheet that Built a Consulting Empire, with Anush Newman
In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Anush Newman, Managing Director at JMAN Group, the global data consultancy specialising in the private equity market. Anush’s story makes for a fascinating listen. He cut his consulting teeth in the…
- Episode 131: From Consulting Success to Tech Trailblazer, with Simon Clark
In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Simon Clark, a consulting industry veteran who’s done everything from founding and exiting his own successful consultancy CVL, to launching his own tech platform, to advising a whole host of boutique…
- Episode 130: From Startup to the UK’s fastest growing consultancy, with Tony Clark
In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Tony Clark, Founder of NextWave. 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 poss…
- Episode 129: How boutique consultancy PEN built a brand to rival the Big Four
For this episode of Climb in Consulting, we’re shaking the format up a little. Yes, we’re turning the tables, as our very own Nick Synnott joins Neil Sharp CCXP, PEN’s Marketing & Proposition Director, and Ben Edwards, Head of Partnerships…
- Episode 128: Secrets to Building and Selling a Successful Boutique Consultancy with Augusto Negrillo
In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Augusto Negrillo, Managing Director at Vivero. Having started out as a software developer, Augusto quickly realised that the behind-the-scenes coding life wasn’t for him, instead preferring to be out…
- Episode 127: Lessons from Aviation: The flight path to consulting success with Clare Hill
In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Clare Hill, CEO at Sysdoc. If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, you’ll know by now that we love taking a deep dive into the different routes our guests’ careers have taken. Clare’s story is…
- 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 en…
- Episode 125: Lessons from the UK's Fastest Growing Marketing Network with CEO Peter Reid
In this week’s episode of Climb in Consulting, Nick catches up with Peter Reid, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at MSQ. Peter’s early career path took him from entrepreneurial beginnings at US-based start-up Simpsons, to a successful f…
- Episode 124: Building an Awesome Consulting Career with Stefan Aichbauer
In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Stefan Aichbauer, Managing Partner at H&Z. If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, you’ll know that we like to chat with our guests about the various routes their careers have taken, and how th…
- Episode 123: How the right marketing strategy can take your consultancy to the next level
For this week’s episode of Climb in Consulting, We’re bringing you something a little different to the norm. For one week only, we’re turning the tables, as Nick joins Professor Joe O’Mahoney for a chat on his fantastic podcast, Growth for…
- Episode 122: From the Factory to Financial Modelling with Stephen Aldridge
In this week’s episode of Climb in Consulting, Nick chats to Stephen Aldridge, Managing Director at financial modelling consultancy, Numeritas. If you’re a regular listener of the podcast, you’ll know that we often explore the different ro…
- Episode 121: Career Advice From The Best in the Business Round 7
If you’re a regular listener to the Climb in Consulting podcast, you’ll know that every few months we like to switch things up, deviating from our usual interview format to bring you something a little different - and this episode is exact…
- Episode 120: From Founder to IPO: Building a 900 person global consultancy with Nick Kent
In today’s episode of Climb in Consulting Nick is joined by Nick Kent, Founder of Alpha FMC, the global financial services consultancy with over 900 consultants supporting clients across 16 offices spanning the UK, Europe, North America and…
- Episode 119: Making the move to the Middle East with Chris Gant
In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Chris Gant, Managing Partner at Wunderman Thompson Consulting. As successful consultancy careers go, Chris’s is up there with the very best of them! Having spent eighteen fast-paced years at KPMG, Ch…
- Episode 118: How to Create An Effective Marketing Strategy For Your Consultancy in 2023
At Create Engage, we like to share as much information as we can to help you get the most out of your marketing. So with that in mind, this week’s episode of Climb In Consulting is a little different! Instead of the usual conversation with…
- Episode 117: From Contractor to Consulting CEO with James O'Sullivan
In the latest episode of Climb into Consulting, Nick is joined by James O’Sullivan, CEO of Project One. James' career demonstrates that you don't have to follow a traditional career path to succeed in our industry. After sending letters to…
- Episode 116: From boutique to ‘big four’ and back again with Ash Chapman, CEO of Inlumi
In this episode, Nick chats with Ash Chapman, CEO at Inlumi, the rapidly growing consultancy focused on large-scale, technology enabled transformation for the Office of the CFO. Ash has had a hugely successful and diverse career and one wh…
- Episode 115: The 12 Steps to Making Partner with Heather Townsend
This week Nick is joined by Heather Townsend, award- winning author and expert on what it takes to make partner in a professional services firm. The #ClimbInConsulting podcast is all about helping you to climb up the consulting ladder and…