Unlocking Value | Podcast Guru

Details

Unlocking Value is designed to give founders and owners of professional services firms more confidence when they're working toward an exit or thinking about taking on investment. Across six episodes, our host John Howard speaks with founders, investors and advisors about the moments that define the transaction journey - how to get ready, what to expect and how to succeed. We cover everything from value drivers and team alignment to investor expectations and life after the deal. You’ll hear from people who’ve sold their firms, taken minority investments, stayed on, exited and started again – and from those who advise or invest in firms like yours every day.

Recent Episodes

Episode 44: Svetlana Tarnagurskaja – Hire Great People Before You Need Them

Svetlana Tarnagurskaja is co-founder of Dot Collective, a data and engineering consultancy that has grown to around 160 people in just five years. Svetlana and her co-founder Tom bootstrapped Dot, which has been profitable from day one. A lot of that growth has been built around a simple belief: hire genuinely good people, treat engineering as a craft and trust people to get on with their jobs. Svetlana describes one of Dot’s foundational values as “freedom with ownership” – giving people cle...

57 MIN

Part 6: Jonathan Corrie – Good Delivery Is Your Best Sales Pitch

In this episode – the sixth and final in a mini-series on the technology-driven change reshaping professional services – John is joined by Jonathan Corrie, co-founder and chief executive of Precursive. Precursive makes software that helps services teams sell, resource and deliver their work more profitably, mostly inside software and AI companies. Jonathan built and sold his own services business before Precursive, and runs a global community of services leaders called the Services Deli...

62 MIN

Part 5: Deb Ashton – The Billable Hour Is Running Out of Road

In this episode – the fifth conversation in our mini-series on technology-driven disruption – John is joined by Deb Ashton, who co-founded Certinia in 2009 and now runs its customer experience. Certinia is a professional services automation platform, and through the advisory boards and customer programmes Deb runs across three continents, she hears from a wider range of services firms than almost anyone – from teams embedded inside the big technology companies to large independent consultanci...

55 MIN

Part 4: Sarah Edwards – Make Every Consultant Your Best Consultant

In this episode, John is joined by Sarah Edwards, who leads product and go-to-market at Kantata, a professional services automation platform. Sarah has spent thirty years in and around consulting, and through the Leaders in Consulting community she talks to firm leaders most weeks – so her view comes from the leaders themselves. Sarah’s argument starts with a hard truth: consulting has run on people and billable hours for thirty years, and that model is under real strain. What lasts, sh...

43 MIN

Part 3: Sri Ganesan – Be the Storm

In this episode, John is joined by Sri Ganesan, founder of Rocketlane, a professional services automation platform built for customer onboarding and implementation teams. Sri is a serial founder – his first company was acquired by Freshworks, the first Indian software firm to list on the Nasdaq – and through Rocketlane he sees how hundreds of services teams actually work. He’s the third conversation in the mini-series, and the one that goes deepest on AI, though as he’d say, it’s really about...

50 MIN