You lose a candidate at offer stage and the feedback comes back as money. So the band gets reviewed, someone pulls a salary guide, and the number moves up by...
The accidental manager: why your best commercial hire is failing in the role
Your best account manager gets promoted to lead the team. It's the obvious decision: they've outperformed for three years, they know the clients, and the team respects them.
Nine months...
Anatomy of a SoW engagement: senior security leadership without a permanent hire
An accountancy software business came through a private equity investment and started restructuring its cost base for the next phase of growth. At the same time it had an ISO...
Build vs buy vs scope: a CIO’s framework for deciding how to deliver
A delivery decision lands on a CIO's desk perhaps once a month. The business needs a capability it does not have, and there are three ways to get it:
- Build...
The case for the senior IC: why your next tech hire should not be a manager
A team grows past six or seven people, delivery starts to wobble, and the instinct is to hire a manager. It is a reasonable reflex but, increasingly often, it’s the...
Q4 hiring planning: the eight questions every leadership team should answer in September
September is often when hiring plans get made properly. Budgets are revisited, Q4 delivery is confirmed, and the roles that drifted through the summer either get committed to or disappear....
How to write a Statement of Work that actually gets delivered
Most Statements of Work fail before anyone starts delivering. Not dramatically, and not necessarily in a way that shows up in the first month. They fail because the document described...
Hiring for FP&A in an AI-augmented world
Ask a finance director what they want from their next FP&A hire and the answer has shifted noticeably in the past two years.
Modelling ability is assumed. What they are...
Data engineering vs data science: who do you actually need to hire first?
The brief usually arrives the same way. The business wants to do more with AI, the board has asked what the plan is, and the first role signed off is...
The summer hiring myth: why August is the smartest month to make critical hires
Every year, the same thing happens. A role gets signed off in July, the hiring manager looks at the calendar, sees half the interview panel on annual leave, and decides...
Five signs your transformation programme should be SoW, not contract
Programme directors face the "how do we deliver this?" question dozens of times a year. Contract or SoW is one of the most consequential answers, and one most organisations default...
