Jolyon Ridgwell, Director
A typical day at Lighthouse usually finds me juggling two roles. As a director in the firm’s financial services practice, I manage a number of projects for clients in the banking and asset management sector. But as the firm’s Director of Operations, I’m also responsible for keeping Lighthouse running smoothly too.
On the client side, I’ll usually be managing up to six client projects at a time. That means co-ordinating each client team to ensure that they work well together and deliver each phase to plan. Client service is one of the issues on which Lighthouse advises. We do our best to practise what we preach! The key to keeping everyone happy is regular communication. So each day, I set aside time to call clients to keep them in the loop. And if the project needs to be adapted, we’re proactive with suggestions.
It’s a huge challenge. I think we’ve picked some of the most demanding sectors to advise and we set ourselves high standards.
In the financial services sector, the diversity of our assignments is fascinating. My background was in institutional broking covering sectors such as retail banking and telecoms and that’s been an invaluable preparation for my work here. In the last 2 months, we’ve delivered projects to 3 of the UK’s leading retail and investment banks on subjects as diverse as the future of the European mortgage sector and the global foreign exchange markets. The subject matter tends to be highly specialised. On top of that, I’m keen that my teams learn quickly about the working culture and style of each client – something I think is vital to the delivery of a good project.
Working with clients on their business challenges, is immensely enjoyable. Presenting our analysis - and a recommended course of action - often concludes an assignment. This morning, I presented the business case for a new product to the marketing director of a bank and her team. The financial impact of my recommendations could be enormous for the bank, so thorough preparation and rigor in the process are essential. We need to give clear answers to the bank’s questions. We expect tough questions and we get them!
As a director at Lighthouse, I draw on every discipline of the MBA programme that I took five years ago - strategy, management, finance, operations and organisational behaviour.
Since Lighthouse was set-up, it has become an increasingly complex business to run. Running projects in different countries, in different languages and with a team of consultants with complementary skills takes a huge amount of co-ordination. Bringing together our teams of analysts, researchers and facilitators also requires organisational skills. As director of operations, I’ll also spend time managing our relationships with suppliers in the UK and our partners worldwide.
Just when you think that you’re in full control of the day’s various tasks, a brief arrives from a potential client who has heard about us. Three other firms have been invited to pitch and have already submitted their proposals, but Lighthouse has been mentioned… Could we submit a proposal within 24 hours?