Disrupting Consultancy · Cape Town

The other end
of the telescope.

Strategy advisory for executives who want the uncomfortable truth — not a deck that confirms what they already believe.

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The argument

"Strategy isn't a forecast. It's a quarrel with the obvious."

— Ian Russell, Author · Advisor · Speaker

04

Four habits that quietly kill good strategy.

None of these look like errors at the time. Each is rewarded in the short run. All four compound — usually in the year before the board notices.

01

Mistaking activity for action.

Calendars fill, decisions don't get made. The organisation rewards motion because motion is easier to measure than judgement.

02

Asking the loudest, not the wisest.

The people closest to the customer are rarely closest to the CEO. Information loses fidelity at every layer.

03

Confusing consensus with conviction.

A unanimous board paper is almost always wrong. Healthy disagreement is the price of a real decision.

04

Outsourcing the contrarian view.

Bringing in advisors to disagree on your behalf — instead of building a culture that disagrees in-house.

How we work

A four-step engagement,
end to end.

01 · Listen
Weeks 1–2
Hear what isn't being said.

Twelve interviews — board, exec, customer, ex-employee. No slides. Verbatim notes only.

Argument Map
02 · Reframe
Weeks 3–5
Three theses. One survives.

Three competing theses, each with the strongest case against it written first. Pressure-tested with the CEO.

Thesis Memo
03 · Decide
Weeks 6–9
Nothing left aspirational.

One thesis backed in writing. Bets sized. People named. Calendar dates set.

Board Paper
04 · Hold the line
Weeks 10+
Stay honest when it's loud.

Monthly tension reviews. The job is to keep the thesis honest when the noise gets loud — not to be liked.

Standing Role

The advisor who tells you what
the room won't.

Ian Russell is a former CEO of large-scale telecoms organisations, a board-level advisor across fintech, logistics, and nonprofit sectors, and the author of published leadership works.

He has spent two decades in the room where the decisions get made — and another decade watching organisations make the wrong ones for the right-sounding reasons. Disrupting Consultancy is the practice that came out of that.

He operates across South Africa and the UK, engaging at board and C-suite level where the stakes are highest and the comfortable answer is the most dangerous one.

Read the case studies →
Ian Russell
Ian Russell
Author · Advisor · Speaker

Former CEO · BCX & Telkom

Led large-scale transformation across South Africa's telecoms sector.

Chairman · Hyphen (RMB Bank) · Christel House SA

Board-level leadership across fintech, education, and the RMB Group.

Author · Speaker

Published on leadership and strategy. Keynote speaker at C-suite events across Africa and the UK.

Ready to look through
the other end?

Engagements are selective. A short conversation decides fit.

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