My mission is simple — to support leaders of professional services firms, drawing on more than three decades of experience leading international law firms through strategic change, growth, and improved profitability.
Sunil Gadhia
Founder, Portland Place Advisory Non-Executive Director, Gateley Partner, Global Executive Committee, Cleary Gottlieb Partner, Chief Executive, Stephenson Harwood
Leadership at the top is lonely
Leading a professional services firm is fundamentally different from leading a corporate business.
Authority is shared. You are accountable to partners, boards, regulators and clients, not to mention family and friends, often at the same time. Yet accountability for others is diffuse and opaque.
Strategy requires consensus and coalition-building, rather than command. Compensation is inherently political and can become toxic if not handled with care.
Business generation and client service need to be front and centre at all times, even for leaders. Internal communications can be incredibly difficult to get right, yet getting it right is indispensable.
On top of all of this, the flight risk of top performers is a constant worry. And unlike client work, there is rarely immediate feedback or recognition, with the connection between your contribution and the outcome usually blurring over time. Unless the outcome is poor, in which case people always connect it with you.
Beneath all of this lies a challenge few discuss openly: making consequential decisions in relative isolation, without a true peer group to challenge and sharpen your thinking.
My approach
Beyond traditional executive coaching
I provide discreet, experience-led advisory, coaching and mentoring, grounded in what I have seen, done, and learned first-hand.
My clients benefit not just from insight, but from perspective: what works, what fails, and what truly matters, so that leadership becomes not only effective, but sustainable and genuinely rewarding.
I have spent more than three decades leading international law firms through strategic change and growth, coaching leaders and emerging leaders, and advising boards under pressure or in crisis.
I have advised leaders under scrutiny, conducted that scrutiny myself, and led organisations while under scrutiny.
Senior leadership across the professional services spectrum
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
Lateral partner; later appointed to the firm's global Executive Committee, an unprecedented progression in the firm's history. During this period the leadership team delivered the most significant change programme undertaken by the firm in its 75-year history.
Stephenson Harwood
Chief Executive. Led a sustained transformation of the firm over six years: revenues doubled, profitability rose significantly, and the firm was recognised as Law Firm of the Year at the British Legal Awards.
Gateley Holdings Plc
Non-Executive Director. Gateley is a listed professional services group integrating legal and consultancy services.
Portland Place Advisory
Boutique consultancy providing strategic advice to clients on complex disputes and sanctions, alongside leadership advisory work.
Leadership responsibilities
Across these roles I have led organisations through significant change, growth and challenge; advised, coached, mentored and developed dozens of leaders, partners, associates and executives; and built a significant client practice across a range of markets and sectors.
Alongside these roles, I built a market-leading practice advising boards facing complex, multi-jurisdictional disputes, investigations and enforcement exposure.
“Sunil is a hugely impressive lawyer. He has extraordinarily good strategic vision and commercial judgement, and nothing will pass him by.”
Chambers UK
“Sunil Gadhia — a brilliant lawyer, with a superb eye for what matters and how to handle complex tactical issues. Always spots the important points and finds the right answer.”
Each engagement is shaped to its leader and its context. The shared thread is candour: the value of an experienced peer who can challenge, sharpen and steady your thinking, and who has done the work themselves.
Engagements are confidential, considered, and tailored. I take on a small number of clients each year. The areas of focus below describe the scope of my work; the formats describe how it is delivered.
My work focuses on
The scope of the work
Leadership
Strategic and personal: the leader as well as the leadership.
Competitive positioning and strategic change
Where the firm is going, and how it gets there.
Alignment and decision-making at the top
The hardest conversations are usually the ones that have not yet been had.
Governance
Boards, committees, and the architecture of authority within a partnership.
Accountability and performance
Holding the firm, and yourself, to a standard that is genuinely felt.
Compensation
The most political conversation in any partnership, and the one most rewarded by careful design.
Leadership during crisis or regulatory scrutiny
When the temperature rises and the audience expands.
Leadership isolation
Independent challenge, perspective and support: the peer voice that the role itself rarely affords.
Engagement formats
The shape of the work
One-to-one advisory, coaching and mentoring
Regular, in-confidence conversations over an extended period. The arrangement adjusts to the demands of the role.
Executive Committee and Practice Group facilitation
Working with leadership teams to align on strategy, governance, and the conversations that need to happen at the top.
Targeted short-term support
Focused engagement during periods of strategic inflection: a transaction, a transition, a crisis, a moment of choice.
All discussions are discreet, highly confidential, and tailored to the individual and the context.
