In a long career (37 years plus), I have been a management consultant for only about seven years. Most of the time, I was a regular member of management teams and enjoyed being one. (Though I’m glad not to be doing performance appraisals anymore!)

I still bounce back and forth between startup business consultant and being part of management or a board when it makes sense for me and my client, which is when we:

• need to seize an immediate and compelling opportunity
• know each other well and really like working together
• are both geographically desirable

Essentially, we need to have all the elements of a great marriage!  In some of these cases I have been an interim executive, in most I have become a board member.