Associate Director: a fractional opportunity for veterans, service leavers and client development professionals

Turn the network you have already built into a business of your own – on your terms, around your other commitments, with an established consultancy behind you.

Leaving the services?

Service builds exactly what this rewards: credibility with senior people, the judgement to read an organisation, and a network built on trust. You are used to autonomy and being accountable for outcomes rather than hours.

An experienced client development professional?

If you have spent your career opening doors and winning complex service business, this is the same craft with better economics. You keep the relationship, and you are not chasing someone else’s quota.

This is not a cold-calling role

No scripts. No call targets. No volume game. Change and transformation are bought on trust and judgement, not on pitch decks – which is why this works for people who sell complex services well, and for people who have simply built a strong network over a career.

You do not deliver the consulting work yourself. You open conversations and spot where an organisation could use help with change, transformation, technology, people or operational improvement. Our team does the rest.

How it works

  1. 1You introduceSpot an organisation with a change or resourcing need and register it with us.
  2. 2We contractThe client signs a Master Services Agreement with Change Specialists.
  3. 3We deliverService providers go in through CS Flex, or via CS Consultancy or CS Delivery.
  4. 4You are paidYour share, every month the work continues.

Your experience is the asset

The people who do well here have done the job. They have been there, seen it, and can draw on decades of it. They are not learning on a client’s time – and that is precisely why clients value them.

You are leveraging knowledge built over a career. It works for you commercially, and it works for the client, because they are dealing with someone who has already solved the problem in front of them.

We plan it together. Where your experience counts, which organisations to approach, and the commitment that works around your life – agreed jointly, so effort goes where it will actually land. It is a considered plan, not a free-for-all, and that is what makes it work for you and for the client.

The heavy lifting is already done

You are not building a consultancy from scratch. You are plugging into one.

  • Delivery capability – an established team and service provider network
  • Solution design and proposals – you never write a bid alone
  • Contracts and procurement – including public sector routes and G-Cloud
  • Back office – contracting, invoicing and administration
  • Systems and marketing support – CRM, Microsoft 365, collateral
  • People alongside you – you never pitch alone

How you are rewarded

A profit share arrangement rather than a salaried position – there is no basic salary or retainer. What you earn is linked to the business you generate, and it continues for as long as that business runs. How far it goes depends on your network, the opportunities you create, and how much you choose to put in.

What you need – and what you do not

There are two routes in, and both work equally well.

You have delivered change and transformation. You bring credibility with the people who buy it – you have been there, and you can talk to it without notes.

Or you have sold business services – consulting, technology, professional or managed services. You bring the commercial craft: finding the opportunity, building the relationship, and knowing how a complex sale actually works. You do not need a delivery background – our team provides that.

What matters either way is commercial credibility, self-motivation, and the confidence to hold a conversation with a senior decision maker as an equal.

The people you would typically talk to are CIOs and IT leaders, transformation directors, HR and people leaders, programme and portfolio leads, managing directors and executive teams.

How we work with clients

We help clients rather than push them. We do not force organisations into a methodology, a headcount or a solution that suits us.

The delivery outcome is what we are after. Change that actually lands, and a client who is better off for it. Everything else – the framework, the process, the reporting – exists to serve that, and our standards are there to protect it.

If that is how you like to work, you will fit here.

Reading this as a client?

Then this page tells you something useful about how Change Specialists works.

The specialists we put in front of you have done the job. Not graduates learning on your programme – senior practitioners with decades behind them, who have already solved the problem you are facing. The person who introduces us is accountable for the relationship; our delivery team is accountable for the work.

They work within our delivery standards, our processes and our quality bar. We take responsibility for that framework, so you get senior judgement with proper accountability behind it.

And we help rather than push. We will not force you into a methodology, a headcount or a solution that suits us. The delivery outcome is what we are measured on.

See what we do or talk to us about your programme.

And the balance it gives you

This works around your life rather than the other way round. The commitment is agreed with you, so it sits alongside family, other interests, study, or a portfolio of work you already have.

For many of our Associate Directors that is the real attraction: senior, worthwhile work at a pace that suits them – the kind of balance a full-time role rarely allows, without stepping away from work that matters or the income that goes with it.

You keep the professional life you have built. You just get to shape how much of it, and when.

Start with a conversation

No obligation, no pressure – an informal chat to work out together whether this fits where you are heading.

Contact our Talent Lead, Karen Dykes – karen.dykes@changespecialists.co.uk or 0207 661 8951 – or get in touch here.