Episode 105: Global Expansion, Building a Culture & Climbing to the Top in One Consultancy

In the latest episode of Climb in Consulting, Nick is joined by Remco op den Kelder, CEO at Putnam Associates. Remco’s journey in consulting started with a temporary relocation to America, with a view to staying for 3 or 4 years, and over 20 years later, he’s still there, now as CEO of the firm he joined as a graduate. In a world where people move firm every few years, Remco’s story is something of a rarity. Even though he’s stayed at one firm his whole career, his journey from Analyst to CEO has been a rich, rewarding, and varied one. And proof that there’s many different ways to climb to the top in our industry. Over the time Remco’s been at Putnam, it’s seen significant growth, particularly over the few years, scaling from just over 100 consultants to over 400, in less than 36 months. During this conversation, Nick and Remco discuss his fascinating career journey, and talk about many of the challenges that come with scaling a rapidly growing consultancy including: - How to manage growth at the Partner level, and the important change to their leadership approach that has helped Putnam scale as fast as they have. - The challenges of recruiting into a growing business, and why growing talent within your firm is crucial to your success. - And the role of the office in the post-Covid world, how Putnam are changing their physical environment to respond, and what you should be thinking about for your own consultancy to ensure your office gives your team what they need to be effective. When you’re mapping out your career in consulting, the idea of staying with one organisation doesn’t always appeal to many. But Remco is proof that you don’t need to hop from one firm to another to achieve career success. Whether you’re on the path to CEO and what to learn the secrets to reaching the top, or you’re already there and want to hear the advice of a peer who’s achieved the growth that many firms are looking for, this conversation is going to be one that you’ll really enjoy. We hope you enjoy the show! Find out more about Remco here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/remco-op-den-kelder-a7341b/ And discover more about Putnam Associates here: https://www.putassoc.com Specific things discussed in the show: Gorillas Can Dance by Shameen Prashantham: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gorillas-Can-Dance-Corporations-Partnering/dp/1119823587

Om Podcasten

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 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 [email protected] 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.