David Watt is a Partner at Kershaw Partners, a consultancy that has spent the last decade working with event businesses across the UK on growth, systemisation and exit. David's career in the events industry spans almost thirty years. He co-founded his first event business in 1996, before going into commercial roles at the European Tour and the Ryder Cup, and Spotless Group. He later founded Pubs on Wheels, an award-winning mobile bar business, before stepping into consultancy alongside Mike Kershaw and Richard Dean at Kershaw Partners.

In this conversation, Craig and David explore how Kershaw Partners productised advisory into a simple, easy-to-buy diagnostic review, why conviction in that first offering matters when clients try to skip straight to the bigger engagement, and how the firm's six pillars of growth. They also dig into why founders get stuck in the weeds, the importance of falling in love with your ideal client rather than your product or service, and why preparing a business for exit and preparing it for growth are essentially the same exercise.

This is a grounded, practical conversation with a consultancy partner who has lived the founder journey himself and now helps other owner-led firms systemise, scale and create the option to exit.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: David Watt, Partner at Kershaw Partners

Mark Grice is CEO and Co-Founder of Total Negotiation Group, a global negotiation consultancy operating across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Asia Pacific. Mark co-founded the firm 17 years ago with Mark Cranstoun after the two met working at Guinness. Today the business has trained more than 9,500 delegates across 72 countries, with clients who have stayed for over a decade. In January this year, Mark transitioned from Chief Commercial Officer into the CEO role.

In this conversation, Craig and Mark explore the three insights that shaped Total Negotiation Group from day one, why the client rarely loses clients, how Mark handles clients asking for a quick fix when they really need a longer engagement, and how he balances a core team of employees with a wider network of associates.

This is a measured, practical conversation with a consultancy CEO who has built a global firm by sticking to the long view, on client relationships, on capability, and on the kind of business worth building.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Mark Grice, CEO of Total Negotiation Group

Belden Menkus is the Founder of Menkus & Associates and host of The Purposeful Strategist podcast. Belden started his career at McKinsey, where he worked with clients across the UK, Europe, the US and Japan, before going on to lead consulting and venture businesses in London. He founded Menkus & Associates over twenty years ago and has spent more than thirty years working at board and ExCo level with regulated utilities, infrastructure bodies, professional institutions and law firms, what he calls businesses with a public remit.

In this conversation, Craig and Belden explore why purpose only works as a driver of strategic action when the business model is genuinely lined up behind it, why alignment between a consultancy and its clients creates both speed and trust in a commercial relationship, and why most away day decisions never survive contact with the organisation. They also dig into the difference between a consultancy that is stalled and one that is stuck, and why distraction has quietly become one of the biggest issues most organisations are dealing with.

This is a considered, practical conversation with an advisor who has spent decades helping leaders cut through complexity, find the conditions for action, and turn strategy on paper into something that actually moves.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Belden Menkus, Founder at Menkus & Associates

Richard Jones is a leadership coach at OLIA. Before founding OLIA, Richard spent nearly eight years as a partner and board member at Moorhouse, where he established and led the firm's health practice and was part of the leadership team that took Moorhouse through a management buyout in 2014. He is a senior accredited practitioner coach, a chartered management consultant, and has trained in psychotherapy and positive psychology.

In this conversation, Craig and Richard explore how leadership has evolved over the last fifty years and why the old model of the leader as custodian of all the answers is firmly a thing of the past, why consultancy attracts insecure overachievers, and the inflection point almost every consultant reaches when the behaviours that got them here stop being the foundation for what comes next. They also dig into why more than 50% of senior hires fail within the first two years, why treating a senior hire as an organisational change event rather than a recruitment decision is what separates the firms that get it right, and what leaders who navigate change well consistently have in common.

This is a thoughtful, reflective conversation with a leadership coach who has sat on both sides of the table, as a partner inside a consultancy going through significant change and as an advisor to the leaders running through it now.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Richard Jones, Leadership Coach at OLIA

Luke Badiali is Co-founder of BeDeveloped, where he partners with boutique consulting firms and PE/VC-backed businesses looking to scale their business development capability. Over the past five years Luke and his business partner George Berrington have supported more than 1,000 consulting leaders.

In this conversation, Craig and Luke explore why the gap between knowing business development matters and building something that works consistently is almost always a problem of execution rather than intent, why over-reliance on a small number of rainmakers persists even when leaders know it's a structural vulnerability, how to build a BD engine through the right sequence of CRM, lead generation, sales and marketing alignment, and people development, and what private equity investors really see when revenue is concentrated in one or two individuals.

