Video:

James Parker:

* a partner at Parma Consulting Group (strategy consulting partnership, focused on financial institutions, professional services, information intensive businesses and not-for-profit);

* an author of Changing the Leopard’s Spots. Renewal of the Professional Firm - a summary of the strategic positioning choices for professional firms;

* Lecturer at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University;

* was a consultant at McKinsey & Company for 7 years;

* was a manager at Barclays Bank International for 9 years;

* has studied at the University of Oxford and INSEAD.

In the episode we discussed:

* his 3 years as a manager of the Barclays Bank in Zaire:

* it was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to 1997,

* James was also an Honorary British Consul at the same time there,

* why the country is so poor while with it’s resources it’s one of the richest country in the world,

* a book Tales from Zaire James wrote with stories about his time there,

* we spoke about the corruption and (almost no) taxation there,

“if there was any tax, it would be going straight into the pocket of the people running the government”

* studies of Russian literature at the University of Oxford and his favourites - War and Peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy;

* Seven Basic Plots as a book he wish he read earlier in his life;

* behind the scenes of his book Changing the Leopard’s Spots. Renewal of the Professional Firm;

* WTS Global and strategy of professional firms;

* two markets of professional firms;

* how tax advisors sometimes are different from law practices;

* a reference in The Trusted Advisor by a guru of leading professional services firms David Meister, to the book of James;

* Cutting the tail as a strategy;

* what are top 3 things James would do, if he was leading a tax practice;

* for a large corporation it’s important to have a tax strategy;

* comparison of high and low tax countries.