Episode 119: Making the move to the Middle East with Chris Gant

In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Chris Gant, Managing Partner at Wunderman Thompson Consulting. As successful consultancy careers go, Chris’s is up there with the very best of them! Having spent eighteen fast-paced years at KPMG, Chris decided he wanted to take some time out and in 2004, he left to go back to school, joining the Sloan programme at London Business School. It was his time at LBS that led him to joining EY as a senior partner in their Middle East and Africa business where he spent the best part of the next decade. Returning to the UK in 2020 to take on an EMEIA leadership role. Having retired from EY and after a short break, Chris decided to jump back into a new and exciting role - still in consulting, but this time with a difference. Joining Wunderman Thompson (part of the WPP marketing and communications group) to build their transformation consulting business. A relative start-up within the huge global brand that is Wunderman Thompson. Nick and Chris cover some fascinating areas in this conversation, including: - Why taking time out of the industry was one of the best career decisions he made. - Consulting in the Middle East and his advice if you’re thinking of making the move. - How Chris successfully managed to jump from a “big four” environment to a creative agency, and the biggest things he learnt along the way. If you’re looking to make a new career move in 2023, Chris’s advice will be hugely valuable to you. We hope you enjoy the show! Reach out to Chris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cgant/ Learn more about Wunderman Thompson: https://www.wundermanthompson.com/expertise/consulting Books mentioned in the show: How to Cheat at Chess by William R. Hartson https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Cheat-Chess-William-Hartston/dp/0091261112

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.