Episode 90 Transcript

Brent Trimble: Welcome to the Professional Services Pursuit, a podcast featuring expert advice and insights on the professional services industry. Again, I'm Brent. Today I'm joined by a great guest, Angela Navarro. Angela is the CEO of Kinavic Leadership Acceleration, a firm focused on helping professional services firms predict and accelerate the performance of their partner in managing director talent. As we're recording here in early 2025, one thing on the mind of many consulting firms is, of course, growth. For a lot of these firms to scale successfully, they have to have the talent and be able to maximize that talent. That's the focus of Kinavic. Angela, welcome and we're happy to have you.

Angela Navarro: Thank you for having me.

Brent Trimble: Before we dive in and learn about how you index, predict, and help optimize talent, tell us a bit of background and of the Kinavic story. How did the company come about? How was it conceived and maybe some of that journey for our listeners?

Angela Navarro: Thank you. Kinavic is a specialty consulting firm. We serve professional services to help partner talent perform better faster. I say specialty because we serve professional services and we drive toward performance acceleration. That's what we specialize in.

My career was spent entirely in professional services and human capital. I sat in the seat as you have. I sat in a senior exec role at a global consulting firm, and I had the remit of talent through performance, which meant hiring, deploying, measuring talent performance, utilization, all of those things. What I really experienced firsthand was the most well-intended strategy, the most externally appealing culture and people plans didn't always add up to maximizing performance. We're in the service of services business where people are the product and what we know is the partners in these firms are disproportionately important to that success.

We set out to say what would make a partner successful in professional services. We studied the top 20% of the peer group: managing directors, partners, senior managing directors, exemplars, to look at what data markers existed. We partnered with Hogan Assessments. Hogan helped us, and they validated those data markers against 18,000 partners in professional services globally, which helped us develop our IP, Verity Professional Services Leadership Assessment, which is a mouthful. We'll just go with Verity.

We learned what creates and counters success. We use that IP to predict and accelerate success at the partner level. Think of us as consultants to the consulting firms. There is a little distinction because we work toward performance acceleration, not necessarily leadership development.

Brent Trimble: We'll get into this a little bit. I think a lot of our listeners understand that dimension of the managing director, someone who has worked their way up that career ascendancy within a global consulting firm or an ascendant firm.

We're going to talk about the size of that a little bit. But really, when you achieve that level and we've both been in that seat, you're there to perform. You're there to bring in revenue to the firm, maintain revenue that you've won, cultivate, widen, and broaden relationships and talent along the way.

It sounds that IP and the assessment that you've cultivated is razor focused on those individuals. Because let's face it, as a firm grows, over time, they want to add these types of folks. They're expensive so they have to have a return on that. That's really fascinating. You came up with the IP and then the journey form this very specialized consultancy, Kinavic. How long have you been doing this in that kind of dimension?

Angela Navarro: The journey started about six years ago. It took a while to develop the IP with Hogan and then to develop our methodology of how to really support the acceleration of partner track. We've been a standalone company for about four years. The IP development took a bit longer than that.

Brent Trimble: Gotcha. Sounds great. Angela, we've had other guests and content partners that focus on helping consultancies optimize and be better. Think of Kennedy Intelligence and Tom Rodenhauser and those guys. He had this notion around consultants heal thyself. Going out, you're helping other firms perform, optimize, transform, whatever the case might be, but internally, you would think, leaders are great. Leaders there are equipped to help others lead or performers are performing at the peak of their performance. Your firm and your focus is really around that latter. You're not necessarily a more horizontal kind of leadership development acumen. You're really focused on performance. Maybe you can explain that difference to our listeners.

Angela Navarro: Sure. We say performance acceleration versus traditional leadership development because what we know about adults is that they learn best and most quickly by doing. Traditional programs are really important. I would say our clients have some of the most impressive learning organizations on the globe. It's just not what we do.

We don't send folks to class or run simulations. We're helping partners and firms or partner teams understand how to increase performance and create experiential, fast-acting, actionable opportunities to learn while doing.

If you put that into action, we're using data, our IP, Verity, and we're able to quickly see, how does this partner or group of partners line up to what you're asking them to do? How will they do it more successfully? I think it's important to just state that all of the clients we work with are going through some sort of transformation. They're all doing something differently or trying to. It's constant.

What we're asking these partners to do is perform and transform at the same time, sort of convergence. To do that, you want to make sure that you're understanding the wiring of the individuals so that you can outline how to help them be more successful more quickly.

