ABOUT THIS EPISODE
In this episode of The Purposeful Strategist, Belden Menkus speaks with Nigel Lake, co-founder and Executive Chair of Pottinger, about long-term thinking and what it takes for a small firm to have an outsized impact on the companies, governments, and industries shaping the future.
Nigel co-founded Pottinger in 2003, building it from a standing start into an independent global advisory firm working across strategy, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, and public policy. In their conversation, they discuss:
- Why short-term prediction is surprisingly hard, yet the long-term trajectory of technology is often knowable, and how that conviction shapes Pottinger's work, drawing on examples from the smartphone to the electric vehicle.
- How a small firm built its infrastructure to institutional standards from the outset, so that it could credibly operate alongside organisations many times its size.
- Why Pottinger shifted towards founder-led businesses in emerging industries such as the energy transition, and the distinction between a government picking a winning company and backing a winning technology.
- Nigel's view on AI: why systems built to be persuasive rather than truthful pose a real problem for businesses looking for a use case, and why leaders have a responsibility to think about the economy and public policy they are helping to shape.
Pottinger: https://www.pottinger.com/
Menkus & Associates: https://www.menkus.com/
Supported by Norman Broadbent: https://www.normanbroadbent.com/
Belden Menkus is the Managing Director of Menkus & Associates, the strategy firm for businesses with a broader purpose. His McKinsey training combined with more than 30 years working at Board and ExCo level gives him both the analytical rigour and the relational experience that these complex, high-stakes leadership situations demand.
Belden hosts The Purposeful Strategist, a podcast about how business leaders are bringing their organisation’s purpose and strategy to life. It explores how senior leaders bring purpose to life through strategy and reflects the same questions that drive the consulting work.
