Every firm is being told AI changes everything. Few can tell you what it's actually worth to them. We benchmark over 700 consulting firms, and our data puts revenue per employee near $160K today. Over the next couple of years, we expect the leading firms to double it, by turning the tools and data they already run on into an intelligent ecosystem that drives action across the firm. Season 3 opens on the question that defines the rest of it: what does healthy growth and profitability actually look like in the AI era?

Mark Orttung (Projectworks CEO) and Dominique Rennell (Projectworks CCO) are joined by Christophe Delaire, the CEO of Marshall Day Acoustics, to discuss what good differentiation looks like at different stages. Marshall Day Acoustics is a one-of-a-kind acoustics consultancy with a global team of experts working everywhere from concert halls to wind farms.

New Projectworks data from over 700 firms points to one operational habit separating the fastest growers from the rest. (Spoiler alert: It's resource optimization.)

What is your consulting firm actually worth? Allen Debes and Mark Orttung have bought and sold more than 10 consulting firms between them. In this episode, they break down how buyers arrive at a number, what moves your multiple, and why exit preparation starts earlier than most founders think.

There are plenty of brilliant delivery leaders in professional services. People who keep complex projects moving, clients happy, and teams focused. They're good at what they do. (Often very good.) But a ceiling exists and most of them hit it. Not because they lack skill. Not because they haven't put in the time. But because the thing that makes someone a great delivery operator is not the same thing that makes them a credible executive. In our latest podcast episode, Projectworks CEO Mark Orttung sat down with Joanna Moore (COO at OCM and a 20-year professional services veteran across Australia, Europe, and APAC) to unpack what that transition actually looks like.

In a recent Projectworks Podcast episode, Doug Taylor (who co-founded Provoke and scaled it to 150 staff) sat down with Mark Orttung (who took Nexient from $30m to $130m). Together, they co-wrote The $50 Million Consulting Firm, and in this episode they shared a collection of lessons they wish they'd had earlier when scaling their software consulting firms.

Novigi has an impressive story. Since launching in 2016, they’ve scaled to 550 staff across six offices and two countries, while becoming the fastest-growing professional services firm on the AFR Fast 100 - their story is worth studying.

Many consulting firms look healthy from the outside, yet behind the scenes everything is only just holding together. Often the problem comes down to operational infrastructure that isn’t fit for purpose. Common examples include everything still depending on a small number of people, leadership teams avoiding the elephant in the room, and the firm’s Founder being the only source of new business. Sound a little too close to home? Read on, or watch the latest episode of the Projectworks Podcast below.

Winning work is getting harder for a simple reason: the shape of demand has changed. In the episode, we unpack what we’re seeing in Projectworks data, and what it means for proposals, margins, and your delivery team’s sanity.

Consulting firm growth does not slow down politely. It hits a wall. One month you are humming, the next you are swamped with work but somehow moving slower.

Most consulting firms grow by default. Fewer grow by design. That distinction matters more than many leaders realise, especially if the goal is to build a firm that attracts a strong revenue multiple. In the first episode of Season two of The Projectworks Podcast, Mark Orttung and Dominique Rennell introduced the Growth Maturity Model they are developing to help consulting leaders answer a hard but necessary question: is your firm actually built in a way someone else would want to buy it?

When I first became CEO of consulting firm Nexient, things felt stuck. We were doing a lot of $100k, $200k, $500k projects, and were just stuck at a wall between $30M and $40M in revenue.