Client executives

Invaluable insight from real clients

Our client executives are experienced Board members, C-suite executives or buyers of professional services from around the globe. They are highly credible and skilled in providing feedback and insights drawn from years of experience.

We carefully select our client executives who have experience of holding senior executive roles in FTSE companies, large businesses, entrepreneurial ventures and public sector bodies. They include Chairs, CEOs, CFOs, NEDs and GCs with experience of working in the major financial regions across the globe.

We work closely with our client executives to craft tailored experiences to meet the needs of the firm, team or individual. From experience, the partners we work with have valued the insights they gained around the following:

• Building the confidence of partners to develop new and existing client relationships
• Enabling partners to access and engage with the C-suite
• Rehearsing discussions that impact the Chair and Boardroom agenda
• Developing the skills and confidence of those taking on leadership roles in the firm
• Honing the ability to become a trusted advisor to clients
• Gaining feedback on the firm’s direction and its alignment to the agenda of the industry or sector
• Preparing for and rehearsing critical conversations (difficult meetings, pitches, fee discussions, differentiating the firm, and introducing new service lines)

Whatever the brief, the client executives create a fit for purpose and stretching opportunity to accelerate the contribution that partners make personally to the performance and reputation of their firm.

Sessions with client executives are amongst the most highly rated sessions in our tailored interventions and development programmes.

Success stories from recent programmes have included:

• Having used the time to rehearse an upcoming first meeting with a C-suite executive from a FTSE100 business, the partner’s real meeting went so well that the executive called them for advice and introduced them to his board colleagues.
• A partner reported that working with client executives had “ completely transformed my approach to developing client relationships. I now know how to gain access to my client’s agenda and can see how challenge adds value to their thinking and approach”. Having rehearsed a discussion with a Board Member, this senior partner developed the confidence and mindset to see themselves as a peer and to be more ambitious. He went on to successfully develop C suite relationships with a number of his clients.
• A senior projects partner discussed a forthcoming pitch for a £6m energy tender with a client executive. They told us that following the discussion they changed their approach completely from how they prepared, who they took to the meeting, and how they led the pitch. Their approach moved from a “tell and sell”  to a genuine discussion to really understand the client’s business and start to develop relationships with the buyers.  They went onto win the pitch.
• A mid-level partner asked two client executives for their perspectives in relation to a pending fee discussion, which the partner anticipated to be difficult. Having been encouraged by the client executives to speak up about the key challenges and to hold their ground in relation to the value delivered, the partner reported going into the conversation better prepared and with greater confidence. The resulting fee discussion yielded a more creative approach to mutual risk sharing and significantly improved profitability as well as client satisfaction.