Despite my rather bullish predictions of a much busier 2024 when I wrote my 'end of year review' a year ago, it turns out I was completely wrong. Once again.
This serves only to remind me that while I love predictions, my ‘bias for optimism’ has been further chastened. But it’s often in the tough times when we learn the most. This year has shown us that when you run an ambitious business, you need a healthy dose of resilience and gratitude to keep the show on the road.
Our clients and network
It has been another tough year for our clients – PE deal flow was lacklustre for the second year in a row, consulting firms shed staff, VC-backed business were desperately trying to ‘move to profit’, and corporates felt more cautious on both hiring and investing in consulting services.
We have never had so many candidates applying to our sought-after network and on one occasion in September we received a record-breaking 700 applications for a single role. Maybe this is no surprise given uncertainties in geo-politics, higher interest rates, weak economic growth and general market caution.
Resilience and growth
So while Freshminds might not have got much bigger in the last year, we have focused on getting better - building the resilience of the team and the business more broadly. And there has been plenty to celebrate. We were accredited for the second year in a row (with higher scores than 2023) as a Great Place to Work – and also gained our first accreditation as a Great Place to Work for Women. We worked and delivered some of our largest transformation and integration projects, placed our most senior level hire to the C-suite of a PE-backed business, and worked on more and more AI and data-focused projects.
We have also looked to the future and hired some first-class new team members, including a fantastic new Head of Growth to power our strategic growth. And we are now looking at the bigger opportunities that appear in the US and across Europe for our On-Demand consulting offering as we head into 2025. There is reason to be cheerful in terms of outlook as it has been our busiest December for three years – hopefully auguring well for coming months. (Please don’t hold me to this!)
We are nothing without our clients – and so on that note I want to thank you for putting your trust in Freshminds – whether this year was the first time – or if you have worked with us for many years. We know you have a choice – and you clearly have excellent taste. We hope that as things get busier we will be able to support your growth or change plans in the future.
Looking ahead
Our team are now battle-hardened and will take the fight into 2025 – and there are many reasons to look forward. It will be our 25th anniversary in the second half of the year and while celebrating our long heritage in pioneering on-demand consulting, search and research – we are equally excited about playing an increasing role in how the world of work and consulting services develop in the next 25 years.
On behalf of the team at Freshminds I hope you can take some time away from your own world of work to rest up and recharge. We support some very demanding industries and understand the many pressures on your time: so hope you get to focus on the other (more) important aspects of life in the coming days.
Freshminds at 25 is a company that I hope you can see, either as a client or partner, is in it for the long run. Thank you for your support along the way and look forward to working with you in the coming months and years. Onwards!
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