This is a structured, practical conversation with a business development specialist who has a clear view of what it actually takes to build a repeatable commercial engine inside a boutique consulting firm.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Luke Badiali, Co-founder at BeDeveloped

Depesh Pankhania is Co-Founder and COO of Evotra, a specialist implementation consultancy serving the wealth and investment management sector. Depesh co-founded the business in 2020 alongside Sally Merritt after spending 15 years observing a persistent gap in the market: firms investing heavily in technology transformation and then losing all the implementation knowledge the moment the project team disbanded. Evotra was built to close that gap, combining hands-on delivery with an ongoing fractional support proposition called Resolve.

In this conversation, Craig and Depesh explore why Evotra chose a permanent employee model over the associate-heavy approach most consultancies rely on, how a deliberate niche in specialist technology has become a foundation for strong client retention rather than a ceiling on growth, and what it took to apply AI to the firm's most complex capability first rather than starting with something safe and low-risk.

This is a grounded, practical conversation with a consultancy leader who has built a fast-growing specialist firm by staying close to delivery, staying close to clients and resisting the temptation to expand before the model was proven.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Depesh Pankhania, Co-Founder and COO at Evotra

Danny Philamond is Partner at Magnus Consulting, a B Corp certified growth consultancy recognised by the Financial Times as one of the UK's leading management consultancies. Danny is also a Forbes Council Member and specialist in go-to-market strategy and complex enterprise account growth.

In this conversation, Craig and Danny explore why increasing activity is almost never the right response when growth stalls, the uncomfortable finding that only 9% of commercial leaders are confident in hitting their targets, why go-to-market strategy has to be treated as a living operating system rather than a document on a shelf, and how decision discipline, once it loosens, is one of the hardest things to rebuild.

This is a practical, data-informed conversation with a growth consultant who has worked across PE-backed firms and large enterprises, and has a very clear view of where the real leverage is when commercial growth starts to stall.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Danny Philamond, Partner at Magnus Consulting

Danny Philamond is Partner at Magnus Consulting, a B Corp certified growth consultancy recognised by the Financial Times as one of the UK's leading management consultancies. Danny is also a Forbes Council Member and specialist in go-to-market strategy and complex enterprise account growth.

In this conversation, Craig and Danny explore why increasing activity is almost never the right response when growth stalls, the uncomfortable finding that only 9% of commercial leaders are confident in hitting their targets, why go-to-market strategy has to be treated as a living operating system rather than a document on a shelf, and how decision discipline, once it loosens, is one of the hardest things to rebuild.

This is a practical, data-informed conversation with a growth consultant who has worked across PE-backed firms and large enterprises, and has a very clear view of where the real leverage is when commercial growth starts to stall.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Danny Philamond, Partner at Magnus Consulting

Leo Chancellor is Co-Founder of aro, a boutique consultancy serving the wealth and asset management sector. Leo spent the best 3 years at KPMG and then the best part of a decade at Penn Partnership. Joining Pen when it was around 20 people and riding that growth journey all the way to 80 before the firm was acquired by a larger global consultancy. That acquisition was the catalyst. Finding himself back inside a large organisation after years in a growing boutique, Leo and a small group of colleagues launched aro in April 2025.

In this conversation, Craig and Leo explore why the boutique end of the wealth and asset management market is opening up, how aro's revenue-share model allows the firm to put senior experienced people in front of clients at roughly half the cost of the big four, what 90 meetings in the first two months taught them about building momentum from a standing start, and why financial discipline in year one matters far more than most founding teams anticipate.

This is a candid, experience-led conversation with a consultancy leader who has seen what a 20 to 80 person growth journey looks like from the inside, and is now building one of his own.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at ConsultancyGrowth.com
Guest: Leo Chancellor, Co-Founder at aro.

Andrew Laird is Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Mutual Ventures, a specialist public service reform consultancy working with central government departments and local areas to make public services work better for the people who need them most. Andrew co-founded the business in 2011 and has spent the last 15 years building it into one of the most respected independent voices in public service reform.

In this conversation, Craig and Andrew explore how Mutual Ventures has grown from a niche startup responding to a government agenda into a firm with a bold three-year growth strategy, why appointing two non-executive directors was one of the best decisions they ever made, and how thought leadership became part of the DNA of the firm rather than a bolt-on marketing exercise.

This is a practical, experience-led conversation with a consultancy leader who has navigated government instability, built a culture of radical transparency and learned what it really takes to grow a specialist firm without losing what makes it special.

Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Andrew Laird, Chief Executive at Mutual Ventures