Jo Rolls, Managing Partner at Opus Business Advisory Group
Clear communication. Transparency. Collaboration. Permission to fail. As we learn on this episode of Leaders With Ambition, these cornerstones for a healthy workplace culture were knit into Opus Business Advisory Group from its inception.
Managing Partner Jo Rolls shares with us career highlights along the way to co-founding a firm that is setting an industry standard for business insolvency and restructuring. Opus has developed a unique formula over more than a decade – one that translates today into 14 offices across the UK advising a broad range of clients on how to turn financial stress towards the best possible outcomes.
Host Nicky Acuna Ocana invites Jo to reflect on how she has managed a pioneering career while raising a family and why creating – and sustaining – a strong network is key, both personally and professionally. You’ll find out about current professional challenges, the importance of lifelong curiosity and one of the hardest – but best – things an effective manager can do.
(Hint: Leadership is about hiring the right people – and then letting them demonstrate their competencies!) Says our guest, above all else, be brave: “Everything we do is a learning experience, which is fantastic. It leads us to grow, change, pivot, do what we need to do.”
If you enjoyed this discussion, please click here to find previous episodes of Leaders with Ambition.
Key Takeaways
Starting out
How a young romance and early work in accountancy combined with insolvency to shape the personal and professional mix that has fuelled Jo’s successful career
Key relationships
Why having a tight network – both professionally and personally – was essential to juggling Jo’s life as a parent and rising profile as a professional.
Face to face
About Jo’s belief that, even in a post-pandemic virtual world, nothing can compare with meeting in person to understand clients’ needs.
Holistic approach
How Jo’s firm view insolvency and restructuring as elements of the broader goal: getting business stakeholders back on track – however that looks – in the long term.
Lifelong learning
Why Jo believes it’s so important to foster a workplace culture in which team members can make mistakes, draw lessons from them and move on.
Opus culture
About the deliberate way in which the partners at Opus choose to hire personalities that are a good fit, ready to grow and progress. Great retention is a bonus!
Taking the leap
What the Opus founders’ weekly meeting has done over the firm’s evolution to keep communication productive, collaborative and consistent across multiple disciplines.
Power of trust
How delegating tasks grows easier when we come to realise that colleagues can perform at the highest standards – sometimes even exceeding our own!
Consistency is king
About the importance of showing up repeatedly and being invested in people we meet at networking events. Substantial relationships pay off over time.
Tips for networking mastery
Attend events alone rather than relying on a friend to provide a comfort zone. Follow up the next day, perhaps with a coffee or by sharing an article of interest. Keep notes with personal data points in order to follow up the next time you meet up.
Cultural commitment
Why diversity, equity and inclusion are a priority at Opus, where the focus is on cultivating an environment that enables flexibility, transparency and excellence.
Current industry challenges
Navigating regulatory strictures; pricing; staff recruitment and retention. (Side note: AI could play a valuable role, if deployed in the right ways.)
Words of wisdom
Communicate. Be open and honest. And do the right thing!
Key Quotes
“You can’t do it alone. You need a support network around you – whether it’s at work, outside work, family or friends.”
“We all know that once you get to a certain stage, it is all about relationships and being able to generate work.”
“Everything we do is a learning experience, which is fantastic. It leads us to grow, change, pivot, do what we need to do.”
“(Opus’s) real growth is because we got the foundations strong and right where we needed them to be. And that culture, embedded from Day One, continues as we develop.”
“The hardest thing – at every level of your career as you go through – is delegating. It’s trusting somebody else to do the job that you’re doing as well as you’re doing it. But the great thing we find is that most people do better than we do anyway. Once you know that … it’s easy!”
“(Networking) is about investing the time and being interested in people … It’s about building trust and people knowing that you’re going to do the right thing.”
“You have to build your network, but you also have to nurture it … and there’s no reason you wouldn’t want to do that. It’s enjoyable connecting people!” (Nicky)
“Communication is key. If someone asks you to do something that you know is not achievable, you’ve got to be honest.”
“Nobody’s entitled to a career. It’s what you create yourself. It’s grabbing those opportunities and learning from people.”
About Jo Rolls
Jo Rolls is one of the five founder Partners of Opus and an insolvency practitioner with over 30 years Corporate restructuring and Insolvency experience. Jo predominantly works in the SME arena, to provide solutions to all stakeholders in financially distressed situations, whilst recognising that formal insolvency is not always appropriate.
As well as her work in the UK, Jo is also regulated by the Qatar Financial Centre Authority and has been undertaking assignments in Qatar since 2008.
About Nicky Acuna Ocana
Nicky has led high-performing recruitment teams for over 25 years. As the Regional Managing Director of Ambition UK, Europe & US, she leads a team of highly-skilled recruitment consultants who specialise in Business Services functions within Professional Services and are experts in their niche specialist areas.
With an extensive network of senior and board-level contacts, she is also heavily involved in Executive Search, focusing on Director level appointments across Business Services for a range of Professional Services firms.
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