Meet Adam – helping to shape the future at Telos and JGA
Running aerobics classes in a village hall might not seem the obvious start for a career in business consulting but, as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Or with a single ‘step-up’ (to 1990s music) in Adam Campbell’s case…
How so? Because Adam – now Managing Partner of Telos Partners, with which JGA is in the process of merging – spent the first 15 years of his career in the fitness and leisure industry.
Adam (right) and JGA’s MD Jeremy Gadd in London this spring
Today, what he learned then remains a force for good in his life.
Not only is he a keen cyclist but, as he explains: ‘My personal purpose is about helping people achieve their ambitions. Previously it was their personal fitness – now it’s in their business.’
Learning from experience
Adam progressed from his first part-time job in a leisure centre to qualify as a Personal Trainer (PT), gaining a Chemistry degree in between.
He spent the next four years ‘knocking on the doors of busy executives at 6am’, taking them out for a run or putting them through their paces in their conservatories, before moving on to co-found two businesses – a training business and a chain of eight health clubs. The former was sold to fund the latter.
After turning down an offer of £12m, and having to pull a planned AIM listing, the business was unable to generate sufficient funds to keep the business growing and the clubs were sold off – at which point Adam signed up for an MBA at Cranfield School of Management.
‘It was my rehabilitation,’ he says. ‘I wanted to learn where we had gone wrong and that’s where I found and fell in love with consulting.’ It’s also where his connection with Telos began.
Finding where he belonged
Adam joined Telos Partners in 2005.
The consultancy had been co-founded in 2000 by a group of 15 individuals who believed that organisations are the product of their relationships, rather than just the sum of their transactions.
He’d heard about it through a Cranfield colleague and, having spent a day in its Windsor offices, liked what he saw.
‘It was the people,’ he recalls.
‘And I enjoy being part of something where I can connect, influence, own and learn, while working with larger organisations to help to create sustainable success.’
He’s also ‘always liked the act of creation’, he says. ‘Starting with a blank sheet of paper, shaping ambition, creating a plan and making it happen.’
Creating a positive impact
‘That’s what attracted me to Telos and continues to attract me to working with founders and leaders who are seeking to create a positive impact or leave behind something worthwhile.
‘There’s nothing better than meeting new people, discovering things about them and their business, finding out how it works, but also staying with them and being able to look back at how far they, their people and the business have come.
‘Within all of that is the delight of collaboration,’ he adds.
‘Getting people together where there may not be clarity or consensus, bringing out different views and perspectives, and ending up with something clearer and stronger than any one individual could have dreamt up on their own.
‘That way of working with others is invigorating.’
A business owned and run by its people
‘It constantly surprises me how long our clients have remembered the things we’ve done and how much they say that we have helped. This is what gets me out of bed each day’
Adam Campbell, Managing Partner, Telos Partners
Adam was asked to become Telos’s Managing Partner in 2022 and now leads the consultancy, which works with a diverse range of businesses in both the UK and abroad.
Its clients include FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies as well as SMEs that, like Telos, are employee-owned. With its mix of Partners, Employees and Associates, the principle is that the business will be owned and run by the people who work in it.
Reflecting on his 19 years with Telos, Adam says: ‘For something to keep my attention for this long, there must be something happening there. It is the mix of the ‘hard’ and the ‘soft’ and the impact that our clients tell us we have.
‘It constantly surprises me how long our clients have remembered the things we’ve done and how much they say that we have helped. This is what gets me out of bed each day.’
Strengthening our value to clients
Adam and Jeremy with JGA’s Lisa Fryer (left) and Telos’s Jane Kershaw – working on our merger plans
Happily, this year there’s something else getting Adam out of bed each day – Telos’s ongoing merger with JGA.
‘It’s the learning opportunity: here we are again at a point of creation,’ he explains.
‘This time, we don’t have a blank sheet of paper but the opportunity is ours to shape. We have very similar values and a complementary set of skills and experiences where A + B can give C more value.
‘We’re excited about the potential to better support clients and create better businesses, and we’re already enjoying being in client conversations together.
‘I’m also enjoying meeting JGA’s team and looking at how we can combine our skills and strengths – and by the potential for this to help both our businesses’ succession planning too.’
Cycling, dog walks – and the power of the great outdoors
So, with a busy year ahead, what 5 things get Adam through his working day?
1. My wife and kids. The reason I do what I do. They keep me grounded and stop me from getting overly grumpy! They challenge and support me too.
2. My dog, who wakes me up and gets me out each morning. If I want to think of a good idea I load the client’s question in my brain, get out into the fresh air (rain, hail, snow or sun) and let the walk work its magic…
3. All things two wheels. I have a turbo trainer and like road and mountain biking. Cycling is my relaxation.
4. The fact that at Telos we’re trying to create a perpetual business that’s here for generations to come – supporting our team as well as our clients.
5. Helping our clients achieve their aspirations. I love it when people find their own strengths, passions, ambitions and can fulfil them.