How INCAS functions as a collective of experts
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Many consultancies are built around hierarchy and fixed teams. INCAS works differently. We bring together experts with diverse backgrounds, who share values like kindness, integrity, pragmatism, and humility, to work on projects that create enduring, positive change. But what does this look like in practice?
In this Q&A, INCAS Social Impact practice lead Elodie Grant Goodey explains what she sees as distinctive about our way of doing things, how our values show up in our organisational processes, and how it all fuels our growth as a business.
INCAS: We describe ourselves as a collective of experts. How is that different from a conventional consultancy or a network of experts?
Elodie: One key difference is that INCAS does not employ its experts. When we show up for projects or meetings, it’s because we want to. For the expert, you can do other things as well as your work with INCAS, offering a lot of variety. This flexibility is what attracted me to INCAS in the first place.
Another distinctive element is our shared sense of common purpose. The combination of common purpose and flexibility is a rare one.
The mutual respect among different team members is quite striking, and comes from the INCAS model and people. Our practice leads and experts can choose who they work with and which projects they work on. This ability to choose is very important: no one is forced to work with anyone else, but because of our working culture, everyone is generally happy to work with everyone else.
INCAS: You’ve outlined some of the benefits of our model, but what are the challenges?
Elodie: The main challenge is the resourcing. Within my practice, I’ve worked to address this by building up my team, so I always have an excellent group of people to draw from when projects come my way.
The business development side of things is also something you have to pay close attention to, as with any consultancy. Unlike most conventional consultancies, though, we don’t have a compulsory business development target. So this tends to be a focus for a smaller group of our experts.
INCAS: Could you give an example of how different practices might come together on a single piece of work?
Elodie: Let’s take a recent project as an example. I was approached by a client, a multinational working in West Africa. They wanted to set up a capacity building programme in the local community that they hoped would improve relations, but they also faced a potential conflict with a specific group in the local community.
Members of my practice area focused on the social performance work. But we were able to bring on board Sofia—who leads our Peace practice—to support the conflict resolution work. She has extensive mediation experience and a strong governance background, so her input was invaluable.
Later in the project, the company wanted help drafting some terms of reference for a biodiversity project. I asked Rolf, one of the leads of our new Environment practice, to help with this.
Finally, the company needed support assessing the impact of its community projects and training employees to monitor implementation. So Gudrun—who leads our Impact Evaluation practice—supported that.
For this to work well, we need to know what the other practice areas do. We hold regular internal project meetings, which help with this information sharing, and we specifically discuss cross-practice collaboration.
Having said that, we’re always learning through our projects and that’s part of the attraction of this kind of work. With every new project, we have to learn a lot from scratch—and often we’re working with new clients and new teams, or new configurations of team members working remotely. It’s a good challenge. I like it.
INCAS: Considering that our teams are largely made up of senior experts working remotely, what do you feel makes them work well together, and to a high standard?
Elodie: I think it all starts with culture, having people who share the core INCAS approach.
When I lead a project, I hold weekly meetings so the team gets together. I also spend a lot of time on WhatsApp, exchanging calls and messages. My aim is to make sure that everyone knows what they need to do, what’s expected of them and what their deadlines are.
In the end, there is quite a lot of support that is needed with this kind of remote work, which would happen organically if we were all in the same meeting room or office.
That collaborative culture also shapes how INCAS is organised internally.
INCAS: Can you talk us through how INCAS is governed? How does the combination of the Board, the Executive Committee, the practice leads, and the project and business development team calls shape how we perform?
Elodie: The Board has formed recently and has had several meetings so far. Generally, the role of a Board is to support and challenge the Executive, to think strategically about how a company should navigate its operating environment. I think our Board’s first priority for now is to offer support, and we will aim to be more focused on strategic, long-term thinking in due course.
In terms of the Executive Committee, it is focused on keeping the company’s wheels running, which is obviously very important.
The role of the practice leads is critical in keeping recruitment moving, identifying experts, and business development.
As INCAS has grown, we’ve invested more in knowledge sharing, internal systems, and creating opportunities for people to learn from one another.
There’s a push for continued learning and knowledge exchange, and to give our junior experts plenty of opportunities to grow and become leaders. That’s an area that I’d love to see us keep expanding—building on our youth strategy—because our junior experts are smart and motivated. And we senior experts aren’t getting any younger!
INCAS: Many INCAS experts have worked on the client side. How does this affect the advice and support that we can provide to our client base, new and existing?
Elodie: I think it’s a crucial part of our service offering—particularly for my practice and the Security practice. I can say to any potential new client that I’ve been on their side of the table and faced many of their dilemmas, questions and challenges. I can tell them truthfully that we speak their language—meaning the language of business, rather than just consulting.
Having lots of experts who have worked on the client side also gives us great breadth of experience. This matters, because it helps us listen to what each client is really saying when they ask for our support, and—if necessary—to pivot.
This all works in conjunction with another important aspect of the INCAS culture: a willingness to go the extra mile and try to approach our work with no ego.
Ultimately, we aren’t just motivated by good intentions. We’re trying to help our clients solve their problems in a practical way, and we understand the kind of constraints they will face: things like budgetary limitations. We also recognise that the needs of a large multinational are very different from the needs of a midtier company, and we tailor what we offer accordingly. So, our approach is value-driven but also intensely practical.
