Loyal Advisory

What is Loyal Advisory and who is Pedro Pires

Recently, I had the amazing opportunity to visit Loyal Advisory, a management consulting firm with a fresh and new approach to how to provide value to its clients. Loyal’ managing partners are Pedro Pires, Mafalda Henriques and Sofia Cartó and I had the opportunity to get to know Pedro Pires in detail and to discuss with him the first 5 years of the company and his thoughts about the business world. Pedro is an economics’ graduate from FEP and, after that, he took a MSc in Marketing at ISCTE Business School. Throughout his career, Pedro always looked for leave a mark in every project he involved himself. He met Sofia and Mafalda and, when all of them felt they had the necessary experience, they took the leap and they started. The company was created as a partnership. Loyal is a SME and it has been growing every year since its foundation, in 2014. The company functions in a project-related perspective, valuing more a strong backbone instead of a functional matrix, for example. The goal is how to best serve the client and they strive to apply always a customized approach. They rely in some frameworks, of course, however, in their understanding, those are just tools. For them, the value added is on giving a different and outside perspective to the client. This is one of the most important philosophies in the company.

What is Loyal Advisory’ value proposition

Loyal Advisory focuses in a niche market: it adds value to its clients in terms of stakeholders relationships and how to best manage them. Loyal is unveiling a market that, formally, in Europe, does not exist yet. There are no companies only focused on stakeholder management today: some of them, as agencies or some consultancies, might do some projects in this area, however, it is only one more department or one more type of project they carry on. Loyal, on the other hand, focuses solely in stakeholder management and has the objective of becoming a European reference. Why? Because for Pedro, in Europe, there is a kind of history and ethics that one cannot find in any other place. Since 2014, in which only 20% of the revenues came from international clients, this reality has been changing and a strong growth on the international client’s weight is forecasted for the future.

Loyal can be described as a mix of a consulting company with an entrepreneurship drive. On one hand, they strive for delivering structured approaches to its clients, with solid pillars and that can add value and solve their solution; on the other hand, they do not settle for conservative solutions and they have innovation and a risk-taker attitude in their DNA.

Loyal aims to provide to its clients with a fresh perspective to its problems. Loyal has the resources
(either the technical expertise, as the human resources itself) to tailor its solutions to every client problem. Unlike the typical consulting company, who benchmarks other similar players or geographies in order to understand best practices/solutions, Loyal engages on the disruptive method, understanding what already exists, in order to provide the client with a new, different and customized output. Pedro believes this is a two-way street: “We have to feel that the clients properly value our perspective. We are very rigorous about the type of projects we take on. If a client wants an innovative and disruptive consulting project and if the client values the exchange of feedback throughout the project, we are the perfect company for them”.

Stakeholder Management and an example of the work Loyal does with its clients ´

Why is stakeholder management theory a theory we do not learn at business chools? According to Pedro, that happens due to the importance of the shareholder in the economic theory one learns at business schools. The companies, says Pedro, normally devote little time to monitor the relationships with powerful stakeholders, as, for instance, suppliers or customers. Loyal helps its clients to manage in a better and more efficient way these relationships, trying to provide the clients with a new and fresh perspective.

To paint a picture, Loyal developed a very successful project for Sumol+Compal, that led to “Centro de Frutologia Compal”. The goal of the project was to improve the relationship between Sumol+Compal and the local producers, which had some potential for improvement. The method/structure used normally follows these steps: firstly, Loyal defines the problem and what are the objectives of the client; secondly, Loyal engages on stakeholder mapping, listening to the concerns of each stakeholder, in order to understand each involved parties; finally, it drafts the customized solution to the client problem. The “Centro de Frutologia Compal” was highly successful and there are several academies and workshops happening every year, always provided by Loyal. In this particular collaboration, one can also see a typical characteristic of Loyal: the longstanding relationship with its clients. Loyal has an extremely high retention rate (above 90%) and Pedro proudly says that he feels that Loyal becomes typically a trusted advisor for several clients. Furthermore, Loyal not only drafts a proposal and delivers it to the client as well as it implements it (as one can see in the aforementioned example). Pedro also states this end-to-end solution, not very common in corporate consulting, is also very valued by the client.

What is Loyal’ vision and what are the challenges ahead

Loyal’ vision remains the same as it was in 2014, when the company started: to become an European reference in stakeholder management. According to Pedro Pires, the main positive challenge the company is facing currently is how to build a 2nd generation of leaders inside the company. Loyal believes in a active instead of a reactive mindset, thus, they acknowledge the importance of building this generation as a foundation for future growth. “To accomplish to have people with our vision, that truly believe in what we are building, that’s our main challenge. What characteristics they must have, you ask? They must show confidence, entrepreneurship and, above all, they must earn and enjoy having that responsibility. They must enjoy being risk takers” said Pedro Pires, when I asked him about how he would characterize these new leaders. As Pedro says, he understands that, by spending value with his team, he is definitely making them evolve and he is evolving with them. However, more time with the team is less time with the clients and, as Pedro states, gradually, this will change, with this new generation of leaders.


