About Ian Markram

I have sat in your chair. Then I sold it.

Twenty eight years in IT professional services, as a consultant, a practice leader and a founder who built and sold his own firm. Since 2017 I have spent every working week with founders of IT services and SI firms who compete with the global consultancies.

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  • 28 yearsin IT professional services
  • 150+IT services founders coached
  • 6founder exits guided
  • $230Mcombined exit value
Ian Markram, founder of Loading Growth

Loading Growth started with a phone call I kept getting.

I spent my career inside IT professional services, consulting to some of the largest organisations in the world, running practices and eventually founding my own consultancies. I exited through a trade sale, and I have also been a shareholder in a firm that did not make it. Both taught me more than any course.

After the sale, founders of IT services firms who knew my track record started calling. The questions were always the same. Why is utilisation high but profit flat? Why does every escalation still land on my desk? How do we win the bigger programs against Accenture and Deloitte when we are a fraction of their size?

I started answering those questions one to one. That worked, but it priced most founders out. So in 2017 I turned the method into Loading Growth: a program, a peer community and a set of tools that a firm of any size, from a solo consultant to 200 staff, can afford and actually run.

The founders who grow are not the ones who work harder. They are the ones who stop being the firm's single point of failure.

Since then I have coached more than 150 founders around the world. Six of them have exited, for a combined $230M. Many more have done something quieter and just as valuable: they built a firm that runs on margin instead of headcount, with a leadership team that makes the calls the founder used to make.

I live in Sydney, I still consult, and I still invest in IT services firms. That keeps the coaching current. Nothing in the Everest program is theory I read somewhere. It is what is working this quarter inside firms like yours.

Three things I believe about IT services firms.

1

Scale on margin, not headcount.

Adding consultants adds revenue and risk in equal measure. The firms that become valuable grow EBIT per consultant first, through rates, utilisation discipline and productised delivery, and add people second.

2

Your firm is worth more when it depends less on you.

A buyer, a bank or a new partner looks straight through the revenue line to one question: what happens when the founder steps back? Every Key in the Loading Growth Wheel is built to improve the answer.

3

The global consultancies are beatable, on your terms.

You will not outspend Accenture. You can outposition them: deeper in one market, faster to decide, closer to the client, with senior people the client actually sees. That is a strategy, and it can be built deliberately.

The tools that came out of the work.

Every one of these was built inside real coaching engagements, refined across 150+ firms, and is proprietary to Loading Growth.

The operating model

The Loading Growth Wheel

Nine Keys with shareholder value at the centre: Loading Growth, Sales, Clients, Rates and Services, then Growing IP, A Team, Leaders and Market. Eighty eight levers underneath them. It is how we diagnose a firm and how we decide what to work on next.

The profit instrument

The EBIT Dial

Rate, cost, utilisation, headcount and overheads, measured per engagement every month rather than per firm once a year. It shows which of the five inputs to move next quarter and what each move is worth.

The founder shift

The Role Reset Framework

A structured way to move from operator to owner: which decisions you keep, which you hand to a leadership bench, and how to make the handover stick so the escalations stop finding their way back to you.

The execution rhythm

The 90 Day Sprint

Six week implementation cycles with two weeks off, four times a year, February to November. One or two levers at a time, measured, reviewed with peers, and locked in before the next cycle starts.

Explore the Nine Keys See how the Everest program uses them

Who I work with, and who I do not.

This is for you if

  • You founded or lead an IT professional services or systems integration firm selling project, advisory or implementation work.
  • You have between 1 and 200 staff. Basecamp for firms under 10, Ascent for 10 to 40, Summit for 40 to 200 with an executive team.
  • You compete with Accenture, Deloitte, Capgemini, the Indian majors and the local mid tier for the same programs.
  • You want a firm that is worth more and depends less on you, whether or not you ever plan to sell.

This is not for you if

  • You run a managed services provider. Most of your revenue is recurring support contracts. We do not coach MSPs and the levers are different.
  • You are a software company or a SaaS business looking for a go to market coach.
  • You want someone to do the work for you. I coach founders who implement. If you need a marketing team, that is what The IT VA is for.
  • You are looking for motivation rather than margin. The Everest program is practical, measured and sometimes uncomfortable.

What founders say after a few quarters.

Ian has coached our executive team for the past 18 months and has helped us transition from our roles as technical leads within the business to acting as business owners to focus on growth. This has helped us to exceed our growth and profitability targets.
Athol HillDirector and Cofounder, Chrome Consulting
He and his team help drive continuous improvements in my business in practical steps of a manageable size. His advice has been invaluable in helping me mature as a business leader.
James BeresfordCEO, Talos
He helped us grow our business by looking for the right clients, shifting our mindset and focusing on the right things.
Benjamin Chambersthen COO, Mojo Soup
Ian Markram The Leveraged Consultancy How IT services and systems integrator founders win the AI era

The book

Ten years of coaching, written down.

The Leveraged Consultancy is the Nine Keys in book form: the firm led by senior people who hold the judgement and the client relationships, with AI and offshore specialists carrying repeatable delivery and a platform running the day to day. Written in public, with a workbook exercise at the end of every chapter and the first chapter free now.

Ian helped me step back and look at the consultancy as a business rather than a collection of projects.Ian Peake, CEO and Founder, Peake Consulting
Read the first chapter free Get first access at launch

Loading Growth is the coaching arm of a wider ecosystem.

Coaching changes how a founder thinks. Some problems also need hands, tools or an audience. Each of these was built for IT services founders, and each connects back to the Nine Keys.

The IT VAMarketing and pipeline done for IT services firms. The team that runs outreach, content and follow up when the founder should not be doing it. ITVA TalentVetted offshore and onshore staff for IT services firms, with HR, payroll and compliance handled, so you grow capacity without growing the bench cost. ConsultancyOSAn operating system for the modern consultancy that encodes your IP into AI agents that deliver client work and run operations. IT Mastermind TalksThe podcast and community for IT services operators, with monthly online sessions and quarterly in person intensives. The Leveraged booksThe Leveraged Consultancy, The Leveraged Pipeline and The Leveraged Team. Written in public, chapters free as they are finished. ianmarkram.comSpeaking, investing and the longer form of the story, for founders who want the whole picture.

Forty five minutes. Your numbers. One lever.

Bring your rough revenue, margin and headcount. I will map where your firm sits on the Loading Growth Wheel and tell you the one lever to pull first, and whether Basecamp, Ascent or Summit is the right fit. No pitch deck.

Book a strategy call Or take the six minute scorecard first