Episode 124: Building an Awesome Consulting Career with Stefan Aichbauer

In this week’s episode, Nick chats with Stefan Aichbauer, Managing Partner at H&Z. If you’re a regular listener to this podcast, you’ll know that we like to chat with our guests about the various routes their careers have taken, and how their individual journeys have helped to shape their outlook. Having started his career at Siemens, it wasn’t long before Stefan realised that life in a multinational corporation wasn’t for him, and at the age of 24, he made the leap to what was then a small, boutique consulting firm with just eight other people, but which has since grown into H&Z Group, now one of the 100 best employers in Germany. At H&Z, Stefan’s career took a rapid, upward trajectory. He rose through the ranks from Analyst, through to Partner, before being made Managing Partner in 2008. That was fifteen years ago, and since then, the firm has enjoyed phenomenal success, growing significantly since them and forming the leading European wide consulting group, the Transformation Alliance, something Nick and Stefan explore in today’s episode. Nick and Stefan delve into some fascinating areas in this episode, including: -Stefan’s head, heart, hand approach to consulting -What great consulting leaders have in common with movie directors -The importance of knowing when to step back and ‘give up the sugar’ as you progress in to senior leadership -And why passion for the job is the one non-negotiable if you want to build an awesome consulting career If you’re starting out on your own consultancy journey, thinking of making the leap from a big multi-national to a boutique firm, or simply want to learn from someone at the top of our field, you’ll love this episode of Climb in Consulting. We hope you enjoy the show! Reach out to Stefan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanaichbauer/ Learn more about H&Z Management Consulting: https://hz.group/ Books, magazines, and websites mentioned in the show: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey

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.