Des Woods

Des is a Partner at Møller Institute. He works with the leaders of global and domestic professional services firms in the development of strategy and leadership. Des has an international reputation in the development of high performance team working. He has designed and run strategically aligned leadership and client relationship programmes on a global scale across many market sectors. Areas include legal services, accounting and consulting professional services and within retail, telecoms and hi-tech sectors.

Experience

• Strategy consultation and review for a European headquartered international law firm
• Development of an organisation wide approach to key client relationship management at a global law firm.
• Strategically aligned leadership development of 250 senior partners in a global professional firm
• Leadership programmes for European, Middle Eastern and Asia Pacific partners of a global accounting firm
• Development of new partner orientation programmes for 4 professional firms
• Client relationship and leadership programmes and master-classes
• Sessions on the current trends in the legal market at partner conferences
• Programmes for senior associates and senior managers approaching partnership

Des is a member of the Executive Education faculty at both the Judge Business School and the Møller Centre, Cambridge. He has a number of on-going research projects within the PSF market, focussed primarily on the strategies of firms, the business development tactics of rainmakers and the attitudes and behaviour of clients who buy professional services.

An organisational psychologist by background, Des was the head of professional and organisational development at Linklaters, a leading global law firm. Previously, he spent many years with Ernst & Young, a global accounting and consulting firm. He was variously the HR director, head of O.D. and head of learning for the firm. He has also held senior roles and directorships with a number of large retail and telecoms businesses.