Manchester advisors found strategy firm Boardroom Consulting

As Manchester’s consulting industry continues to grow rapidly, a pair of locally based advisors have launched their own firm. Having both been Partners with local brand consultancy True North, Claire Rigby and Martin Carr hope their experience will help the new company to offer clients game-changing services in terms of brand, audience and organisational strategy.

Britain represents the world’s second largest individual market for consulting services, and with the Northern Powerhouse project seeing business boom in the North West in particular, the region has become a popular destination for professional services firms of late. US consultancy Slalom opted to launch a new Manchester office earlier in 2019, while IT firm CGI confirmed the launch of its office in nearby Salford in the Spring. Libra Europe also launched a new locale in Manchester, while Peninsula Group, a mainstay in the area, confirmed it was looking to recruit 70 graduates there, following record levels of growth.

Now, a pair of consultants have joined forces to enter yet another brand into the competitive market. Named Boardroom Consulting, the firm has pulled no punches in its early mission statement. Claire Rigby and Martin Carr intend to provide “a new kind of strategy consultancy” which can help build and develop organisations, places and brands, and ensure they are ever-more relevant to stakeholders and audiences.

Speaking to Business Manchester, Carr said, “We believe that the new ways in which organisations engage with and relate to their audiences demand that this clarity is now front, centre and fundamental. And having launched boardroom consulting we’re gratified by the growing recognition and appetite for this point of view as well as for our input and ideas.”

Carr brings almost 20 years of sector experience to the role, having spent 15 years of that with Manchester based brand consultancy True North. Latterly, Carr was a Managing Partner with the firm, before joining Intrepid Projects as a Principal in 2017. Rigby meanwhile draws on more than two decades in brand consulting, spending seven years of that with True North as a Strategy Partner, before a spell as Marketing Strategy Lead with BBC North. She also went into business as an independent consultant, under the brand Red Thread Logic.

Having decided that the time was right to launch a joint venture, Carr and Rigby will now look to build a consultancy which can work with leaders to identify the fundamentals of their organisational identity; and strategise to play to those strengths. According to a post by Rigby on LinkedIn, Boardroom Consulting has already “had a gratifyingly positive response from those we have spoken to about our view on this new dynamic affecting organisations,” leading to it being commissioned by the Natural History Museum, Zoological Society of London and London Zoo, Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

Rigby added, “Boardroom operates at the intersection of brand, audience and organisational strategy to help leaders plan for and succeed at change. We help to identify and define the fundamentals of identity that underpin future strategy; unlocking new opportunities, successfully engaging stakeholders and audiences and driving growth.”