Global Head of Consulting in London

About Tonic

Tonic is an expertise-led Capital Markets consultancy operating at the intersection of deep domain knowledge and transformation excellence. We partner with leading global financial institutions to solve complex, high-value problems across a core set of inter-connected domains, covering collateral, financing, post-trade, digital, treasury, risk, trading and regulatory change. We are now entering a new phase of growth. Our mandate: build a data-driven capital markets consulting business capable of doubling in size.

This is a rare moment: the opportunity to play a leadership role building a world-class consulting engine, during the most strategically important period in the company’s history.

The Global Head of Consulting is the senior leader who will design, build and embed the consulting operating model that will enable Tonic to scale successfully over coming years, to hit our growth goals. This role is for a top-tier, high-potential consulting leader - someone who has outgrown their current environment, wants more scope, more impact, and a faster path to Partner-level responsibility.

The Global Head of Consulting will design and institutionalise the systems, leadership layers, rhythms and standards that allow the organisation to deliver consistently, grow confidently, and operate as one holistic consulting business. This role requires someone who has previously helped build or run a consulting practice at a top-tier firm and who can lead through complexity, ambiguity, and generate momentum.

They will bring the discipline of a world-class consulting system, the practicality of someone who rolls up their sleeves, and the coaching depth to elevate leaders in their team. This person builds the consulting engine whilst also ensuring five-star client service across priority accounts.

The Mandate (What They Must Deliver)

• Build the Consulting Operating Model: Create a unified, scalable, rhythm-driven operating model while the organisation is navigating accelerated growth. This isn’t theoretical design - this is real-world build, adoption, and measurement.
• Strengthen the Team and Build a World Class Consulting Practice: Build Practice Heads with commercial accountability. Mature the Engagement Lead layer, so day-to-day delivery is owned by Senior Managers, and leverage training to build a top tier consulting team.
• Install Rhythm, Predictability + Delivery Excellence: Put in place mobilisation discipline, QA standards, performance cadence and MI visibility to scale the Consulting practice further.
• Maintain Enterprise-Level Client Quality: Spend ~20% of time ensuring exceptional service levels across key clients - building trust, solving issues early, and setting the standard for Engagement Leads.
• Free Up Partners to Focus on Growth & Strategic Relationships: Shift operational oversight away from Partners by building real capability across the wider consulting teams.
• Ensure Tonic Career Framework is Successfully Adopted: Create clear expectations across the global consulting team around career pathways and performance management.

Role Responsibilities

• Target Operating Model Design & Implementation: Build and embed the consulting system: accountabilities, cadence, MI, QA, playbooks, delivery frameworks. Ensure it works in practice so is adopted, understood, and behaviourally embedded across teams. Establish a unified Tonic rhythm across Tonic Global Consulting.
• Leadership Development & Coaching: Coaches Practice Heads into strategic, commercially minded leaders. Builds Engagement Leads into trusted delivery owners. Is a genuine, capable coach who lifts performance and deepens confidence. Leads and develops the Resource Manager, giving them the tools to run the operational heartbeat, particularly around mobilisation across engagements.
• Delivery Quality & Client Excellence: Spends 20% of time directly supporting key client engagements, not as a delivery partner, but as a “quality bar-setter”, advisor and trusted escalation point. Ensures consistent, high-quality client experience across all Practices.
• Commercial Alignment: Brings coherence across delivery, commercial decision-making, pricing and resource allocation. Ensures consulting operations align cleanly with future reporting needs. Collaborates closely with the Client Director to shape pipeline discipline.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Integral part of Senior Management Team. Key member of Enterprise Sales Team. Closely partners with Talent, Operations, Finance, and group stakeholders within Tonic. Supports organisational stability and clarity during a period of growth.

Candidate Profile

“A” Player, Not Big 4, Hungry + High Trajectory. Where They Come From: Top-tier consultancy, but not Big 4 as primary background. Likely from a specialist financial services consultancy, a high-performance boutique, or a strategy/implementation hybrid. Currently a Director or equivalent, being told “just wait your turn”, but ready for fast track to Partner-level now. Possibly a Junior Partner who wants broader remit and faster influence. Comes with strong capital markets domain knowledge and has strong relationships with new and existing FS firms in the capital markets domain space, so can evolve role into more revenue generating once consulting model in place and engine rolling.

Experience: 10–15+ years in consulting with strong FS/Capital Markets orientation. Has built or run parts of a consulting system practice leadership, delivery excellence, ops uplift, TOM, etc. Deep experience shaping teams and coaching mid-senior leaders. Could be MBA and from Top Tier university.

Capabilities: Exceptional structured thinking and system design skill. Superb communicator across all levels, internal and client. Elite coaching ability, able to elevate Practice Heads and Engagement Leads. Hands-on operator when needed: can roll sleeves up without dropping standards. A real team player, able to collaborate successfully with all levels across the team and our clients. Highly credible with senior clients and Partners. Strong commercial instincts: scope, pricing, utilisation, delivery health.

Personal Style: Hungry. Ambitious. Slightly underutilised where they are now. Wants more scope, more speed, more growth, more ownership. Comes in with very high standards, combined with a strong focus on continual improvement. Low ego, high accountability. Data-driven operator. Operates with clarity, discipline, and calm authority. Hands-on when required, strategic when needed and knows when to switch.