Brent Trimble: Angela, in our business and in the podcast and our listenership, we're talking many times to ascendant firms, several hundred consultants up to several thousand, some having come from global consulting, but really around that notion of growth operations and beginning that journey some to just continue to grow, some to position for an acquisition, whatever the case might be. In your business doing this evaluation, at what stage firm are you typically working with to help optimize their Managing Director talent, their leadership talent?

Angela Navarro: Really, growth focused, as you mentioned earlier, professional services, those may be PE-backed. It could be public, but, everything from mid-sized mid-market and then we're working with global tier 1 and tier 2 firms. I would say though that the intersection is when growth needs to be sustainable and foundational and you know that you'll have to do the hiring or transitioning of important partner resources in order to meet that growth.

Brent Trimble: Absolutely. I think we all sort of have a nominal understanding of that in dimensionalized growth. I'll put out a statement, I think.

When I was at a global consulting firm and was at that specific level, my revenue target was in the, we'll say, more than $10 million. That was my expectation. It varies from firm to firm and sometimes it'll be on a ladder and so forth. There was a real expectation of performance. From that expectation, the firm is then able to build out their plans for growth because if these MDs perform and are at least close in the vicinity of those targets, of course, the firm grows and then quantifies over time.

In your experience, what are some of those biggest challenges aside from you coming in and optimizing? Do you find sometimes they overshoot or they think that maybe they add too many MDs, maybe the wrong type, the fit isn't there? When they're starting in this journey, what are the things that jump out to you initially?

Angela Navarro: In the people business and you mentioned it, you can buy or build. If you're buying the resources that you need to scale growth, you're hiring from outside, those could be traditional or non-traditional, which we could get into, hiring out of industry or hiring seasoned consulting leaders. They could also be acquiring firms with specialty capabilities, skills, technology, or building from within. They really are the two levers that you have. They can promote internally. They can get more out of the partners they have. I will say the most successful clients we see, it's a yes and; you're doing both. If you're hiring we can talk about those stats, but they're not great today on the success of direct admit partners.

Brent Trimble: What do you mean by that? Maybe expand on that a little bit.

Angela Navarro: Yeah. If you think about direct admits today, about a third fail in the first two years in role. Fifty percent fail to launch. Let's say they stay but they're not hitting their targets. What we see is 1 in 10 directed mid hires are exceeding targets as expected in the time expected. Hiring is not the only way you're going to get that growth with those statistics. You have to do more than just hire.

Brent Trimble: It's sort of that and I bet many of myself and I bet a lot of our listeners have been through this.

You've helped the firm reach a certain stage of growth, the firm is growing, and it's time to mature and reach that next tranche of growth. We're 100 million in revenue. We want to get to 120. We just need some of those folks that have cut their teeth at McKinsey, Accenture, or Deloitte—stern face, serious nature, whip smart, Tumi luggage, living on the plane.

They can bring in 20, 30, 40, 50 million, 100 million a year. They've got the Rolodex, and yes, the compensation package has to be really compelling for them to leave.

Some are wired for helping firms grow, or everyone I find says they are. The reality is a little different—I might want to touch on that. They come with much fanfare. Everyone's excited. They're going to tell this new ascendant firm how things are going to be, and what you're saying is something like one in three of those hires are failing.

Angela Navarro: Yes. That's what we see today. I'll also tell you, if you're hiring nontraditional hires, so you’re hiring out of industry, which many firms are doing, those stats are more alarming. You used a word that I want to pull on.

Brent Trimble: Hopefully, it’s not a bad word.

Angela Navarro: No, it's not a bad word.

Brent Trimble: All right. Because I was just at SKO, and the libations were flowing. But anyway, go ahead.

Angela Navarro: Wiring because if you think about it, firms are hiring—and I'm going to call them rainmakers. They're seasoned. They've been there, done that. They're coming into the firms to help scale. The same job at a new firm is not the same job. I think we need to just be real about that because the wiring may be—culture changes. Expectations change. You're in a bit of a time stress, and it's not always your best foot forward. Those stats and the reasons those are happening is because of the structures in the firms that are hiring them. It's the preparedness to take in that kind of talent and help them hit the ground running. They may be wired to do something in their past that doesn't translate today in the new role. It happens more often than not.

Brent Trimble: Yeah, just ships passing in the night, just trains moving in opposite directions with the best of intentions. Let's go back maybe to the firm that is doing the hiring. I know you work with global firms. You're working to optimize that prototypical partner, that prototypical MD in one of the big 4 or 5 and then the tier below that. Talk to us a little bit about that ascendant firm. Where did you find that they've come to this realization or this desire that they want to bring on a new MD? You used the term I was not familiar with, admission hire?

Angela Navarro: Nontraditional.

Brent Trimble: Nontraditional. Gotcha.

