Management consulting firm Q5 has grown from a converted basement in London in 2008, to a team of 300 people with offices in Europe, North America, the Middle East & Africa, and Asia Pacific. The firm’s purpose is “to build healthy organisations to propel people, economies and societies forward.”
Co-founder and Managing Director Olly Purnell says influence, reach and contribution play key roles in Q5’s growth strategy and explains why he believes purpose and values are more important now than ever. Listen to the conversation on this episode of The Purposeful Strategist.
Olly Purnell is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Q5. Graduating from Edinburgh University in the early '90s, Olly started his consulting career in at Accenture (or Andersen Consulting as it was known at the time) thirty years ago.
Fifteen years into his career, Olly set up Q5 with a mission to help leaders improve the "organisation health" of their businesses. The company celebrated its 15th anniversary recently and has not deviated (that much) from its core purpose. Each week, a team of around 300 "Q5ers" help business decision-makers (in c. 150 companies per annum) implement their organisational strategies, engage their top teams and structure their work in a way that will provide the best chance of delivering high performance.
Olly has been married to Emma for 25 years and they have three daughters. One of the driving forces behind Olly's decision to set up Q5 was to have more control over where he delivered his work (which had been largely "out-of-town" in larger firms), when his children were very young. Creating a positive, open and compassionate working environment has been a core driver for Olly and his senior team at Q5. Over the last decade and a half, the company has regularly been listed as one of the best consulting firms to work for (with FT, Forbes, Great Place to Work, Sunday Times, Top Consultancy awards a plenty). Q5 was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise five years ago, for its international consulting endeavours.
Q5 has offices in London, Leeds and Cardiff (in the UK), New York and Houston (in the US), Muscat (in Oman), Riyadh (in Saudi Arabia), Sydney and Melbourne (in Australia), and is a proud member of The Transformation Alliance (TTA). The TTA is a group of five independent European consulting firms that serves clients across Europe, from offices in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and, of course, the UK (through Q5).
Olly Purnell