Episode 120: From Founder to IPO: Building a 900 person global consultancy with Nick Kent

In today’s episode of Climb in Consulting Nick is joined by Nick Kent, Founder of Alpha FMC, the global financial services consultancy with over 900 consultants supporting clients across 16 offices spanning the UK, Europe, North America and APAC. While Nick’s story with Alpha ended very successfully, that’s not how it started. And it was actually a shock redundancy from Accenture that led him to launch the business. Something Nick shares in detail in today’s conversation. As the saying goes, when one door closes another opens, and in Nick’s case this was the catalyst that led to him launching Alpha. Fast forward and the firm’s grown massively, been through not one, but two PE investment rounds, and in 2017 it IPO’d on London’s aim market. With so much experience in the industry and a phenomenal journey building Alpha, there was so much to unpack in this conversation, including: - Nick’s shock redundancy and how this difficult time led him to launch Alpha FMC - The fundamental principles that Alpha was built on and how these led Nick and the team to have the success that they have as a business - And the journey from a private business, to private equity to IPO, the ups, the downs and everything in between. Whether you’re thinking of launching your own consultancy, or you’re running a firm or practice area right now and want to learn from one of the best in the industry, you’re going to get so much from this conversation. We hope you enjoy the show! Get to know Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-kent-518512/ Find out more about Alpha FMC: https://alphafmc.com/ Books mentioned in the show: The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson: https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-One-Minute-Manager/dp/0008128049

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.