Angela Navarro: Yes, so out of industry or didn't grow up in consulting.

Brent Trimble: Okay, now that makes sense to me. I wasn't sure if you were just meaning kind of out of the firm and not hired from within. That makes sense of it. Is it size? Is it momentum? Is it Gosh, we've flatlined? We really need someone to come in with that heavy Rolodex and bring us growth. What are the triggers you see that bring them? Then we'll go to the person of why they might want to make that switch.

Angela Navarro: Firms are hiring for the exact reasons that you said. They've come to a place where they're either needing to add a different capability. They're adding geos, they're leaning into client service. They want to serve more clients and grow the firm. They're hiring really seasoned MDs that have done this.

What I hear a lot is, they've done this before. They're a no-brainer. They've been so successful elsewhere, they're just going to be successful here. What we find is it's just not that simple. It really does require the acquiring firm to be really consistent. Tell the story at the beginning of the process when you're doing the dance to recruit someone and be consistent all the way through to what you are holding them accountable to do.

A lot's changed about the partner track of recent years. It's just not always the same thing. We work with firms, to be clear, of all sizes. I would actually say the smaller mid-size mid-market firms probably can benefit from us faster.

Brent Trimble: Well, the implications for failure are much more profound for them because bringing on an MD salary is a heavy load. They've got to make it work. Accenture can afford to—

Angela Navarro: Well, and those stats don’t help.

Brent Trimble: Exactly. They've got to be better than hitting on one out of three. That's really interesting. From the talent side then, we've made it, and it's 2025. This is an MD that's been, rode the school bus to the firm as an analyst, battled their way up the ranks, made that MD class four or five, six, ten years ago is now ready for something new. They decide to join a firm to do X growth, be that change agent and then they fail. What are the things that sort of motivate them to make that jump? Where do you see their expectations kind of fall flat?

Angela Navarro: Well in some cases we see these MDs join because they can be a bigger fish in a small pond. I've personally done that. I get that, they have a lot to offer. People are listening. Maybe they're going from one size firm to the other. What I think is important to note is for the individual that same saying, I mean, I hate to say it again, but, you've been successful to date, you're going to a new firm. You have to really make sure that you're willing to step outside of yourself and say, hey, I'm going to have to do something different because I'm in a new culture, I'm in a new environment. I have new, individual performance targets that may be different from what I've had in the past. I may have a different support system. You're likely not to have the apprenticeship that you've been accustomed to if you've grown up in the ranks.

Brent Trimble: Gotcha. That makes sense. We’re speaking from a perspective of decades of success in building this model. The big firms got this right and they found the kind of person; motivated, ruthless meritocracy, willing to work murderous hours. I'm looking at you and I know we've shared this, just insane. When you look back at why did we do this for months on end? It's just bonkers. But it's an adrenaline business, always on the go. It's a lifestyle decision. You're not going to see your family Sunday through Thursday and those types of things. But that makes a lot of sense. That’s a radical shift. Along those lines, how is the model changing? Is this newer generation willing to do that traditional go through the gauntlet 10 to 15 years, maybe make MD? Is it still looked at as an attractive type of career path, or is that really shifting as well?

Angela Navarro: Yeah, the partner track is changing. I still love it. I'm still in it. It's still in some of us, but there is more lateral hiring. That's one key trend.

What that means for folks that are coming up, we have clients today where they're hiring in MDs, SMDs over, early partners more than they're promoting. There's more emphasis today on individual performance than there used to be. There used to be, in the days we're talking about, double, triple counting, be a part of something, those models have changed a little.

Certainly for new direct admits, the focus is on individual performance. There's less apprenticeship. Some folks say that's a good thing. Some folks say it isn't, but that's true. Due to the shift in ownership and leadership models, there's a shorter runway to hit your targets.

What's interesting though is what isn't changing. I see that firms are changing fast enough to support mid and later career partners. You'd expect that these firms would learn from trends in the partner turnover and stats. Hiring is not enough. Bigger firms are going to hire bigger classes than smaller firms are.

It's absolutely possible to make shifts that result in a higher ROI and higher engagement. It's quite literally what we all do in consulting and professional services for our clients. What isn't changing fast enough is a focus on setting up partners from the outside that are coming in or developing next-gen partners from the inside to increase performance.

I'll give you a quick stat. Average spend on partner development—which I'm going to say development. I know that those listening won't see my air quotes. Development's a big bucket. But it's between 1.2% and 3% of compensation. If you do that math, it's not very much. It's minute. It's the first item that gets cut from costs when you tighten the belt.

What's left is many of our clients have the most well-established learning and development programs on the planet. They do that really well. That's not actually what we do. But we just sort of get that, we pay these folks a lot of money, they should know what to do.

