How the right board support and network helped drive 5x growth in 3 years at Rathbone Results

When Jim Rathbone, Founder of Rathbone Results, joined The Consultancy Growth Network (TCGN) in 2022, the business was a successful husband-and-wife two-partner lifestyle business.

Jim says, “We got to the stage where Cora Lynn and I wanted to transition from a lifestyle business to one of growth.” That required putting the right structure, challenge and support around the business so it could grow beyond the founders.

A big part of that came through meeting TCGN Growth Expert, Marcia Marini. Jim turned to Marcia to help answer a critical question: ‘What do we want to do going forward?’

That relationship proved transformational. But it was not the only value Rathbone Results drew from TCGN. Alongside Marcia’s board-level support, the wider network gave Jim access to other founders, practical insights and benchmarking that helped shape the business’s next phase of growth.

“It has been great to speak to other founders, as well as listen to case studies of founders being interviewed by Marc Jantzen”, he says. “This has provided not just the inspiration to grow but given practical insight into what needs to change to scale.”

Year 1: alignment and ambition

As a result of those early discussions with Marcia, Rathbone Results brought in a CEO, Andrew Bailey, Jim moved into the chair role and Marcia joined the board as an investor and non-executive director.

They then worked out what growth would require, describing it as ‘a year of alignment and exploration’. Jim says it involved “a lot of alignment on strategy and a lot of strategic debates” as the business looked at broadening its services and market sectors.

This was where the combination of board support and wider network value started to come together. Marcia helped provide the strategic challenge and structure at board level, while TCGN also gave Rathbone Results ways to assess where the business was and where it needed to go. Jim says, “The maturity assessments provided insight into where we needed to improve.”

Year 2: building the right structure

Events have provided insights into the critical success factors for growing a profitable and valuable consulting business.

In the second year, the focus shifted from ambition to operating model.

As the business grew, Rathbone Results began adding the capability needed to support a larger firm. In Jim’s words, growth meant “bringing in key people”, including leadership in technology, data and AI, finance and marketing.

Just as importantly, the business clarified the distinction between board and executive responsibilities. Jim said this was “really important because with a new CEO coming in who wanted a level of space, I stepped back. I wasn’t part of the SLT, my primary role was to chair the Board.”

That clearer separation gave the new structure room to work. Marcia also helped the team document “what the role of the board was and the role of the executive team” so everyone could align around the same model.

Alongside that, Jim continued to draw on the wider TCGN community for practical guidance on what strong consultancy growth looks like. “In-person events have provided insights into the critical success factors for growing a profitable and valuable consulting business,” he says.

He also points to “invaluable sessions on partnerships, pricing and marketing” as important sources of learning as Rathbone Results built stronger commercial foundations.

Year 3: turning change into growth

We’ve grown our business by a factor of 5 over three years.

By year three, the benefits of that shift were quantifiable.

The business had stronger foundations, clearer leadership and a more mature approach to growth. The commercial impact was significant.

“We’ve grown our business by a factor of 5 over three years.”

For Jim, though, the bigger win is what sits underneath that growth. “We’ve put in a lot of foundations for future strategic growth,” he says, “including investment in technology, data and AI, financial management, marketing, go-to-market planning and we’ve built stronger systems.”

TCGN’s benchmarking and peer learning also helped the business keep improving as it scaled. Jim says Consultancy BenchPress has provided “invaluable insights into where we are doing well and where we need to do better”.

And being able to learn from peers who were a few steps ahead helped the team keep looking forward. As Jim puts it, “This was vital to take the learnings for the future and not focus on why we had not done better in the past.”

Board support and network value, working together

I wish the Network had existed 10 years ago.

Jim is clear that Rathbone Results would not have made this progress without TCGN. “I wish the Network had existed 10 years ago,” he says.

And asked whether Rathbone Results would have achieved that level of growth without setting up a board, his answer was direct: “No, it wouldn’t.”

That is what makes this story so powerful. Insight, structure and actionable support at both the tactical and board-level.