Consultancy Growth Podcast

Leo Chancellor is Co-Founder of aro, a boutique consultancy serving the wealth and asset management sector. Leo spent the best 3 years at KPMG and then the best part of a decade at Penn Partnership. Joining Pen when it was around 20 people and riding that growth journey all the way to 80 before the firm was acquired by a larger global consultancy. That acquisition was the catalyst. Finding himself back inside a large organisation after years in a growing boutique, Leo and a small group of colleagues launched aro in April 2025.
In this conversation, Craig and Leo explore why the boutique end of the wealth and asset management market is opening up, how aro's revenue-share model allows the firm to put senior experienced people in front of clients at roughly half the cost of the big four, what 90 meetings in the first two months taught them about building momentum from a standing start, and why financial discipline in year one matters far more than most founding teams anticipate.
This is a candid, experience-led conversation with a consultancy leader who has seen what a 20 to 80 person growth journey looks like from the inside, and is now building one of his own.
Host: Craig Herd, MD at ConsultancyGrowth.com
Guest: Leo Chancellor, Co-Founder at aro.

Andrew Laird is Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Mutual Ventures, a specialist public service reform consultancy working with central government departments and local areas to make public services work better for the people who need them most. Andrew co-founded the business in 2011 and has spent the last 15 years building it into one of the most respected independent voices in public service reform.
In this conversation, Craig and Andrew explore how Mutual Ventures has grown from a niche startup responding to a government agenda into a firm with a bold three-year growth strategy, why appointing two non-executive directors was one of the best decisions they ever made, and how thought leadership became part of the DNA of the firm rather than a bolt-on marketing exercise.
This is a practical, experience-led conversation with a consultancy leader who has navigated government instability, built a culture of radical transparency and learned what it really takes to grow a specialist firm without losing what makes it special.
Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Andrew Laird, Chief Executive at Mutual Ventures

Sam Gulliver is Managing Director of Consult LDN, a commercially focused property consultancy specialising in technical due diligence, asset management and development consultancy across London and the UK. With over 15 years in the property world, Sam has worked across small partnerships and large national firms before building the kind of business he always wanted to work in.
In this conversation, Craig and Sam explore what it really means to advise clients on the commercial outcome rather than just the technical problem, how starting small with new clients consistently leads to much bigger relationships, and why listening more than you talk might be the most underrated skill in consultancy.
This is a practical, experience-led conversation with a property consultancy leader who has built a business around trust, attentiveness and understanding what clients are actually trying to achieve.
Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Sam Gulliver, Managing Director at Consult LDN

Pekka Metsaranta is CEO and founder of Sisua, a program management consultancy named after the Finnish concept of inner strength, resilience and determination. Before consultancy, Pekka served as a second lieutenant in the Finnish Defence Forces and the leadership principles he learned there, humility and leading from the front, are baked into everything he has built since.
In this conversation, Craig and Pekka explore how those military principles translate into a consultancy culture, what it really takes to grow from a founding idea to one of the UK's top independent project consultancies, and why radical transparency might be the most powerful tool in a leader's kit.
This is a practical, experience-led conversation with a consultancy leader who has operated inside complex programmes, built a team from scratch and learned what it really takes to grow a firm people actually want to work for.
Host: Craig Herd, MD at Consultancy Growth
Guest: Pekka Metsaranta, CEO and Founder at Sisua

Craig is joined by Liam O’Neill and Sam Lewis, senior leaders at bpmd, a consultancy that works with large, complex organisations to build lasting process, transformation, and change capability.
Over the last decade, bpmd has grown from three people working out of a spare room with a single client into a specialist consultancy trusted to support enterprise-scale transformation programmes. Their work spans global organisations, complex operating models, and long-running change initiatives where process, data, and execution genuinely matter. They are particularly well known for helping organisations turn platforms like SAP Signavio into something that delivers real business value, rather than shelfware.
In this episode, we cover:
The journey from early-stage survival to leading complex, enterprise-level transformation work
How bpmd moved away from generalist, task-based delivery into a clearly defined specialism
Why producing high-quality outputs is not the same as creating meaningful business outcomes
The leadership discipline required to narrow focus before the pipeline fully supports it
How challenging client requests can strengthen trust rather than damage relationships
Why working with clients who already value the work changes the entire sales dynamic
The impact of specialisation on team quality, motivation, and retention
How helping clients build their own capability leads to more strategic, higher-value engagements
What the rise of AI and automation means for consultancies operating in change and transformation
This is a practical, experience-led conversation with consultancy leaders who have operated inside complex organisations, navigated long sales cycles, and learned where real value is actually created.

Host:  Craig Herd, Managing Director at Consultancy Growth
Guest:  Liam O'Neill, Managing Director at bpmd
Guest: Sam Lewis, Director at bpmd