In this episode of Strategy Unscripted, Russell Longmuir — CEO at EFQM and former consulting leader at IBM, KPMG and PwC — shares a candid look at transforming an organisation while operating under real-world constraints. From shifting EFQM to a direct go-to-market, to digitising decades of assessment data, Russell explains how a small, distributed team scaled globally without external equity or debt.

In this conversation, you’ll learn how he:

✅ Defined four non-negotiable pillars (product quality, digitisation, brand control, extended customer relationships) and stuck to them amid daily firefighting

✅ Balanced surging demand with funding limits by sequencing bets and raising quality across a hybrid workforce operating in 25 languages

✅ Replaced partner-led distribution with customer proximity to drive growth (including major gains in the Middle East)

✅ Combines evidence-based benchmarking with emerging agentic AI while protecting human judgement and capability development