Our Experience
The business was founded by William Arthur in September 2006, and was incorporated as Fremont Consulting Limited in October 2007.
William worked for Barclays Bank for over 30 years: his senior roles were in merchant banking, asset finance, ship finance, Barclays USA Division, and four years as a director in East Anglia
During the last 8 years with Barclays he served as Director of Professional Practices, a business which specialised on meeting the financial needs of professional service firms. He had full responsibility for the bank’s involvement with the professionals sector, principally Law, Chartered Accountant, and Chartered Surveyor firms, as well as Chartered Actuaries, Quantity Surveyors, Patent Agents. During this period the business quadrupled from £10m net profit to £42m.
In this role William became a well recognised figure in the sector, and has twice addressed plenary sessions of the Law Society Conference, as well as speaking at the International Bar Association Conference in Auckland, New Zealand. William is also a regular speaker at partner retreats, and at conferences for leaders of professional firms. Although he is by training a banker, William’s speeches, presentations and written articles have only occasionally been on the subject finance, and have in fact covered a wide range of management and leadership topics.
For almost 7 years (until march 2007) William served on the Committee of the Association of Partnership Practitioners (APP), as well as chairing the APP’s Insolvency Working Group. He has attended the Leading Professional Services Firms Programme at Harvard, and has for many years been a Tutor at The Leadership Trust, the UK’s foremost leadership development organisation. Alongside his consulting activities, he is also a non-executive director of three large professional firms (in Law, Accountancy, and Surveying).
Recent Assignments
Work done recently includes:
- a values and behaviours programme devised for a large surveying firm
- strategy review and client/prospect survey for a large accounting firm
- behaviours programme devised for a large law firm
- advised a Top 50 law firm on a panel tender submission: the firm was successfully appointed to the panel of one of the world’s largest banks
- devised a leadership development programme for a large regional law firm
- reviewed performance management and appraisal processes for large surveying firm
- workshops to enhance “top team” leadership skills in a regional law firm
- advised various city law firms on their banking relationships and financial shape.