Unlocking Value

In this episode – the first in a six-part mini-series on the technology-driven change reshaping professional services – John is joined by Jason Soar, who spent thirty years inside Sainsbury’s before leaving to advise grocery businesses in the UK and the US.  Jason opens the series from outside the sector on purpose: his industry has already lived through the kind of disruption ours is now facing,...

John’s guest this episode is Jon Stead, chief executive of CMap, the software that runs the commercial side of consulting, architecture and engineering firms – quoting work, resourcing it, billing it. He’s the first of the technology-firm leaders in the mini-series, and he can see across roughly 700 firms and nearly 50,000 users at once. That view gives Jon a take on the market that runs against t...

In this episode, John is joined by Sri Ganesan, founder of Rocketlane, a professional services automation platform built for customer onboarding and implementation teams. Sri is a serial founder – his first company was acquired by Freshworks, the first Indian software firm to list on the Nasdaq – and through Rocketlane he sees how hundreds of services teams actually work. He’s the third conversati...

In this episode, John is joined by Sarah Edwards, who leads product and go-to-market at Kantata, a professional services automation platform.  Sarah has spent thirty years in and around consulting, and through the Leaders in Consulting community she talks to firm leaders most weeks – so her view comes from the leaders themselves. Sarah’s argument starts with a hard truth: consulting has run on peo...

In this episode – the fifth conversation in our mini-series on technology-driven disruption – John is joined by Deb Ashton, who co-founded Certinia in 2009 and now runs its customer experience. Certinia is a professional services automation platform, and through the advisory boards and customer programmes Deb runs across three continents, she hears from a wider range of services firms than almost...

In this episode – the sixth and final in a mini-series on the technology-driven change reshaping professional services – John is joined by Jonathan Corrie, co-founder and chief executive of Precursive. Precursive makes software that helps services teams sell, resource and deliver their work more profitably, mostly inside software and AI companies.  Jonathan built and sold his own services business...

John's guest this episode is Richard Longstreet, the founder of Tarka Talent – a specialist recruitment firm working with consulting businesses across the UK and the US. Tarka places experienced hires across the consulting market and produces an annual salary survey that tracks what consulting firms are actually doing when it comes to hiring. What has this year’s survey found? To start with,...

In this episode, John is joined by Stephen Johnson, founder and CEO of Roq, a consultancy focused on helping organisations deliver large-scale technology change. Stephen founded Roq in 2009 and has since grown the business into a 120-person firm working with major enterprise clients. In the conversation, he reflects openly on the realities of scaling a people business over nearly two decades, incl...

In this episode, John is joined by Duncan Ramsay, a Partner in the commercial team at ECI Partners, where he works closely with management teams to help scale and grow businesses across the portfolio. Before moving into private equity, Duncan spent time at PwC advising investors and businesses on commercial due diligence and growth strategy, giving him experience from both the consulting and inves...

In this episode, John is joined by Jenny Burns, CEO of Magnetic, an innovation consultancy that helps organisations solve complex problems and create new products, services and experiences at pace. Jenny’s career spans more than 25 years across large corporates and smaller businesses, before an unplanned move into leading and growing her own firm. Jenny describes herself as “the accidental CEO”, h...

In this episode, John is joined by Andrew Laird, Chief Executive of Mutual Ventures, a specialist consultancy focused on public service reform and local transformation. Andrew co-founded Mutual Ventures over 15 years ago with a clear but unconventional ambition: not to build a large consulting firm, but to create a vehicle for doing meaningful, impactful work in public services. Since then, the fi...

In this episode, John is joined by Tamzen Isacsson, Chief Executive of the Management Consultancies Association (MCA), the body representing the UK’s leading consulting firms. Tamzen works closely with firm leaders, government and stakeholders across the consulting profession, giving her a broad and well-informed perspective on how the sector is evolving, from growth and talent to AI, hybrid worki...

