The independent executive, rebuilt

Why a growing number of senior operators need something between employment and going it alone

Any experienced executive that has re-entered the job market or decided to leave the corporate ladder will tell you that organisations are considerably better at developing people for the first 25 years of professional life than they are at making use of them in the 25 that follow.

It’s a familiar story. An ambitious manager accumulates expertise, takes responsibility for larger teams and budgets, moves into increasingly senior roles and, if all goes well, eventually reaches the point at which experience and judgement are at their deepest.

At roughly this point, their options begin to narrow.

Some continue as chief executives or functional leaders. Others move into non-executive work or private equity. But many find themselves caught between two models that are poorly suited to what they actually want.

The first is another full-time corporate role, complete with hierarchy, internal politics and a commitment that may no longer fit their ambitions or lives. The second is independence: attractive in principle, but in practice often an abrupt move from the infrastructure of a large organisation to the solitude of a home office.

This is a surprisingly inefficient use of senior talent and it’s becoming significant as the structure of large organisations changes. AI and automation are beginning to absorb work previously performed by layers of management and professional staff. Companies are scrutinising fixed costs and questioning the need for permanent senior capacity in areas where expertise may be required intensively but intermittently.

It would be a mistake to interpret this as evidence that experience is losing value. Much of what businesses increasingly need from senior people is precisely what takes the longest to acquire: judgement under uncertainty, pattern recognition, credibility with other senior decision-makers and an understanding of how organisations actually behave when a plan leaves the spreadsheet and encounters reality.

The problem is structure, not demand

The problem, as the TPG member manifesto puts it, is not necessarily demand, it’s structure.

The structure of employment provides almost everything except independence. It offers a brand, systems, colleagues, legal infrastructure, administrative support, professional identity and a steady flow of problems to solve. The independent executive acquires freedom but loses much of that apparatus overnight.

This explains why the economics of independent consulting can be less attractive than they first appear. An executive who previously spent most of the week on consequential commercial decisions suddenly needs to divide time between business development, positioning, marketing, contracting, invoicing, administration and trying to explain what, precisely, he or she now does.

Many respond by describing themselves as consultants and offering their time. It is the simplest thing to sell because it resembles employment: a client has a requirement, the independent has experience, and the two agree a daily rate. But it also risks turning thirty years of accumulated capability into a commodity measured in days.

From consultant to practice

There is a more interesting possibility. Rather than becoming an independent consultant, a senior operator can build a practice.

An independent consultant tends to think about assignments: the next project, the next interim role, the next block of billable time. A practice has a clearer proposition. It defines the problems it is particularly good at solving, the clients for whom those problems matter and a repeatable way of creating value.

The executive is no longer looking for the next role. He or she is building a small professional-services business.

That is also why we use the term Principal. In professional services, a Principal is not simply someone senior. The designation implies ownership of important client relationships, the exercise of judgement and responsibility for outcomes that cannot simply be passed down the organisation. Our member manifesto defines it explicitly as a standard rather than a title.

If you are an experienced operator, this can be a more natural professional identity than “consultant”. As a former chief commercial officer, you might build a practice around sales transformation and international growth. As a former procurement leader, you might focus on restructuring external spend. As a former divisional chief executive, you might specialise in businesses facing a transition in ownership or leadership.

Institutional backing, not another network

What is missing for you is not expertise but institutional backing.

Networks only partly solve that problem. There is no shortage of executive communities, directories and platforms that introduce experienced people to one another. Some are useful. Yet access to a network is not the same as having an operating environment within which a professional practice can be built.

The more ambitious model is a shared commercial platform: one that gives you a common standard and brand, helps you sharpen your positioning, provides engagement and commercial frameworks, gives you access to peers and complementary capabilities, and allows you to collaborate when a client problem extends beyond one person’s expertise.

The independence remains genuine. Principals still have to develop relationships, create opportunities and win work. Indeed, any model that promises accomplished executives a stream of effortless assignments is likely to disappoint. What a platform can do is remove a lot of the friction that makes independence unnecessarily inefficient. That is what we mean when we describe TPG as “not a network” or a directory, but a structured commercial platform.

Technology changes the economics

Technology makes this model more plausible than it would have been even a few years ago. One reason professional firms historically required substantial infrastructure was that research, analysis, document production and coordination were labour-intensive. With TPG, you can now use technology to perform or accelerate much of that work (every output is reviewed before it reaches a client) while drawing on specialist human capability when it genuinely adds value.

The result is potentially a very efficient way of extending your reach. Instead of supervising a team of junior people, you can combine technology, shared infrastructure and other experienced specialists to make your own judgement go further.

That changes the economics of the second half of a career.

The usual ambition of someone leaving corporate life is to replace a salary. It is an understandable benchmark, but perhaps an unnecessarily modest one. A well-built advisory practice can produce income, certainly, but it can also accumulate reputation, intellectual property, recurring client relationships and referral momentum. Over time, these become assets rather than simply earnings.

We refer to this as the “Second Curve”: first establishing a clear position, then building a practice, growing its reputation and economics, and eventually creating something of longer-term value. The concept is central to the member proposition because it treats independence not as a softer landing from corporate life but as an entrepreneurial phase in its own right.

Who this is for

This will not appeal to everyone. Some executives want another large corporate role and should take one. Others genuinely want to retire, sit on boards or pursue interests entirely outside business. Building an independent practice requires commercial energy and a willingness to sell as well as advise.

But you might belong to the substantial group for whom neither employment nor conventional freelancing is quite right: people with considerable experience, continued ambition and a desire for greater autonomy, who do not want autonomy to mean professional isolation.

For you, the next institution may look rather different from the one you have just left or are leaving. It may not employ you. It may instead provide the brand, standards, infrastructure and community that allow you to operate independently at a level that would be difficult to achieve alone.

That is a more interesting proposition than retirement disguised as consulting.

It is also, potentially, a better use of some of the most experienced talent in the economy.