People often assume consultants choose the profession deliberately — a planned career step with a clear trajectory.
Not me.

I became a management consultant years before I realised that’s what I was becoming.

It happened in my first real project leadership role for an airline group. A job I walked into with enthusiasm… and absolutely no idea what I was doing.

Thrown Into a Role I Wasn’t “Ready” For

When I joined the airline project team, I expected structured guidance, a defined remit, and maybe even a sense of direction.

I got none of that.

Instead, I was handed a massive programme of work, a set of stakeholders with strong opinions, and a brief that essentially said:

“Figure it out.”

I had no airline background.
No deep operational expertise.
No experience of large-scale programme delivery.
And absolutely no idea how to navigate a complex, high-pressure environment filled with experienced professionals who all seemed to speak in acronyms I’d never heard of.

But somehow, people expected me to lead.

Not because I was the expert — but because the work needed to move, and I was the one standing in the space where movement should happen.

Learning Faster Than I Could Think

I remember those early days vividly:

• Sitting in meetings scribbling notes so quickly I barely understood my own handwriting.

• Googling terminology after hours.

• Asking the same question multiple times because the first answer didn’t make any sense.

• Staying late to understand operational processes that never looked simple, even on paper.

• Quietly panicking every time someone asked, “What’s the plan?”

But something interesting happened.

The more questions I asked, the more clarity emerged.
The more I admitted what I didn’t know, the more people trusted me.
The more I listened, the more people opened up problems they hadn’t voiced before.
And the more I structured what I was learning, the more others relied on that structure.

I wasn’t becoming an airline expert.

I was becoming the person who made sense of the chaos.

Leading Without Realising I Was Leading

At some point — and I never noticed exactly when — the dynamic shifted.

People started coming to me for updates.
They asked me how decisions would affect delivery.
They waited for me to outline the next steps.
They expected me to coordinate teams, resolve blockers, and drive momentum.

I didn’t have a job title that implied leadership.
But I was leading.

Not because I told people what to do.
But because I brought structure, clarity, and momentum where there wasn’t any.

That’s when I unknowingly crossed the line into consulting behaviour.

I wasn’t there to operate.
I was there to create direction.

I was there to diagnose, simplify, enable, and accelerate.

The Moment It Hit Me

It wasn’t until years later — several industries, projects, and clients down the road — that I looked back and realised:

I was consulting long before I had “consultant” on my CV.

The signs were there all along:

• being dropped into unfamiliar environments

• learning fast

• asking better questions than the experts

• understanding the people as much as the processes

• translating complexity into action

• building trust by being reliable, not technical

• creating structure where there was none

• moving organisations forward without needing authority

I thought I was improvising.
In reality, I was developing the foundations of my consulting career.

What That First Role Taught Me

1. You don’t need to be the expert — you need to reveal the expertise around you

Consultants rarely know more than the people they’re helping. Our job is to connect dots others haven’t connected yet.

2. Leadership isn’t granted — it’s earned through clarity

In that airline organisation, people followed my lead simply because I helped them see the path ahead.

3. Asking good questions is more powerful than having good answers

Every breakthrough started with one simple, honest question: “Help me understand this…”

4. Confidence grows from competence, not the other way around

I didn’t “feel ready.” I became ready by stepping up, learning fast, and delivering consistently.

5. Sometimes your career finds you before you find it

I didn’t choose management consulting.
Consulting chose me the moment I decided to bring order to complexity.

Looking Back

That airline project was messy, exhausting, unpredictable, and at times completely overwhelming.

But it shaped everything that came after.

It taught me how to adapt, how to lead, how to think, and how to create clarity where no one else could see it. It gave me the foundation for every transformation, every operating model, every technology programme, and every client partnership I’ve led since.

I didn’t realise it at the time.
I just thought I was trying to survive.

But in reality, I was building the career that would define the rest of my professional life.

Sometimes you don’t recognise the start of your journey until you’ve already travelled miles beyond it.