What is the life of a managing partner and how has his routine evolved over the years

Since very young, Pedro showed some leadership characteristics. At the age of 25, he had already created a department that he would further direct. Step by step, he grew professionally until the point in which he started his own business. In the beginning of the company, Pedro told me he would devote most of its time in client acquisition and in project-making, in order to ensure an image of quality towards Loyal. The main goal was to make clients believe in Loyal’ vision. Pedro continue to say “I am still in nowhere. I am only 35 years old. I do not care about my status or the power people associate to me. That will be a consequence. What matters to me is the values my team has and what we want to do as a company. One of the most fundamental values in the company is the value of work.” Pedro states that he loves to work, he loves to learn how to be a leader, on the job. Currently, his work is still focused on clients and in managing some projects, however, the focus in the future will be in building this aforementioned 2 nd generation of leaders. And why is that? Because Pedro truly believes that his team is incredible, because all the decisions require a consensus and take into account several opinions, taking advantage of the best of each person. “But how can we scale this? Only with a 2 nd generation of leaders”.

The profile of future Loyal consultants and the importance of the backpack

At the first day of every new joiner at Loyal, he/she will receive a backpack and a laptop to start working. And why is this the starter pack? The backpack truly represents one of the philosophies embraced at Loyal: the work they do is not only in the office, but a lot of their time is spent in the “field”. Thus, the backpack is a symbol for their constant path. As Pedro states “Backpacked” means that we are prepared, wherever, whenever a challenge requires our knowledge, our expertise, our strength. Always being “Backpacked” is a style of living and a new style of consulting.”

Besides being able to embrace this Backpack lifestyle, Pedro also mentioned other characteristics that he believes to be fundamental in a new hire from Loyal. Firstly, it is important to divide the hires of Loyal between youngsters, who have finished college, for instance, and between professionals with 27/28 years, who had already experience in the job market. Nevertheless this division that, according to Pedro, makes sense to be done as people with previous job experience already have a different layer of knowledge and can add value through their previous perspectives, Pedro looks for people that know how to listen, that are curious by nature, with a learning mindset and that, above all, have the self-confidence to strive for excellence even if, sometimes, they still don’t know how to achieve it. For Pedro, technical expertise is important, but secondary, as it can be learned in the company, while the capacity of having a self-perspective and of having a will for continuous improvement are much harder to find, in his opinion. For Pedro, what Loyal gives to its employees is the freedom to develop projects and to leave their mark on it, since the beginning. Besides that, Pedro truly strives for validating ideas and supporting them, but always giving the space needed for its teammates to come up with innovative recommendations.

Loyal’s recruitment

Loyal had a significative growth back in 2017 and now it looks for professionals that can clearly bring value to the company, that can be the “new leaders” of the 2nd generation previously praised. Regarding the profile aforementioned, Pedro values also background diversity, in order to build a joint of multi-diverse perspectives, and people that feel at home around other people. For Pedro, “A consultant is someone who works in client’s site with the client, not someone who is in the office”. To apply, the interested ones can just visit Loyal website (https://loyaladvisory.com/) and go to the tab “Becoming Loyal”.

How Pedro highlights the importance of not following, without asking, the “predefined” path

“João Félix did not say to Bruno Lage that, due to his age, he should be playing in the B team of Benfica, right? For me, that analogy shows that people should not take a MSc just because it is the “required” and mandatory path by society. In some cases, that might not be the right move”. For Pedro, he believes that people should not engage in big decisions in life just because they are meant to follow that road. “I only understood my grandfather was an entrepreneur later on in my life. Why? Because I was caught in the routine of following a predefined path by the society. I remembered that, at FEP, I had a colleague that, in his vacations, helped his family in their factory. Back then, me and my colleagues did not appreciate as we should that attitude. Our colleague was already showing some very clear signs of entrepreneurship and of an on-thejob attitude.”

In conclusion, by bringing an innovative and fresh perspective and by taking advantage of a niche market, Loyal has all the potential to continue growing its business and to expand its operations throughout Europe.

Finally, I would like to thank Pedro and Loyal Advisory for all the insights provided and wish them all the best for their future endeavors!

Dear Readers, I hope that this article was useful for you!

See you next time!