LEADERS IN CONSULTING

Send us Fan Mail Nearly every consulting firm has invested in AI training. Few can tell whether it's actually working. Bora Ger , Global Lead Human AI Advantage at Capgemini Invent, joins Sammy Gebele to explain why measuring AI adoption through training completion misses the real signal, and what his team measures instead: a four-part index inspired by how NASA designs interfaces for astrona...

Send us Fan Mail much. Consulting grew from €0 to a projected €12 to 13 million in revenue in 8 years, without a single partner referral. Simon Stappen , Managing Partner and Founder of much. Consulting, got there by building an ecommerce style marketing pipeline instead of a traditional consulting one. Simon joins Sammy Gebele to explain how he built an ERP consultancy where 80 to 85% of new clie...

Send us Fan Mail Task automation was more than half the business, approaching 70% in some markets. Profitable, in demand, and clients kept coming back for more of it… then the new revenue chief decided it was the problem. Mark Robbins , Chief Outcome Officer at ABP Consultancy, had watched a technology category commoditize once before, from the vendor side, during 13 years at IBM. His diagnosis: c...

Send us Fan Mail Jill Foley , Founder and Chair of On3 Partners, built a licence-based revenue line that now makes up 40% to 50% of her business, without growing headcount to do it. Her diagnosis: most firms trying to build recurring revenue start with the technology. Jill started by identifying the unmet business need and building a methodology to tackle it. Only then did she invest in technology...

Send us Fan Mail Was passiert, wenn dein Geschäftsmodell auf Zeit basiert, aber Zeit keine Rolle mehr spielt? Michael Nenninger , CEO von Voycer Digital und ehemaliger EVP Digital Consulting bei MSG, beschreibt, warum das klassische Consulting-Modell strukturell unter Druck gerät. Sobald AI Methoden reproduzierbar macht und Projekte von Wochen auf Tage schrumpfen, beginnt sich die Logik hinter Aus...

Send us Fan Mail KI ersetzt den Projektleiter nicht. Sie macht ihn unverzichtbar. Dominik Steffani , Partner bei H&Z Management Consulting, beschreibt im Gespräch mit David Anheier eine Verschiebung, die viele Beratungsführungen unterschätzen: Projektteams bestehen künftig auch aus Agenten, nicht nur aus Menschen. Für Dominik bedeutet das mehr statt weniger Verantwortung für den Projektleiter,...

Send us Fan Mail 55% of the professional services market is running negative EBITDA. Most blame the market. Top performers don’t. Connor Budden , Global Director at SPI Research, joins Sammy to unpack what nearly two decades of benchmark data reveal about performance in consulting and professional services. While many firms point to difficult market conditions, SPI’s data shows that top-performing...

Send us Fan Mail AI is not just changing consulting delivery. It is exposing how your firm is built. Gianluca Barletta , Partner and Global Head of Data Science at PA Consulting, explains why the consulting firms that win in the AI era will not simply be the ones with the most tools. They will be the firms that hire for learning ability and creative thinking, equip their people safely, build the d...

Send us Fan Mail Die wichtigste Entscheidung beim Teamaufbau ist nicht wo, sondern mit wem. Christoph Hinz , Co-Head Transaction Services bei RÖDL teilt seine Erfahrungen aus dem Aufbau von Teams an verschiedenen Standorten und zeigt, warum nicht Markt, Pipeline oder Geschwindigkeit über Erfolg entscheiden, sondern die erste Führungspersönlichkeit vor Ort. Im Gespräch wird deutlich, wie viel Diszi...

Send us Fan Mail AI projects fail because leadership assumes deploying the tool is the finish line. In this episode, Dr. Anja Konhaeuser , Co-Founder and Partner at OMMAX, explains why AI transformation cannot be treated like a traditional technology rollout. The real challenge starts once the solution is live: employees need to trust outputs, workflows need to change, roles need to be redefined,...

Send us Fan Mail When AI commoditizes delivery work, consulting firms have to prove where their real value lives. Olly Purnell , Managing Partner and co-founder of Q5, argues that consulting is being pushed back toward a more precise advisory model: specialist expertise, clear scope, and judgment clients cannot easily replicate. As AI makes research, benchmarking, reporting, and analysis faster an...

Send us Fan Mail The next consulting advantage is not account-led or expert-led. It is a combination of the two. Dr. Karsten Ballüder , Partner at Deloitte and leader of the firm’s European Application Modernization practice, joins David to discuss how consulting firms can stay differentiated when AI makes generic knowledge and polished output easier to produce. Karsten argues that relationships s...

