Umbrex is pleased to welcome Isilay Akbulbul. Isilay worked for Bain & Co. for 5 years and was a part of the team in Istanbul. She founded her boutique consultancy firm, in 2008, Miya GGD which has been providing market entry and business development consulting for foreign companies across many sectors looking to enter the Turkish market or find Turkish business partners. She organizes B2B and networking events as well as industry sepecific seminars and workshops along with receptions. She…

Robbie Kellman Baxter shares more than a few useful resources on business development and partnership strategies in this article. Delivering on a forever promise, and maximizing an organization’s overall business potential, is often a task too big for one company. So they need partners, and new ways of doing things. But who builds out those relationships? Who jumps in to explore, formalize and potentially run a business opportunity pops up that “feels right” but doesn’t fit neatly into business as…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Sabrina Boesch. Sabrina spent 4 years working at Bain & Co., focussing primarily on financial services. She left Bain to join a fast growing FinTech in Dusseldorf focussing on expanding a newly founded business division. Her passion for business development and e-commerce led her to take over the German market at Emma Sleep, the biggest e-commerce in the sleep industry. Since leaving Emma, Sabrina is focusing on helping clients build and expand their e-commerce businesses…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Bart Welch with Welch Executive Services. Bart joined McKinsey & Co as a Business Analyst in 2006 and spent the better part of a decade with the Firm. He served primarily Travel & Hospitality clients on a variety of commercial topics including deep focus on Loyalty, Pricing & Revenue Management, Direct consumer Marketing, and International Expansion. Following his time at McKinsey, Bart held several leadership roles at Rocket Travel, a wholly-owned entity of Booking Holdings,…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Kristoffer Ekelund with East Point. Kristoffer professional background consists of ~12 years from consumer goods and retail and ~8 years management consulting from firms like Procter & Gamble, Apoteket and Bain & Co. He currently resides in Sweden and has spent significant time with international engagements across Europe. Kristoffer has worked extensively on strategic and operational matters in a retail and FMCG setting, including strategy planning, business development, M&A/due diligence as well as Lean operations…

Claire de Weerdt shares an article that could help grow both your market and, consequently, your business in 2023. The size of the market a business is operating in is something strategy teams, investors, and start-ups all find value in assessing. For strategy teams and executives, understanding market size can enable better strategic decisions and for investors it can help identify if a target is attractive or not. For start-ups, showing a significant and growing TAM can be a critical…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Martijn Thierry with Martijn Thierry Strategic Results. Martijn spent seven years at Bain in London and Amsterdam. He was part of the Bain team that set up the Amsterdam office and left as Senior Manager.  Prior to Bain, he gained his PhD on circular business at Erasmus University Rotterdam and published a leading article. Martijnhas been running his own consulting firm for over 15 years. He has particular expertise in business strategy development, ESG strategy…

In this article, Robbie Baxter shares access to a free Business Development Fundamentals course in addition to resources for business development and partnership strategy. Delivering on a forever promise, and maximizing an organization’s overall business potential, is often a task too big for one company. So they need partners, and new ways of doing things. But who builds out those relationships? Who jumps in to explore, formalize and potentially run a business opportunity pops up that “feels right” but doesn’t…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Tomás Adão da Fonseca with 2F Advisory Partners.  Tomas has extensive experience in leading projects and teams in strategy, business development and business change transformation. Over 10 years at BCG working in several offices and continents he has wide-ranged proficiency in evaluating local and global business environments to define corporate vision and actionable business plans for corporations and individual BU’s. Actively lead strategic business development initiatives in greenfield, JV/Partnerships and M&A. Passionate in leading cross-functional…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Olga Belousova. Olga is independent consultant located in France and combining business consulting with her art project. Olga is focused on services to local and international small and medium enterprises. She spent 2 years in Booz and Roland Berger as a consultant, prior to moving into management consulting Olga gained over 20 years of industry experience and received her MBA from Fuqua school of business. Passionate about initiating and developing strong business relationships, Olga has particular…

Winning projects is what independent consultants concentrate on most, but sometimes how you wrap up your work with a client is just as important as how you start the conversation, especially if you hope to win client recommendations. Best practices and tried and tested tips were revealed in Episode 287 of the Umbrex Unleashed podcast, featuring David A Fields, consultant and author of The Irresistible Consultant’s Guide to Winning Clients. Hosted by Will Bachman, the show finds its jumping off point…

Rob Ristagno shares a podcast about the latest company white paper on building a crisis-resistant business.  Josh Richardson of Yale University teamed up with the Sterling Woods Group to find out. He conducted interviews and surveys with 40 executives across a variety of fields, from healthcare to manufacturing to utilities to software. The leaders helm organizations with revenues between $30 million and $1 billion. In speaking with these executives, some interesting patterns emerged. Josh and Sterling Woods created a five…

Stuck for ideas on how to market your independent consultant practice to bring in new clients and projects? Here are 21 business development ideas, along with links to relevant episodes of our Unleashed podcast where applicable. Editorial note: This article was originally published in January 2021 and was updated in April 2022. 1) Start a podcast and invite potential clients as guests We recently released a detailed resource guide on how to start your own podcast, from the technical and…

There is a difference between being good at what you do, and being recognized for being good at it. But how do you become a recognized expert in your field, and establish your reputation as a thought leader? That was the topic of a recent Umbrex Presents conversation with Dorie Clark, a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, consultant, and keynote speaker. “We know this is a really noisy and crowded environment,” Clark said of the business marketplace for independent consultants….

