Grey Matter with Declan Kelly: Inside the Minds of the People Who Move the World

Tony James has spent over four decades seeing what was coming next and acting on it long before anyone else.
He built DLJ from a mid-sized brokerage into one of the most influential platforms on Wall Street by creating the leveraged buyout and private capital businesses that became the model the rest of the industry eventually adopted. He joined Blackstone as COO and constructed an entirely new set of investment businesses, helping transform the private equity firm into the world’s largest alternative asset manager. At Costco, he has spent four decades helping build and safeguard a company around a single principle — always do what is right for members, and the shareholders will take care of themselves.
Every one of those calls looked unconventional at the time. None of them do now.
In this episode of Grey Matter, Tony James sits down with Consello Founder, Chairman and CEO Declan Kelly to discuss the instincts behind those moments, the decisions that defined it, and what a career built at that scale ultimately teaches about judgment, patience, and knowing what to do next.
In this conversation, Tony discusses:
·  Why he turned down Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley out of school and how he built DLJ's leveraged buyout business
·  The culture he built at DLJ and later rehabilitated at Blackstone, and why teams that root for each other without incentives beat individual talent every time
·  Spending a billion dollars on a distressed credit team in the middle of a market collapse, and why it was one of the hardest and most consequential bets he made at Blackstone
·  Why he turned down a senior role in government after an honest assessment of where he could be most effective
·  What four decades at Costco taught him about the power of doing one thing extraordinarily well and refusing to get distracted by anything else
About Consello

Consello is an Advisory and Investing Platform with offices in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Dublin, Belfast, London, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Consello’s distinct advisory practices provide the complete strategic counsel today’s leaders need to grow and transform their organizations. Consello’s advisory expertise spans Corporate Advisory; M&A; Management Consulting; Talent; and Sports and Entertainment. Dedicated teams operate in each practice, led by a leadership group with deep operational experience across industries, business growth stages and market cycles and with an expansive set of global corporate relationships.

Consello’s investment business, Consello Capital, identifies high-potential mid-market companies and invests capital and expertise to transform their growth.
About Grey Matter Host Declan Kelly

Declan Kelly is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Consello, one of the world's most influential boutique advisory firms. A trusted advisor to dozens of CEOs leading the world's top companies, Mr. Kelly has built or run four global consulting companies over the last three decades prior to founding Consello. Mr. Kelly also served in government as US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland during the Obama administration.

When Brian Moynihan became CEO of Bank of America in January 2010, he inherited an institution that had grown rapidly through six major acquisitions in six years in the wake of the worst financial crisis in a generation. From his first days in the role, he moved decisively to simplify what had accumulated, clearing away what no longer served the institution so its greatest strengths could be brought to bear.
What followed was fifteen years of sustained transformation, driven by the same steadiness that defined his earliest days in the role. Moynihan led a digital reinvention that changed how the bank served its clients, drove customer satisfaction to record levels, and built an institution that today looks fundamentally different from the one he inherited, while never losing sight of the purpose and obligation that guided him from the start.
In this episode of Grey Matter, Brian Moynihan sits down with Consello Founder, Chairman and CEO Declan Kelly to discuss what it means to lead an institution of that scale through successive periods of historic change, and how staying steady at the helm can shape not just how an organization survives a difficult moment, but what it becomes in the years that follow.
In this conversation, Brian discusses:
•Walking into the board with a single page outlining everything Bank of America needed to exit, and why simplification was the foundation of everything that followed
•What it means to absorb the weight of a moment so that the people around you can keep moving forward
•The moment Warren Buffett called offering $5 billion, what was behind the decision, and what it meant to the people and institution he was backing 
•How the bank's digital transformation reshaped the institution over fifteen years, and what that journey reveals about leading through change 
•The role of purpose in holding an organization together when conditions are changing faster than any strategy can anticipate

About Consello

Consello is an Advisory and Investing Platform with offices in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Dublin, Belfast, London, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Consello’s distinct advisory practices provide the complete strategic counsel today’s leaders need to grow and transform their organizations. Consello’s advisory expertise spans Corporate Advisory; M&A; Management Consulting; Talent; and Sports and Entertainment. Dedicated teams operate in each practice, led by a leadership group with deep operational experience across industries, business growth stages and market cycles and with an expansive set of global corporate relationships.

Consello’s investment business, Consello Capital, identifies high-potential mid-market companies and invests capital and expertise to transform their growth.
About Grey Matter Host Declan Kelly

Declan Kelly is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Consello, one of the world's most influential boutique advisory firms. A trusted advisor to dozens of CEOs leading the world's top companies, Mr. Kelly has built or run four global consulting companies over the last three decades prior to founding Consello. Mr. Kelly also served in government as US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland during the Obama administration.

Carl Lewis is widely regarded as one of the most dominant athletes of the modern era. For more than a decade, he was the fastest man in the world, winning nine Olympic gold medals, going undefeated in the long jump for ten years, and becoming one of the most recognized athletes on the planet.
Over the course of his career, Lewis came to understand that dominating track and field had a dual effect. It brought extraordinary visibility and influence, allowing him to challenge the sport’s amateur model and advocate for athlete compensation. It also placed him under constant scrutiny, where anything less than perfection was viewed as failure and every position he took invited resistance. 
In this episode of Grey Matter, Lewis sits down with Consello Founder, Chairman and CEO Declan Kelly to discuss what it means to occupy the top position in the world for an extended period, the responsibility and scrutiny that followed, and what that level of sustained success demands. 
In this conversation, Carl discusses:
How his parents taught him to track personal bests instead of placements and why that shaped his entire approach to competition
The decision to follow Tom Tellez to the University of Houston and why choosing what he asked for over what felt comfortable defined his career
Why he became one of the first advocates for professionalizing track and field and the resistance he faced from every direction
The mental discipline and strategic intimidation required to remain undefeated in the long jump for an entire decade
What the losses to Mike Powell and Joe DeLoach taught him that winning never could
Why he returned to coaching at the University of Houston, doing exactly what his parents did before him
About Consello

