| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | CA and Consulting |
| Level | Senior management |
| Reports to | Partner or Managing Partner |
| Direct reports | Associate Director (Consulting), Engagement Manager, Principal Consultant |
| Experience | 14 or more years in consulting, with several years running a team and a revenue line |
Director (Consulting) job description template
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Job title: Director (Consulting)
Department: CA and Consulting
Reports to: Partner or Managing Partner
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Director in a consulting firm owns a practice or service line end to end: its strategy, its people and its profit and loss. They hold the most senior client relationships, sell the largest engagements, and set the standards other managers deliver to. The role decides which markets and offerings the practice invests in, and answers to the partners for the numbers. A good Director builds a practice that grows faster than the firm, keeps its best people, and produces the next set of leaders.
Key responsibilities
- Own the practice profit and loss, set the yearly revenue, margin and headcount plan, and steer it through monthly and quarterly reviews.
- Set the practice strategy: which industries, offerings and clients to invest in, and where to stop spending.
- Hold the top client relationships, sell large multi year engagements, and sponsor the biggest proposals personally.
- Approve pricing, staffing and risk on major engagements, and act as the final delivery escalation inside the practice.
- Build the leadership bench, decide promotions to manager and associate director, and manage attrition of key people.
- Set delivery methods, quality standards and knowledge assets that every engagement in the practice must follow.
- Protect the firm on independence, confidentiality and conflict of interest across all practice work.
- Represent the practice in the market through speaking, publishing and alliances that create pipeline.
- Review receivables and utilization for the whole practice, and hold managers to the firm's financial discipline.
- Report practice results, pipeline, risks and people plans to the partners each month and each quarter.
Requirements
- MBA from a reputed institute, CA, or an equivalent postgraduate degree
- Recognised expertise in the practice domain
- A track record of building and selling consulting work
- 14 or more years in consulting, with several years running a team and a revenue line
KRAs and KPIs for a Director (Consulting)
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Practice P&L | Practice revenue and gross margin delivered at or above the yearly plan |
| Business development | New and repeat sales meeting the yearly booking target for the practice |
| Utilization | Billable utilization across the practice held within the firm's target band |
| Talent retention | Regretted attrition of managers and above kept below the agreed ceiling each year |
| Client satisfaction | Every major account gives a positive yearly review, with issues closed inside a month |
| Leadership pipeline | At least one manager developed to associate director readiness in the year |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: MS PowerPoint, MS Excel, CRM and pipeline tools, Financial planning tools, Business intelligence dashboards.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Partner (CA Firm), Managing Partner, Chief Executive Officer
Interview questions for a Director (Consulting)
- How would you decide which two offerings to invest in and which to shut down in your practice next year?
- Walk me through a large engagement you sold. Who were the buyers and how did you build trust?
- Your practice hit its revenue target but missed margin badly. How do you diagnose and fix that?
- How do you keep your best managers when a competitor is offering them more money and a bigger title?
- A partner and a major client disagree on the scope of a live engagement. How do you resolve it?
- What does good practice level knowledge management look like, and how do you make people use it?
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What does a director do in a consulting firm?
A director owns a practice or service line: its strategy, its people and its profit and loss. They sell the largest engagements, hold the top client relationships, set quality standards and build the next layer of leaders. Directors answer to the partners for the practice numbers and decide where the practice invests.
What is the difference between a director and a partner in a consulting firm?
A director runs a practice as a senior employee and answers to the partners. A partner is usually an owner of the firm who shares in profit and risk, signs off on regulated work such as audit reports, and sets firm wide direction. Many directors aim to be admitted to the partnership over time.
Who does a director in consulting report to?
A director usually reports to a partner or the managing partner who leads the firm or the wider service group. In larger firms a director may report to a practice head or a regional leader. The reporting line always runs up to the partnership, which owns the firm.