Prof. Joe O'Mahoney
61 episodes listed below
Consulting growth, discussed like operating work.
The Consulting Growth Podcast studies consulting growth through operator conversations, not broad business theory. Episodes focus on boards, client acquisition, pricing, private equity, people systems, and the awkward thresholds where founder-led firms have to become more disciplined businesses.
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The Consulting Growth Podcast is a business-first interview series about how consulting firms actually grow. Its center of gravity is the boutique and founder-led consultancy: firms with strong client work, ambitious owners, and the familiar problem of turning reputation into scalable enterprise value. The conversations are measured and specific. They spend time on board agendas, KPIs, value creation plans, account management, pricing, recruitment, mergers, private equity, and exit preparation. Recent guests bring the perspective of people who have built, bought, advised, or led consultancies through difficult stages of growth. Karen Thomas-Bland’s episode focuses on scaling under private equity and puts the people agenda alongside finance and client performance. Adrian Moorhouse’s conversation moves from Olympic experience to Lane 4, including the problem of breaking through a growth plateau and distinguishing delivery talent from client-account talent. Matthieu Courtecuisse’s episode widens the frame to global scale, SIA, the US market, and the growing consulting opportunity inside major technology companies. Richard Goold’s discussion covers growth to exit, sector credibility, consulting academies, and the risk of leaders falling behind on technology. Olly Purnell’s episode explores Q5, organisational health, selective merger activity, office expansion, and tools for senior leaders. Ethan Williams brings pricing into focus, challenging the default reliance on time-and-materials thinking. The show has a distinctly operator-led feel. It assumes the listener cares about utilization, client acquisition cost, partner models, talent pathways, and the point at which informal management stops being enough. It can be warm, but it is rarely loose. Questions tend to frame a concrete business problem, and answers often build from story to framework to implication. The value lies in that patience. For consulting founders, partners, and advisers, it offers senior-level reflection without turning the subject into slogans.
Made for: Built for consulting founders, partners, advisers, and senior operators who think in revenue quality, people systems, pricing, and exit readiness. It also suits ambitious consultants who want to understand how firms scale beyond personal relationships.
What sets it apart: The show stays close to the mechanics of consulting-firm growth rather than broad founder inspiration. Its interviews combine operator stories with practical detail on boards, KPIs, client development, pricing, private equity, and organisational health.
Joe O'Mahoney is Professor of Consulting at Cardiff University and a growth & exit advisor to boutique consultancies. Joe researches, teaches, publishes and consults about the consulting industry.In the CONSULTING GROWTH PODCAST he interviews founders that have successfully grown or sold their firms, acquirers who have bought firms, and a host of growth experts to help you avoid the mistakes, and learn the insights of others who have been there and done that.Find out more at www.joeomahoney.com
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Experienced operators turn consultancy growth from an abstraction into specific choices about hiring, client development, governance and expansion.
Joe O'Mahony keeps returning to the decisions that turn a consultancy's growth ambitions into an operating business. His interviews move from founders' histories to the machinery underneath expansion: winning new clients, separating account management from delivery, developing…
Founder debriefs turn your scaling plan from heroic optimism into sharper questions about clients, roles, and boards.
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A practical guide to putting governance, KPIs, and the people agenda on the same board table.
This discussion keeps its feet on the ground, tracing the practical mechanics of scaling a consultancy under private equity. It follows the board composition, the contents of the board pack, and the recurring pull of KPIs, a value creation plan, and a hundred day plan, while…
How Lane 4 broke a six million plateau by separating account management, delivery, and new business.
Adrian Morehouse and Joe spend the most compelling stretch on Lane 4's move beyond a six million plateau. After a difficult 2008-2009 period and two or three redundancies, the company reset account management, delivery, and new business into clearer roles.
A grounded conversation on scaling consulting by getting the client mix and economics right.
This episode looks at consulting through the lens of scale: building a firm that can expand internationally, land major clients, and keep its revenue base disciplined. The most useful parts are the practical ones.
A practical look at how consulting firms hire, build credibility, and expand under pressure.
Richard Gould's path into consulting gives the piece its anchor: university gave way to the Woolwich, then came a mobile phone banking project, the Barclays acquisition, and finally the move into the KPMG team that was built to serve multiple clients.
A practical look at how Q5 grew through mergers, offices, and new internal tools.
The episode traces Q5's growth from Smith Square HQ through a 2015 merger with Maxim, then on to Houston and Sydney, while keeping the Q5 brand visible as other businesses came in.
Rob Walling on bootstrapped SaaS growth, plateaus, and exits — with founders who lived them.
Abbey Ashley's playbook for turning your job skills into a virtual assistant business.
Naval Ravikant on epistemology, startups, and crypto, from David Deutsch to Vitalik Buterin.
Alex Theuma interviews SaaS founders and investors on scaling to $10M-plus ARR.
Guy Raz traces founders' origin stories and fields live advice-line calls from entrepreneurs.
Alex Blumberg interviews guests like Megan Phelps-Roper and Shane McAnally about failure and reinvention.
Private equity changes who gets heard in the boardroom.
Joe welcomes Adrian Morehouse and asks him to trace the move from Olympic days into business leadership.
Joe O'Mahony introduces Mathieu Courtecris of SIA and opens a conversation about how a consultancy grows over time.
Professor Gero O'Mahony asks Richard Gould for a potted history, and Gould starts with his route from university to the Woolwich, where he led a technology project on mobile phone banking before Barclays acquired the business and KPMG took the whole team.
Joe O'Mahony welcomes Oli Pernell, one of Q5's co-founders, in the London office.
This episode features an interview with pricing expert Ethan Williams discussing how to price consulting services, including topics like value pricing versus time and materials.