Nathaniel Greene knows the kind of consultant he's looking for. At first, his list sounds pretty typical: "They're bright, they've got to be caring and want to help people—we're a professional services firm after all—and just have great interpersonal skills." But dig a little deeper, and the Stroud consultant stands out from the pack, Greene says: "And they typically have a bit of a maverick streak."
Greene, managing partner and CEO, is looking for mavericks to help grow Stroud, an operations and management firm that launched in 2001, because he wants to keep the firm's entrepreneurial spirit intact. "[Our clients] say we're the only ones approaching things the way we do, and [that] we typically do the impossible. So we need people who aren't afraid of that and are happy to take a different approach."
Greene says he's willing to go to great lengths to find ideal employees. "We'll run tests in the beginning, we'll screen their resume, we'll do a quick interview to make sure they've got the basics and so on," Greene says. "Then we'll put them through a daylong selection session and then we'll do a final interview with them," he adds, explaining his own time with each prospective hire can last about two-and-a-half hours. "Because we're hiring a relatively small number of people, we don't have to dip too low into the pool. We can really pick the people we want."
And the effort is paying off. "The business is doing fantastic," he says, adding that Stroud has clients who are waiting for the firm to have the resources, be it time or people, to work them into its schedule. "We don't so much chase clients so much as opportunities keep appearing," he says, emphasizing that Stroud, which has an office in Massachusetts, the U.K. and Australia, is looking to build long-term relationships with clients. "The people we worked for when we started our business, we're still working with them," he says, adding that Stroud's mission is to unleash client potential. "We see a tremendous amount of opportunity out there that's untapped in life. And lots of bright people trying to do great things, and barriers just stand in their way." Stroud breaks down those barriers—and has the results to prove it: The firm boasts a 10 to 40 percent improvement in a client's key business metrics within six months, without capital expenditure. That success is clearly part of the reason our survey respondents gave the firm high marks in The Job category.
Greene says success has come not only from the quality of the hires he's brought on, but also from the firm's philosophy of doing a job until it's done. That's why the firm guarantees all of its work, he says, adding. "It has several advantages, but the main thing is it keeps you focused on what's important." —Jacqueline Durett
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