Company Spotlight: Creamer & Sundt

Creamer & Sundt is a bespoke management consultancy based in London and Glasgow. Alistair Creamer is described as “a catalyst, a creative and a bridge-builder”, and Anna Sundt as “a business psychologist, facilitator and artist”.

In their own words, they work with businesses to “bring about change by using the arts to engage people, inspire better ways of working and accelerate learning and development”. They talk about taking art out of the everyday and putting it into the hearts of the organisations they work with.

Creamer & Sundt's clients are varied and come from across multiple sectors, including Unilever, Film London, Buttle UK and Chichester Festival Theatre. Their inspirations, listed on their website, come from far and wide, spanning the full breadth of the creative arts.

They focus on three main areas:

• Connecting – finding your purpose and communication.
• Creating – innovation and culture change.
• Acceleration – team and leadership development.

Connect

Creamer & Sundt apply the mindset of an artist to their ideas about communication. This means bringing your message to life through a mixture of storytelling, visuals and video.

• Focus on communication within your organisation – people want to feel good about company goals, how they are contributing to the company's success and how the company is performing.
• People need to know “why” - what is the purpose behind your business?

“People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it” - Simon Sinek

Create

The belief that everyone is creative and that companies are more successful when people are creative at work is a core element of their approach to business. They bring this creative approach into businesses in two ways: innovation and culture change.

• When people come to them with a specific challenge, they try to play it back to them and disrupt their thinking, creating the space and environment for them to see that challenge in a fresh way.
• They also have a passion for working brands that are serious about culture – these projects are a long-term investment in people.
• Engaged employees are the best employees; people really living the values are the ones who deliver.

“If you are going to evolve, to survive and thrive, then you too will need to think more creatively. And you'll need to do it faster, too” ― Nick Souter, 'Breakthrough Thinking'

Accelerate

From strategy conferences in Amsterdam to team-building days in Soho, Creamer & Sundt consider their team events to be their signature work.

• They aim to help you get the most out of your budget and time together, pushing the envelope of what can be achieved “off-site” to pull off some truly invigorating team events.
• Creativity is a key quality in modern leadership.
• Creamer & Sundt's leadership programmes are “a journey of discovery” - they work through challenges, design unique learning sessions, and coach both teams and individuals.

“Change will never be this slow again” ― Mark Holden, PHD Media Worldwide

Watch this space for an exclusive interview with director Alistair Creamer.

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“Building a Better Working World” - An Interview with Imogen Hudson from Ernst & Young

Imogen Hudson started her working life as an insurance broker, before moving into management consultancy with Ernst & Young or EY 2 years ago. After moving through a number of roles, she found herself seeking a new challenge and was inspired when her brokerage firm worked with a consultancy, so much so that she decided to make a change. We talked to her about the challenges of changing your career, the value of networking in the management consultancy sector and the ideas behind Ernst & Young's “building a better working world” principle.

Tell us a bit about working for Ernst & Young.

Working for a big brand has its challenges and rewards. Having a brand stamp on you and being endorsed by a real global player is both a privilege and a responsibility. The company challenges and stretches staff greatly, and provides a difficult but stimulating environment to work with.  So it’s a balance; there are rewards and intellectual interest on one side, with the inevitable stress on the other.

Why do you do what you do?

I started working with a consultancy that came in to help the brokerage firm I was at and was inspired by them, the culture and the issues they were tackling. I like solving problems, fixing things and understanding how things work. And I guess I like helping people to make their businesses better.

What are your opinions on the value of networking in your sector?

In my specific sector, the biggest value that consultants can give is a third party perspective on a problem. The more perspectives you have, the easier it is to give advice and see a problem on the wider scale. Essentially, I need to be able to think about a problem more broadly, which comes a lot from talking to other people about their industries to broaden my own knowledge. Networking also helps with learning how to talk to a wide range of different people and learning to understand other industries quickly. It also provides me with loads of different reference points so that I can do my job more effectively.

EY talks a lot about 'building a better working world'. How do you feel businesses like EY can best work towards this goal?

That strapline has to fit for EY within a really broad range of business activities, covering the entire breadth of what EY does, such as both the consulting and audit sides, etc. It's about asking how can we make you function better as a business? How can we make your contribution to the world better? Improvement and change never happened without people talking to each other. Making big things happen, making big companies move, change and grow takes a lot of collaboration and understanding on all sides. It's about perspectives – how can we learn from other people to make you as a client better by helping you?

And finally, what was your biggest challenge when changing career paths?

I went from having a small team and responsibility to being stretched, pushed and challenged every single day. The better you get, the more and more you stretch and learn. It doesn't get more comfortable. However, I get to solve some really intricate and complex business problems and work with a broad range of clients on a frequent basis.

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