Send us Fan Mail Selling inputs led to price pressure. Selling outcomes delivered a 20:1 ROI. Most consulting firms don’t lose pricing power because of competition. They lose it in how they define their value. In this episode, Rob Ferrone , Founder of Quick Release, explains how his firm moved from selling person-days and deliverables to owning measurable business outcomes. After facing increasing...

Send us Fan Mail The most dangerous place in consulting today isn’t the bottom… It’s the middle. Mid-sized consulting firms continue to grow, but many are becoming structurally fragile without realizing it. In this episode, Amol Punekar, Regional Director of Business for the UK and EU at Lyzr AI, explains why only service-led models create non-durable revenue and increasing pressure over time. He...

Send us Fan Mail Client loyalty is collapsing. This episode explores why you need more than a strong relationship to secure follow-on work. Matthew Dixon , co-founder of DCM Insights and co-author of The Activator Advantage, says consulting growth is breaking away from its traditional model. Despite strong delivery and trusted client relationships, firms are increasingly forced to compete for work...

Send us Fan Mail Clients don't want to be dependent anymore. They want self-sufficiency. James Cawthorne , CEO of FOIL, explains why consulting is undergoing a structural shift. As AI makes productivity widely accessible, differentiation through effort is eroding, while complexity and decision pressure continue to rise. James outlines why traditional consulting models built on dependency are...

Send us Fan Mail Berater sind gedanklich oft einen Schritt weiter. Umso wichtiger, dass sie ihre Kunden auf diesem Weg mitnehmen. Florian Warring ist Managing Director bei FTI-Andersch, Teil von FTI Consulting mit weltweit über 8.100 Mitarbeitenden. In der DACH-Region begleitet er Unternehmen bei ganzheitlichen Transformations- und Performance-Improvement-Programmen. Neben der Projektverantwortung...

Send us Fan Mail If a buyer looked at your firm today, would they see focus or fragmentation? Daniel Schwartmann , Managing Director at ServTeq Capital Advisors, has spent decades on the buyer side of the table, including leading 150+ acquisitions during his time at Accenture. In this conversation with host Sammy Gebele , he breaks down what strategic buyers and private equity investors actually p...

Send us Fan Mail How do you grow a buy-and-build consulting platform where founders genuinely want to stay after the deal? In this episode of the LEADERS IN CONSULTING Podcast, Alexander Thress , Partner and Head of M&A at AdEx Partners, shares how a PE-backed consulting platform can scale founder-friendly growth through disciplined buy-and-build. Alexander joined AdEx with a very deliberate m...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when you stop "selling" and start designing every interaction around how clients want to feel working with you? In an industry where collaboration reigns supreme, this question is more relevant than ever. Ambrish Parmar , Partner and Consulting & Growth Leader at Cognizant, has transformed the empathetic coaching mindset into a practical playbook for lan...

Send us Fan Mail Christian Underwood didn’t build a sales team. He engineered a lead-generation system that would never need one. The CEO & Co-Founder of StrategyFrame®AI joins us once again, this time to lift the lid on how he operationalized a GTM strategy to scale his AI-powered consulting platform. With an 8-person team, Christian is on track to hit a mid–double-digit million revenue scale...

Send us Fan Mail What does it take to go from zero in the bank to a successful exit without financial investors? In this episode, Marc Staudenmayer , Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Advyce & Company, joins Sammy Gebele to share how he and his co-founder Burkhard Wagner built one of Germany’s fastest-growing consultancies by merging three firms into one and eventually selling to a strategic acquirer...

Send us Fan Mail In this exclusive keynote from the main stage at the LEADERS IN CONSULTING London Summit, Stephen Edward (Managing Director, PTS Global), Connor Budden (Global Director at Service Performance Insight), and Sarah Edwards (Chief Product Officer, Kantata) unpack how consulting firms must rethink what success looks like as AI reshapes every part of the services lifecycle. Stephen shar...

Send us Fan Mail Die wenigsten Beratungen überleben den Sprung vom Gründerteam zum Marktführer. Atreus hat’s geschafft. Was macht eine Beratung wirklich skalierbar: Menschen, Prozesse oder Haltung? Uwe Gehrmann , Partner und Mitglied des Executive Board bei Atreus, teilt im Gespräch mit Sammy Gebele die Erfolgsprinzipien hinter dem Wachstum eines Unternehmens, das vom kleinen Beratungsplayer zum M...

Send us Fan Mail During the pandemic, Christian Underwood laid off almost his entire team. Today, he leads an AI powered consultancy that generates €5.5 million in revenue 2025 and will generate €50m+ 2026. Christian is the Co-Founder and CEO of StrategyFrame, a consultancy that doesn't look like one. It's lean, software-powered, and built for scale. Clients use the platform to run strat...