In this episode, John is joined by Jeremie Guillerme, Partner at Reputation Inc, a specialist consultancy focused on helping organisations understand, build and protect their reputation with the stakeholders that matter most. Jeremie has spent his career advising businesses across corporate affairs, communications and strategy. His work centres on a simple but often overlooked idea: reputation is...

In this episode, John is joined by Jonathan Peachey, founder of Factory X and former board member at Next 15, where he spent several years leading M&A and transformation across a group of more than 20 businesses spanning consulting, marketing and professional services. Jonathan has spent much of his career at the intersection of new technology and established business models. Having worked thr...

In this episode, John is joined by Chris Allinson, Managing Partner at Yonder Consulting, a firm that helps organisations rethink how they grow and where they compete as markets evolve. Chris has spent his career working at the intersection of strategy, innovation and insight. He describes his approach with a simple phrase: being “first of the next, not best of the last.” It captures one of the ha...

In this episode, John is joined by Adrian Hands, an experienced sales leader who has spent more than three decades in roles across technology, SaaS, media and e-commerce. Adrian now works as part of Positive Momentum, a group of seasoned consultants who run their own practices while sharing support, tools and common ways of working under the Positive Momentum umbrella. Growth comes up frequently i...

In this episode, John welcomes back Emma Flin, an investment director at Sovereign Capital Partners, a private equity firm that focuses on backing and growing mid-market tech and professional services businesses. Having first spoken to Emma back in episode 3, we were keen to talk to her again and learn about Sovereign’s focus on ‘buy and build’ as a growth and investment strategy. ‘Buy and build’...

Hari Sethalapathy and Venkata Subbarayudu Nori are two of the three co-founders of Winfo Solutions, a global Oracle consulting business that has grown from three people with no clients to more than 400 staff across a dozen countries in just 11 years. Both spent years delivering major transformation programmes inside tier-one firms before deciding to create a consultancy shaped by their own values...

In this episode, John is joined by Andrew Brown, founder of Acuity Business Solutions, a consultancy he built and led for almost 20 years before overseeing its sale to the Scandinavian group Lumera in December 2025. Garwood had the privilege of advising Andrew through the transaction. With the deal only recently completed, this conversation offers a rare, real-time perspective on what it is actual...

In this episode, John is joined by Nick Synnott, founder of Create Engage and host of the long-running “Climb in Consulting” podcast. Many listeners will know Nick for his work on marketing in the consulting sector, but this conversation takes a different angle. John and Nick talk about Nick’s journey as a business founder and the decisions, successes and challenges that have shaped Create Engage...

This episode is a little different from our usual format. Rather than a one to one conversation, we are sharing the audio from a recent webinar hosted by Deri Hughes of Honeycomb Consulting Skills Training, joined by Luk Smeyers from The Visible Authority and Rob Garner from Garwood Growth. Together, they explore what 2026 is likely to mean for consulting firms, drawing on insights from the hundre...

AI is firmly on the agenda for professional services firms, but many leaders are still working out what it really means in practice – for delivery, governance, people, and trust with clients.  In this episode of Unlocking Value, John Howard speaks with Dan Figueiredo, a senior leader at Microsoft whose career has sat at the intersection of technology, consulting, and commercial delivery. Dan share...

Lizzie Meadowcroft is part of the value creation team at LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group. She works closely with management teams across the LDC portfolio, supporting growth, integration and development. Before joining LDC, Lizzie built a career advising businesses on mergers and acquisitions. She spent almost 20 years at KPMG, where she was a partner in the advisory team and s...

Claire Simm is Managing Director and Global Head of Regulatory Consulting at Kroll. She has built her entire career in professional services, moving between Big Four firms, entrepreneurial boutiques and global organisations – and seeing first-hand how leadership, culture and expectations change as firms grow. In this conversation, John and Claire explore what it really takes to lead well in profes...

To round off the year, the show takes a slightly different shape. In this brief episode, John reflects on some of the common themes from conversations in 2025 and says thank you to the guests and listeners who’ve shaped the series. He also looks ahead to what’s coming next.  Thanks for being part of the show. We’ll see you in 2026! Host: John Howard , Partner at Garwood Growth