This year we decided to host our Christmas party outside London for the first time and celebrate the first year anniversary of our Cheltenham office. As I walked into a large boardroom at Eagle Tower and saw room full of people, I was struck by just how far we had come as a company.

Over the past seven years of IEG, we have had numerous different offices of varying size, starting small and growing gradually, but this felt like a big step. The room was full of a perfect mix of new faces and established ones who have built a life and career around Insight and our values.

The Senior Management Team and I delivered our customary end-of-year review and we were keen to capture this feeling of growth, bottle it and display in black, white, and in full colour the milestones that our team had achieved.

I reached for an old presentation I gave to the business two years ago, as we were heading into 2021. It outlined an ambitious five-year company plan; a plan that was based on uncertain times given the pandemic and continued threats of lockdowns internationally. However, as we reminded ourselves of the goals we set ourselves back in 2020 for the next five years, it slowly dawned on us, that we had not only achieved our ambitions for this year, but as a team, we had reached our goals for 2023 and 2024 too – two years early.

Aside from financial targets, people across our company have hit targets in terms of personal growth and development, growing their teams, and spreading their client and candidate reach geographically. We have grown significantly in numbers, which has meant we have seen more promotions to senior positions, Directors, Principal Consultants, and Practice Leads.

As the business as a whole expands, so has our reach. Our Executive Search Services business which is UK based and spearheaded by my business partner Nick White has achieved significant growth in the USA this year – Nick has several live C-suite roles (as I type) in Texas, LA, and New York.

We also have placed international roles within FM and Procurement, with – again live as I type – a live campaign for interim assignments in Saudi Arabia.

So why the sudden growth in the last two years? What has changed? First and foremost, the clear catalyst is that we have doubled down on our principles. Back in the early days of growth for our business – three years in – we were very keen to grow and establish the business further – and upon reflection, maybe we were too keen. This led to a more short-term approach to expansion, making decisions based on gut instinct, growing for the sake of growing in various directions, something which realised we had never set out to do. Hindsight is a valuable gift.

So, 2020 was the year that we took stock and decided to realign our focus. We didn’t put strict timeframes on recruiting internally instead patiently waited for the right people to come along at the right time. By that, I mean people whose values matched the IEG core values. From then on, everything clicked into gear.

I am so proud of our teams and the way they work as they truly embody the principles that IEG was founded upon: honesty, long-term relationships, flexibility, collaboration, altruism, and fundamentally, enjoyment.

These principles apply to IEG on every level, especially outwardly, which is why this year, we have supported more causes than ever that are close to the hearts of people in our team:

1. We’ve been trying to do our bit for future generations by supporting David Shield’s campaign to amend the procurement bill to ensure that environmental impact is evaluated on all public tenders. Despite having had lots of buy-in from the procurement community, it hasn’t gone viral yet so we are asking people to ask friends and family to sign the petition. Would you mind helping too? It takes less than a minute to sign…
2. We are so very pleased to be able to support three charities this Christmas to kick start three of our team members who will be running the London Marathon in 2023 – the charities are the Royal Society for Blind Children –  Lymphoma UK – and Brain Research UK  – we will share more about the runners and their marathon journeys in the New Year.
3. Earlier this year, we felt only right to donate money to support people affected by the war in Ukraine, and donated funds to the Ukrainian Humanitarian Appeal which was doubled by the DEC.

As a company we couldn’t have made this progress without staff, longstanding and new, putting in the effort and truly caring about the business, and exceeding all our expectations. On top of this, we are so grateful to our many candidates and clients who have continued to work with us (some of which since we started seven years ago) – and for that, we thank you deeply.

The only downside for me is that I now have to draw up a new five-year plan (three years too early) and might possibly need to reflect on my forecasting skills…

May I take this opportunity on behalf of the whole (growing) team at Insight Executive Group hope to wish you and your loved ones a healthy and happy 2023.

Richard Collins

Managing Director

Insight Executive Group