Joy Fairbanks shares an article that offers a few key tips for ventures to improve their pitch. 15 minutes are so over. Founders, you have thirty seconds to explain why the venture you work on day and night is worth someone’s attention.  You are innovative, your technology sizzles, and you have a talented team.  You even have traction.  You get so excited that you dive right into the technology.  Time’s up.  You didn’t clearly identify a problem, you didn’t mention…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Daniel Behr. Daniel is an entrepreneurial leader skilled at developing and implementing growth and innovation strategies. He brings a unique combination of experiences in strategy consulting, startups, business development and the commercialization of new technologies in the life and physical sciences. Daniel seeks to help leadership teams figure out “where to play” and “how to win”. He is based in the Boston area….

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Paul Harrington with Pathfinder Consulting Group.  Prior to launching Pathfinder Consulting Group LLC, Paul spent ~9 years with McKinsey & Company, where he was a Partner based in Washington D.C. Within the firm’s Global Public and Social Sector Practice, Paul led the Go to Market (GTM) team, which spanned 23 countries. Prior to McKinsey, Paul held roles General Dynamics Information Technology, Johnson & Johnson, Ariba (now part of SAP) and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), and…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Taoufik El Khazzani.  Tao spent 2 years within the Operations practice at McKinsey working within the telecom, hi-tech and automotive sectors. Following this first consulting experience, he joined Vivendi to lead trend forecast and strategy projects in the telecom and media space. He then decided to add another expertise focusing on the luxury and fashion industries : after a M.S. at Institut Français de la Mode (IFM), he has managed strategy and business development for…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Tomás Elewaut with Hopen – Management Consulting.  Tomás spent seven years at McKinsey & Co., leading projects in South America, and has been running his own consulting firm focused on strategy, organization and business development since 2012. Before starting his own consulting practice, he was founder and business development manager of and important agribusiness operation that raised capital from US institutional investors and the IFC (International Finance Corporation). Prior to McKinsey, he worked for the…

  Aneta Key shares a concise post that explains the purpose and benefits of her company’s GrowthKey programs. One way to increase the leadership capacity of your organization is to invest in the development of your people and build organizational capabilities. The GrowthKey Programs help you do just that. GrowthKey blended learning approach The GrowthKey professional development programs develop critical strategic, problem-solving, and interpersonal capabilities to elevate the confidence and performance of leaders, high performers groomed for cross-functional assignments, up-and-comers,…

  Amanda Setili shares a few practices designed to help you excel at both long-term and short-term thinking.  Every one of us knows well the constant tug-of-war between long and short-term thinking. You want to lose weight, but you also deeply desire that double chocolate cake. You want to put a new roof on your house, but you also have your heart set on a restorative summer vacation. Long-term big thinking is the foundation of all major accomplishments. From the…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Alun Thomas with Thema. Alun was with McKinsey’s London office from 1991-95. He joined the Firm as an experienced hire, having designed bits of Aero engines and run a battery factory on the edge of the Sahara desert. After consulting and profit responsible leadership in blue-chips, Alun focussed on helping early stage disruptive B2B businesses. Alun has returned to his roots in West Wales and is particularly interested in initiatives that contribute to the decarbonisation…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Nigel Dews with GNG Partners in Growth. Nigel has experience in technology, finance, media, telecommunications, energy, FMCG and venture capital. This experience has spanned executive, board and consulting roles in both public and private companies. Nigel began his career as an Economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia before joining McKinsey & Company and working in Sydney, New York and London offices. Nigel has held leadership roles in many growth companies including as CEO of…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Christoph Traxler with Dr. Traxler Consulting.  Chris has more than 15 years experience as an executive board member within Centrotec, a European group of companies active in many fields including medical technology/ in-vitro-diagnostics, precision engineering, HVAC, solar and plastics technology. Centrotec has 600m revenues, is publicly listed at the Frankfurt stock exchange, but majority-owned by a family, so Chris also knows the world of a family office. Before Centrotec Chris spent four years at McKinsey…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Shailendra Gupta with SG Consulting.  Dr. Shailendra Gupta is an alum of McKinsey & Company, and has 25 years of experience in executive roles at large as well as pre-IPO technology companies. He specializes in Strategy, Business Development and Operations where he has a significant track record of achievement. Shailendra has an MBA from Wharton and a PhD from the University of Maryland in Mechanical Engineering. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Steve Rooks.  Steve Rooks has spent the last 25 years driving value creation across many different industries as a private equity portfolio advisor to TorQuest Partners, AMP Capital, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), Sun Capital and TPG Capital, an executive at Avaya and Bell Canada, and a management consultant at Bain & Company.  His most recent PE portfolio efforts were for TorQuest Partners and AMP Capital to lead value creation in their respective North American…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome Mika Malin. Mika has broad experience in line management and business development roles, as a senior executive and as a management consultant.  He’s tackled complex board level as well as factory floor level business problems as a consultant at the BCG, in a boutique consulting firm and as an independent consultant. Mika has a track record of successfully leading businesses and people with a P&L responsibility, as well as planning and executing strategy and M&A…

Umbrex is pleased to welcome George Nahra with GZN Consulting.  George spent four years in the Chicago office of McKinsey, in the retail and sales & marketing practices, serving predominantly retailers and other consumer-facing clients. After leaving McKinsey, he spent several years as a Senior Management Associate at Bridgewater Associates. He then returned to retail, re-joining Abercrombie & Fitch (where he started his career several years earlier) and building the company’s first Strategic Planning function. He then move to Chico’s FAS, a…