Walking the Talk, a ZRG Partners, is a fast-growing consultancy, globally recognized as leaders in culture transformation and we’re looking for a Client Director to lead client projects and grow our market in North America. You'll be a consultant with at least 10 years culture transformation experience who loves client delivery work and business development in equal measures.

Walking the Talk directors play a pivotal role in Walking the Talk’s success. The role is strongly commercial, with a significant focus being on sales and business development, as well as leading projects, client delivery and building capability within the firm.

Location

We are predominantly a virtual organization, with consultants and staff working from home. You will be based in East Coast US.

Contribution to clients’ success

Walking the Talk directors sell and lead projects across all elements of our end to culture transformation methodology, using our proprietary tools. They are not necessarily experts in each area, but they have enough understanding of what each involves to be able to sell end-to-end projects.

The four main areas of our work are as follows:

Culture design:

• Helping clients identify the target culture they want and need to achieve their business strategy.
• Conducting current culture assessments using both qualitative and quantitative tools.
• Co-creating a culture blueprint that clearly lays out the target culture and the priority mindset and behavior changes that are required.

Managing culture:

• Co-creating a compelling culture narrative that enables clients to communicate the rationale and essence of their culture change to all employees.
• Working with clients to create a focused, practical plan to transform their culture including metrics, initiatives and governance.

Leading culture:

• Working with the top team and senior leaders to build their capability to lead culture transformation.
• Conducting 180/360 degree feedback and coaching senior leaders and top team members to change their mindsets and patterns of behavior.
• Designing programs for and working directly with extended leadership teams to embed the culture change and improve team dynamics and performance.

Activate culture:

• Communicating the client’s culture story and supporting them to create an effective communication plan.
• Developing and running culture champion and key influencer programs.
• Designing and delivering key behavior programs.

In addition, our directors have a solid understanding of organizations and a curiosity about our clients’ business challenges.

Contribution to the growth of Walking the Talk

An important part of the director role is business development and sales activity with existing clients and prospects. This means that directors:

• Actively develop their own network to identify new business opportunities and introduce contacts to Walking the Talk
• Engage in sales activity: responding to enquiries, attending meetings with prospects, writing proposals, closing deals etc
• Actively drive marketing activities (e.g. events, culture clinics, keynotes, targeting of prospects)
• Have an active social media presence, leveraging the extensive Walking the Talk IP and content
• Spot and nurture opportunities with existing clients to expand engagements, on-selling different services, getting referrals to different parts of clients’ businesses and wider network.

Contribution to the development of Walking the Talk

In addition, directors also contribute to the development of the business by, for example:

• Contributing to the development of Walking the Talk’s products and services development.
• Supporting other members of the Walking the Talk team, e.g. coaching more junior team members.
• Working on internal projects such as our brand and purpose refresh, training programs etc.

Measures of success

We assess directors’ contributions holistically, taking into account factors such as:

• Commercial contribution – to what extent are you making a positive commercial contribution to the business, by selling $1-2 million worth of projects per year, and leading projects profitably?
• Client magic – do clients feel you are a credible trusted advisor and are they delighted with the work you do for them and the way in which you partner them?
• Impact of the work on the client organization – what have you caused to change with individuals, teams and the whole organization?
• Role model of our culture – to what extent do you role model our culture goals of client centricity, one-team and people-first, building constructive working relationships with colleagues throughout the firm?

Key skills required

• Sales and business development skills : how to spot, nurture and close commercial opportunities in new and existing clients, how to network
• Content expertise : how to create culture, behavior and organizational change.
• Instructional design : the ability design workshops and events that transfer learning in engaging and effective ways.
• Facilitation : the ability to facilitate group discussions to explore topics, reach actions and agreements in an engaging, constructive and inclusive manner
• Training delivery : the ability to deliver our content in engaging and memorable ways, with credibility and energy
• Coaching : the ability to work 1:1 with leaders, to establish trust and help them change their mindsets and behaviors, translating our insights into practical tips they can put into practice immediately
• Observation : the ability to observe patterns of behavior in action in client meetings/workshops, to make links to the client’s culture goals and to play back what you see in a constructive and informative way
• Personal insight : awareness of your own challenges and personal growth stories that you can share with clients to bring our content to life
• Business acumen : commerciality, being business savvy, able to sell and develop work as well as connect meaningfully to clients’ business realities and challenges
• Project leadership : organizational skills, client stakeholder management skills and political intelligence to navigate the client organization, the ability to lead a team of consultants and project managers,
• Technology: ability to use all the basic technological tools, including the Microsoft suite of products and virtual platforms such as Zoom and Teams.

Progression path

From a director role, you can progress to a member of the Walking the Talk leadership team. As ZRG grows its human capital business, there are also likely to be additional progression opportunities that we are not yet aware of.

To move to the executive director role, we will need to see evidence that you are:

• Selling $3M per year
• Proactively building the external profile and social media presence of yourself and Walking the Talk
• Managing and coaching senior consultants
• Making a significant contribution to the development of the firm, so that you are able to take global management responsibility with respect to one element of the strategy (sales, assessment, product etc).

Working at Walking the Talk

Walking the Talk is part of the ZRG group, the fastest growing Search company globally with over 500 employees.

At Walking the Talk you’ll have the opportunity to work side by side with talented, motivated, and intellectually stimulating colleagues who thrive on helping leading organizations solve their most pressing behavioral business challenges. We work in a collaborative environment and support flexible working arrangements for all roles. Our teams are located across North and South America, the UK, Europe, Australia and Asia.

Walking the Talk and ZRG Partners are Equal Opportunity Employers that do not discriminate on the basis of actual or perceived race, creed, color, religion, alienage or national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability or handicap, sex, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, genetic information, arrest record, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws. Our management team is dedicated to this policy with respect to recruitment, hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, training, compensation, benefits, employee activities and general treatment during employment.