The Associate Model
Senior expertise without the overhead that drives the wrong behaviours. Principal-led, associate-supported, and completely independent.
Principal-led, associate-supported
You deal with the decision-maker
Every engagement is led by the principal. You deal directly with the person who has the experience, makes the decisions, and takes accountability for the outcome. There’s no bait-and-switch — no senior partner winning the work and a junior team delivering it.
That means faster decisions, shorter feedback loops, and somebody at the table who has seen your problem before — not somebody learning on the job at your expense.
Good people, proven together
Associates, not employees
When an engagement needs additional expertise — programme finance, digital platforms, service delivery — we draw on a trusted network of senior associates. People we’ve worked with over many years, know the quality of, and would stake our reputation on.
These aren’t names pulled from a database. They’re professionals we’ve delivered alongside in real situations — under pressure, against tight deadlines, in programmes that mattered. That shared history means we know how each other works, we trust each other’s judgement, and we don’t need a ramp-up period to become effective together.
The associate network covers programme finance and governance, digital and application platforms, service delivery and transition, and specialist technical domains. Each associate brings the same principal-level experience to their discipline that we bring to ours.
No bench, no bad incentives
Structure shapes behaviour
Large consultancies carry hundreds of people on the bench who need to be billed. That fixed cost drives behaviour — it creates pressure to extend engagements, over-resource projects, and recommend work that serves utilisation targets rather than client outcomes.
We don’t have a bench. We don’t have utilisation targets. There is no massive fixed cost of employees that need to be moved off the bench and into a contract. Every recommendation is made on its merits, and every associate is there because the engagement genuinely needs them — not because we need to keep them busy.
This isn’t a philosophical position — it’s a structural one. When your operating model doesn’t depend on selling more hours, the advice you give is fundamentally different. Including the advice to stop.
We also bring our own tools. Purpose-built for programme assessment, delivery tracking, and risk management — with AI at the core. We don’t need three weeks on your systems before we’re productive. We arrive with methodology, tooling, and structure ready to go.
For the people who hire us
The person in the pitch is the person doing the work. No graduate consultants backfilling while the partner moves on to the next sale.
Associates are engaged when the work requires them and stand down when it doesn’t. No padding, no over-resourcing, no make-work.
When there’s no revenue target driving the recommendation, the advice is cleaner. Including the advice that you don’t need us any more.
Our associates aren’t strangers assembled for a bid. They’re professionals with shared history, shared standards, and the trust that comes from delivering together.
Let’s talk
Whether you need one experienced pair of hands or a small team of senior specialists, the model flexes to fit the engagement — not the other way around.
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