Anthony Shaw on building growth: clients, skills, culture — and acting sooner on people decisions

Anthony Shaw grew up in northeast England in a family tied to heavy industry. He studied Medicinal Chemistry at Manchester University and entered consulting with Accenture and KPMG. Consulting exposed him to diverse clients and locations — Australia, the Middle East, the Nordics, and the US — and taught rapid adaptation and client delivery.

He joined North Highland in 2017 to lead its UK Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice, became EMEA CEO in 2020, and on June 1, 2026, assumed the role of Global CEO.

Three practical priorities for scaling a business

Shaw frames growth as an outcome of getting three things right.

• Be genuinely obsessed with clients. Go beyond satisfaction metrics. Understand how clients make money, where decision pressure sits, what could disrupt them, and what competitors miss. That depth of insight is where consultants and advisors add value.

• Keep skills relevant. Market and technology shifts make yesterday's expertise obsolete quickly. Invest continuously in learning and new capabilities so your people's skills evolve faster than competitors and client needs.

• Build a people experience that enables great work. Culture is a growth strategy: give employees clear growth paths, meaningful colleagues, and an environment that motivates them to do their best for clients.

These priorities are presented as sequential but interdependent: client insight guides capability-building, which in turn requires a culture that retains and develops talent.

Shaw identifies his biggest leadership failure as waiting too long to make difficult people decisions. He says delayed action harms more than the individual: it increases team uncertainty, slows decision-making, and overloads high performers.

His current approach: be direct early, give honest feedback, provide a genuine chance to improve, and then act if the situation doesn't change. He summarizes this as pairing kindness with clarity.

Concrete implications for leaders and hiring teams

• Move faster on personnel decisions: early clarity saves time and morale.
• Treat culture as a strategic lever for growth, not an HR afterthought.
• Invest in continuous reskilling aligned to client needs.
• Encourage leaders to accept roles outside current expertise to accelerate development.

Shaw's advice is practical and operational: focus on clients, skills, and culture, and act decisively when people issues threaten those priorities.