Episode 67 - James Callander - Freshminds

After our short summer break I’m pleased to say the podcast is back and what a guest we have to kick us off for the autumn. Today’s guest is James Callander, Managing Director of Freshminds, the leading resourcing and research firm for the consulting industry. As you’ll hear in today’s interview, freshminds have a long history in our industry and were actually one of the very first search firm that I signed up for when I was looking to make the move in to consulting almost a decade ago. I still remember scouring their weekly newsletter for potential roles and it was great to get a chance to catch up with one of the people behind it all and find out about James story with Freshminds over his almost 18 year career with the firm. Unlike many of my guests, James’s career actually started while he was still in school, running various business ventures from the school printing press to leading sales for the school magazine. Deciding he wanted to move to London following university James began his formal career with two extended internships, firstly at the strategy consultancy Roland Berger, then followed by another at the then leading public relationships firm Bell Pottinger. It was these early experiences that led James to take the bold step and become a freelance researcher for the, at the time, small start-up research consultancy Freshminds. The rest as they say is history and over the last almost 18 years James’s career has grown alongside the business, which he now runs as Managing Director. Leading a team of over 140 people to reshape the future of resourcing and consulting. Given James’s wealth of experience there was so much for us to cover and we discuss some really interesting topics in this conversation including: - James entrepreneurial start, how his teenage business ventures shaped his career, and how the skills he learnt from that period have helped him get to where he is today. - His almost 18-year career with Freshminds, how he was able to climb from a freelance researcher to Managing Director of the firm and his advice for anyone looking to emulate his success. - And his career advice for those of you looking to take the next step in your career, be that moving to another consulting firm or jumping out and becoming an independent contractor. I really enjoyed this conversation with James. As his story shows you don’t have to follow a structured consulting career path to reach the top in our industry and that with hard work and dedication, anything is possible. Whether you’re at the start of your career and looking to break in to consulting or you’re an experienced consultant looking at what the best next step is for you, I know you’re going to get so much from what James has to say. So, with the intro done and dusted, sit back, relax and enjoy my interview with James Callander. To get in touch with James find him either through LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamescallander/ Or through Email - jc@freshminds.co.uk You can find out more about Freshminds at - https://www.freshminds.co.uk/ James' book recommendations: Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street - https://amzn.to/32EHSDo Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - https://amzn.to/35G7q53

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 Nick@CreateEngage.co.uk 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.