Crafting Your Own ghSMART Journey

Crafting Your Career on Your Own Terms

As corporations and consulting firms continue to manage various return-to-office mandates and work-life balance, the concept of career agency is at the forefront of many employer’s minds. At ghSMART, career agency is not just a buzzword; it is a foundational principle that empowers consultants to shape their own paths and lean into their passion areas or building out niches of expertise over time. Combined with our unique fully remote culture, which emphasizes autonomy and personal growth, our consultants can tailor their careers to their strengths and interests in ways that align with both their professional goals and their lives.

What Career Agency Means at ghSMART

At ghSMART, career agency means having the freedom to design a professional journey that reflects your strengths, interests, and long-term goals. Rather than being assigned a one-size-fits-all path, consultants shape their own careers by making choices about the types of work they pursue, the amount of work they take on, and the clients and teams they collaborate with.

1. Self-Driven Staffing: The driving force of career agency at ghSMART is our staffing model. From the start, new consultants are supported by our People Team and Partner group in finding early projects that match their interests and build their skills as leadership advisors. Over time, consultants take the lead in shaping their portfolios by connecting with partners and peers to explore staffing opportunities. Partners also proactively bring opportunities directly to consultants, creating a collaborative approach to staffing. Because our model isn’t tied to offices or industry verticals, consultants can work with clients who inspire them, join teams with colleagues they value, and say no to work that doesn’t align with their goals.
2. Types of Work: All of our work is grounded in leadership strategy and the ghSMART A Method, a structured approach to selecting and developing top leaders. This method helps consultants clearly define the outcomes and competencies required for a role, assess candidates rigorously, and ensure the right fit for clients and organizations. Within this framework, consultants have the freedom to shape a bespoke portfolio that reflects their interests and expertise. Some focus on executive coaching, leadership development, or team effectiveness. Others specialize in industries such as private equity or healthcare. Still others innovate by developing new offerings – from next-generation leadership development and AI-enabled solutions to targeted work with Founder-CEOs.
3. Managing Your Capacity: Career agency also means control over workload – within a full-time framework. All consultants meet a baseline of delivery requirements that reflect a full-time commitment and ensure consistent engagement with clients and teams. Beyond this foundation, consultants have the option to ramp up by taking on additional projects, which are commission-based and highly compensated. This creates flexibility to increase earnings and impact, while also leaving room to adjust capacity during certain seasons of life – for example, caring for a family member or navigating other personal priorities. Importantly, consultants are not bound to set office hours or prescribed schedules. With no in-office requirements, you have the autonomy to structure your time and client work on your own terms, balancing delivery with what works best for your life.

Through this level of autonomy, consultants can craft meaningful careers that fit alongside their personal lives while delivering exceptional results to clients. Choice at ghSMART is balanced with clear expectations, and no one builds their path alone – formal and informal structures guide and support every consultant’s growth.

Growing Your Career on Your Terms

At ghSMART, consultants are empowered to shape their careers with both guidance and flexibility. Early in their tenure, new consultants benefit from a robust onboarding program and targeted trainings, while ongoing firm-wide learning initiatives – from advanced skill development to exposure to new offerings and research – continue throughout their career. Consultants can choose which development paths and trainings to pursue, allowing them to build expertise in the areas that matter most to their own goals.

Mentorship is another cornerstone of support: every consultant, including senior partners, is paired with a mentor to provide guidance, feedback, and career insight. And because ghSMART fosters a culture of open communication and collaboration, consultants can seek advice and share learnings with peers across the firm – no matter where they are working. This support network ensures consultants can grow their skills, pursue their passions, and build expertise in ways that align with their career goals.

Many Paths, Including the Ones You Create

At ghSMART, consultants are not bound by an “up-or-out” model. Unlike traditional consulting firms with strict promotion timelines, consultants have the time and space to explore different areas of interest, refine their skills, and develop expertise at their own pace, all while delivering strong results. This approach allows each consultant to shape a career path that reflects their unique strengths, passions, and long-term goals.

For those seeking deeper specialization, ghSMART offers an Expert track, providing opportunities to expand both client-facing expertise and contributions to internal capability development. Tracks such as CEO Succession, Talent Innovation, Executive Assessment, and AI and Emerging Technology are examples of ways consultants can focus their efforts. Beyond these, consultants continually create new paths, pursuing emerging areas of interest and building expertise in ways that are meaningful to them.

By giving consultants the freedom to choose how they grow, ghSMART enables careers that are both highly personalized and highly impactful.

The Benefits of Owning Your Career Path

At ghSMART, we’ve found that when consultants have the freedom to choose their projects and set their own goals, they are more engaged, motivated, and deliver higher-quality results for clients. By working in areas of strength, consultants create greater value while pursuing work that aligns with their interests.

As a fully remote firm since our founding in the 1990s, we’re able to serve clients across more geographies and focus on driving real impact rather than coordinating travel – or juggling childcare and other personal priorities, as many consultants know all too well. This remote model gives our team the flexibility to balance client work with life outside of work, creating a structure that supports both professional excellence and personal well-being.

Internal surveys at ghSMART show that consultants who actively shape their careers report higher job satisfaction and stronger, longer-term ties to the firm. In an industry where average tenure is roughly two years, our year-over-year retention rate at ghSMART is around 90%. This stability benefits clients as well, allowing consultants to build deep, lasting relationships and gain a thorough understanding of their organizations and leadership teams.

Shape Your Path, Make an Impact

At ghSMART, consultants are not confined to rigid career tracks or verticals. Instead, they have the autonomy to shape careers that align with their strengths and aspirations, while building long-term, impactful advisory relationships with clients. For those seeking a career where they can truly own their path and work from anywhere, ghSMART offers a uniquely supportive and self-directed environment.

Learn more about careers at ghSMART here.