1 Why did you join The Berkeley Partnership?
Like many of the Consultants (and Partners) here, I’d reached the edge of my consulting career where my next development step was not really a Consulting one. Further progress meant sales targets, heavy internal management responsibilities and leading on initiatives I wasn’t excited about - just to show alignment and value to a specific industry.
One of the best parts of Consulting is the variety and the constant problem solving – that looked like it was going to go away fairly soon. That was something I had accepted, as I hadn’t realised there was any other option. I went through the recruitment process with The Berkeley Partnership because I was going through a quiet time at work and there was no real reason not to – it was during the process and speaking to the Partners that I began to realise that change was not inevitable. With The Berkeley Partnership I could continue to do great consulting work and progress my career without the noise and baggage we all have come to accept at other firms. I can now continue to face new challenges in new industries without hitting a ceiling from a progression standpoint.
2 What types of engagements excite you the most?
I enjoy any opportunity when I get to understand a new business, taking what I have learned elsewhere to a fresh challenge with a new group of people. Constantly learning is part of the job and it’s what keeps most of us coming in to work every day. What I find particularly exciting is sitting between or across several different functions of a new organisation, this gives you a great insight into how it runs and how its people think and also often provides the most intricate challenges. Unpicking these complexities with a range of different stakeholders with their own motivations and boundaries is where I have the most fun – even if it can produce some potentially challenging scenarios.
3 What are your values and how have they informed your career?
The two core values that I stick by are honesty and reliability. Those can take many forms, most often in annoying people with my expectations of punctuality, but also in how I do my work and in the way I want my working relationships to work.
It’s important to me that everything I say I will do, I do – and, if I’m not going to be able to do it then I’ll let people know as soon as I know that, as that’s what I expect in return. I hope this means that my colleagues and my clients always feel they can rely on me and a result can entrust me with the most critical problems and tasks without having to worry about whether they’ll get done.
It’s also important to me that I’m clear with my colleagues and clients on why I, or we, are doing what we’re doing – that we’re all honest with each-other about our motivations. Without this honesty, it is very difficult to ensure we’re actually all working towards the same goal, and if we’re not all working towards the same goal then it’s very likely some of us are going to fail! This can mean some tricky conversations, but it also engenders trust and hopefully gets everyone on the same page as soon as possible so we can focus on the task at hand.