If you think about the 1 in 10, do they? What they should be doing and what we see our clients doing is they're using success rates. We bring a benchmark. We've talked about that. We bring a benchmark, but then look at what are your growth trajectory? What is your mandate? How do you look at the wiring—I'm going to use the word you used earlier—to make sure that the folks you're hiring or developing are able to pivot quickly and execute a higher performance?

The rising tide lifts all boats. That's the model and we don't see enough of that.

Brent Trimble: You've given us and our listeners a lot to think about. This is the kind of episode that we usually see a lot of interest from many firms who are in this boat. Economically, there's tender shoots of consulting starting to rebound. We went through the surge in demand in Covid, then the retrenchment from overhiring. Now we're seeing a little bit of a slowdown.

There is growth, and maybe they're a very specialized consultancy doing some really interesting advisory work. Maybe they're just a bunch of partners that banded together, whatever the dimension may be, but they're on this journey and they're in 2025. They are probably going to make one of these hires or are contemplating. It sounds like if I had to recap a few key points, the stats are not great. Proceed with caution and be deliberate. The notion of the Rolodex hire can replicate your success, it's interesting because we see that in sports. How many times have you seen an elite athlete at the peak of their career and ability, leave their rookie contract. They get the big guaranteed money and don't really quite live up to those expectations, so it's common not just in business.

If you had 2 or 3 key anecdotes to leave with a firm that's going through some growth, contemplating the partner hire, MD hire, needs it for success, what would you have them consider? What would be, as you’re starting to filter in and vector in on that?

Angela Navarro: There are two or three things that you could do if you're making that investment and new one or two partner hires. Let's not assume that a seasoned partner doesn't need help. Be intentional about the success that they bring, how that might translate in what you're asking them to do.

I would say think about the spend. Don't spend less on your most valued resources. Where you can use data to understand the wiring of really important resources to increase their performance, you should do that.

I think helping helps; that's another thing to remember. When someone starts in a new role or is promoted, frankly, into a partner role, make sure that you don't blink. Make sure that you're supporting them, that you have a plan. It helps when you have a third party because there's a little bit of psychological safety. People get to take missteps. If a bone breaks, don't let it set in. Make sure that you're supporting people, because the folks that are doing that aren't having those stats. You can beat those stats.

The partner talent in your firm is going to be the most important talent that you'll have. Not that everybody's not important, but they're disproportionately important to a growth strategy. Make sure that you're using a new lens on how to make sure that they hit the ground running and they hit their time to traction goals. Frankly, the faster they do that, everybody wins.

I would also say that for clients that invest in performance acceleration at the partner level, they can put the investment to dozens of partners. It pays for itself with one partner not attuning or failing to launch. It's really that simple to just make sure that you're really intentional about building a plan to help somebody succeed quickly.

Brent Trimble: That's great advice. It’s interesting when you talk about the types of success they've had. Don't assume they have not had support, for instance.

I don't know if you've ever come across the Instagram account @crazymgmtconsultants and the meme they started. You're enjoying a few hours in the, I don't know, whatever Bonvoy property pool before your flight home and the partner just sends you—you’ve built this deck and it's glorious. It's a masterpiece. You're a senior manager, and you've got an army of young analysts, and then the partner feedback is please fix; P-L-Z-F-X. So it's kind of interesting.

But a lot of those people say, yes, we've got to help these partners. They didn't get here and don't transact all this work on their own.

But that's really good advice. This has been a fascinating conversation. I love the fact of how specialized you are in your consultancy. We've had other guests and some themes around that, like specialization is key. It's a great niche to focus on and maximizing talent of the most important talent, the MD and the partner hire, within your consulting firm is great.

For our guests, just to recap, Angela is the CEO of Kinavic Leadership Acceleration. You can take a look at their offering, download any insights or research at kinavic.com. You can find that in the show notes. And again Angela, this has been great. We appreciate the time you spent with us.

Angela Navarro: Brent, you've been great. Love connecting, and I'm going to look up that Instagram post because that’s going to be my new follow.

Brent Trimble: Yeah. Prepare to burn some time in between flights. It's a fantastic account. But for our listeners, as always, thank you for listening in today. If you have any follow-up questions for myself or my guest, Angela, today, please email us at podcast@kantata.com and we're always happy to chat. Thank you.

Angela Navarro: Thanks for having me.

Brent Trimble: If you enjoyed this podcast, let us know by giving the show a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and leaving a comment. If you haven't already subscribed to the show, you could do so anywhere you get podcasts on any podcast app. To learn more about the power of Kantata’s purpose-built technology, go to kantata.com. Thanks again for listening.