Consello is an Advisory and Investing Platform with offices in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Dublin, Belfast, London, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Consello’s distinct advisory practices provide the complete strategic counsel today’s leaders need to grow and transform their organizations. Consello’s advisory expertise spans Corporate Advisory; M&A; Management Consulting; Talent; and Sports and Entertainment. Dedicated teams operate in each practice, led by a leadership group with deep operational experience across industries, business growth stages and market cycles and with an expansive set of global corporate relationships.

Consello’s investment business, Consello Capital, identifies high-potential mid-market companies and invests capital and expertise to transform their growth.
About Grey Matter Host Declan Kelly

Declan Kelly is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Consello, one of the world's most influential boutique advisory firms. A trusted advisor to dozens of CEOs leading the world's top companies, Mr. Kelly has built or run four global consulting companies over the last three decades prior to founding Consello. Mr. Kelly also served in government as US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland during the Obama administration.

For more than four decades, Mike Wirth has built his career at Chevron, rising through an organization where major decisions are expected to stand up over long periods and where leadership judgment is assessed through enduring outcomes rather than immediacy.
When he became Chairman and CEO, the company was operating in an environment that placed a growing emphasis on capital discipline and on the durability of long-dated investment decisions. That context sharpened the importance of pragmatic judgment around expansion, particularly in moments when outside pressure made it easier to pursue scale than to step back.
In this episode of Grey Matter, Wirth sits down with Consello Founder, Chairman and CEO Declan Kelly to discuss institutional endurance and the role pragmatic discipline plays in long-cycle decision-making.
In this conversation, Mike discusses:
•The decision to walk away from the Anadarko acquisition, and how capital discipline shaped Chevron’s approach even as pressure intensified
•The Hess transaction, including the importance of contractual clarity and why maintaining established frameworks mattered more than speed in resolving uncertainty
•How pragmatic judgment guides decisions when public narratives and market momentum diverge from long-term institutional priorities
•Why leadership in long-horizon businesses requires comfort with near-term criticism in order to preserve credibility and coherence over time
•The formative experiences that shape how he thinks about individual limits and the difference between perceived capacity and actual capability

About Consello

Consello is an Advisory and Investing Platform with offices in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Dublin, Belfast, London, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Consello’s distinct advisory practices provide the complete strategic counsel today’s leaders need to grow and transform their organizations. Consello’s advisory expertise spans Corporate Advisory; M&A; Management Consulting; Talent; and Sports and Entertainment. Dedicated teams operate in each practice, led by a leadership group with deep operational experience across industries, business growth stages and market cycles and with an expansive set of global corporate relationships.

Consello’s investment business, Consello Capital, identifies high-potential mid-market companies and invests capital and expertise to transform their growth.
About Grey Matter Host Declan Kelly

Declan Kelly is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Consello, one of the world's most influential boutique advisory firms. A trusted advisor to dozens of CEOs leading the world's top companies, Mr. Kelly has built or run four global consulting companies over the last three decades prior to founding Consello. Mr. Kelly also served in government as US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland during the Obama administration.

For nearly 140 years, The Coca-Cola Company has grown by building one of the most enduring and recognizable brand systems in the world, expanding across markets and categories while maintaining a level of global consistency. 
That scale and reach became a defining strength, but it also required a new approach as consumer behavior, technology, and expectations evolved.
When James Quincey became Chairman and CEO, he approached that moment with a mindset shaped by engineering and operational discipline. Rather than relying solely on precedent, he focused on how complex systems perform under changing conditions.
Under his leadership, The Coca-Cola Company expanded its portfolio, evolving into a total beverage company while modernizing its operating model. The intent was not to diminish the brand’s legacy, but to protect it by ensuring the system around it remained fit for the future.
In this episode of Grey Matter, Quincey sits down with Consello Founder, Chairman and CEO Declan Kelly to discuss what it takes to lead an iconic institution through change, balancing preservation with progress.
In this conversation, Quincey discusses:
•How an engineering background informed his approach to leadership and decision-making
•Why simplifying parts of the organization became a way to strengthen focus 
•Streamlining the portfolio while innovating for the future
•How leaders act decisively without waiting for perfect information
•Why “everything communicates” inside an organization, from dress code  to operating decisions
•The responsibility of protecting the core of an iconic brand while still innovating offerings

About Consello

Consello is an Advisory and Investing Platform with offices in New York, Miami, Atlanta, Dublin, Belfast, London, Barcelona, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Consello’s distinct advisory practices provide the complete strategic counsel today’s leaders need to grow and transform their organizations. Consello’s advisory expertise spans Corporate Advisory; M&A; Management Consulting; Talent; and Sports and Entertainment. Dedicated teams operate in each practice, led by a leadership group with deep operational experience across industries, business growth stages and market cycles and with an expansive set of global corporate relationships.

Consello’s investment business, Consello Capital, identifies high-potential mid-market companies and invests capital and expertise to transform their growth.
About Grey Matter Host Declan Kelly

Declan Kelly is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Consello, one of the world's most influential boutique advisory firms. A trusted advisor to dozens of CEOs leading the world's top companies, Mr. Kelly has built or run four global consulting companies over the last three decades prior to founding Consello. Mr. Kelly also served in government as US Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland during the Obama administration.