Managing Director - Finance and Corporate Strategy
Key Skills
Job Description
The Principals Group is a curated global network of senior operators who have built their careers on what AI cannot replicate — deep domain expertise, trusted relationships, and the judgement to deliver in complexity.
It is a professional home for accomplished leaders who choose independence — a platform that gives you a recognised standard, a marketing and delivery engine, and a room of true peers, while your client relationships and the work you win remain entirely your own.
We are particularly interested in senior leaders based in Cologne, Düsseldorf and the wider NRW region.
What you'll do
• Lead senior advisory and value-creation mandates for clients in your domain
• Win and own your client relationships, backed by the TPG brand and pipeline engine
• Set the direction of your own practice — your market, your team, your terms
• Work directly with owners and C-level leaders to deliver outcomes that matter
What you bring
• 10+ years of senior operating responsibility — real decisions, real consequences
• A track record of owning outcomes, not just advising on them
• Deep expertise in a domain — e.g. operations, finance/M&A, growth/GTM, technology, or industry leadership
• Confidence with owners and C-suite stakeholders, and a network you have earned
• The ambition of someone who is decidedly not finished
This is the right next step if you want less bureaucracy, more ownership, and a platform to build something of your own — without going it alone.
Core Responsibilities
Lead senior advisory and value-creation mandates for clients while managing your own client relationships and practice direction. Work directly with owners and C-level leaders to deliver high-impact outcomes.
Requirements
Requires 10+ years of senior operating responsibility with a proven track record of owning outcomes. Candidates must possess deep domain expertise and the ability to engage effectively with C-suite stakeholders.
About The Principals Group
Industry: Business Consulting and Services
Company size: 2-10 employees
The Principals Group is a global network for senior operators who step away from institutional leadership to build an independent practice on their own terms. We exist because the infrastructure for independent consulting has not kept pace with the calibre of people entering it. AI has commoditised analysis; judgement is now the scarce asset. Yet the leaders who hold that judgement are too often left with little more than a personal brand and a blank pipeline. They deserve a professional home: structured peer relationships, real delivery capability, and the operating architecture that turns hard-won expertise into a practice that scales. Our members are former C-suite executives, global practice leaders, and senior partners - typically 40 to 65 - who bring deep domain authority and are building what comes next on their own terms. We are the institutional layer that independent principals have been missing, the platform where experience becomes ownership. Membership is selective and by introduction. Senior Judgement. Delivered. theprincipalsgroup.com