The Chief Growth Officer's Challenge: Connecting Intelligence, Relationships and Revenue

The chief growth officer role reflects an increasingly broad view of how law firms develop business. Growth can involve expanding relationships with existing clients, entering new industries, recruiting lateral partners, improving the pitch process and creating opportunities for collaboration across practices. These activities may be managed by different departments, but their effectiveness often depends on how well the firm coordinates information, relationships and resources.

A firm may have an extensive client database, a competitive intelligence function, experienced business development professionals and a sophisticated lateral recruiting program. Yet information gathered by one team may never reach another, even when it could support an important decision.

A client development team may know that a company is expanding internationally while the recruiting team is evaluating whether the firm needs additional cross-border capabilities. A practice leader may be researching a prospective client without realizing that the firm's alumni program has an established relationship with its general counsel.

For a chief growth officer, one important opportunity is creating a more coordinated approach to intelligence so that research collected for one purpose can inform other growth initiatives.

Establish a Common Understanding of Growth Priorities

Growth strategies can lose focus when every practice, industry group and office pursues its own initiatives without a clear understanding of the firm's broader priorities.

The chief growth officer can help establish a consistent framework for identifying the clients, industries, geographic markets and capabilities that warrant attention.

For example, a firm may decide to expand its representation of private equity sponsors investing in healthcare. That priority could involve several related activities: identifying target sponsors, researching their portfolio companies, strengthening healthcare regulatory capabilities and recruiting lawyers with relevant experience.

Each activity requires different expertise, but all benefit from a shared understanding of the target market.

Company intelligence can provide a foundation for these discussions by helping leadership understand the businesses operating in the sector, their investment activity and developments that may be relevant to the firm's capabilities.

The resulting research can support strategic planning and provide a common reference point for the departments responsible for executing the growth strategy.

Connect Business Development With Lateral Recruiting

Lateral recruiting and business development are closely related, although they may operate through separate processes.

A firm considering an investment in a new practice needs to understand the commercial opportunities associated with that capability. Recruiting leaders may evaluate a candidate's experience and business plan, while business development professionals examine the industries, companies and potential opportunities connected to the proposed hire.

These perspectives can inform one another. Suppose a firm wants to strengthen its industrials practice. Company research may identify relevant acquisition activity, investment trends and expansion among existing clients and prospects. Leadership can use this information to evaluate the types of experience it wants to develop and the potential strategic fit of a lateral candidate.

If a candidate is under consideration, research into companies identified through the recruiting process can provide additional context for the business case. The firm can examine those organizations' activities and consider how the candidate's practice may complement existing capabilities.

Following the hire, the same research can inform the partner's integration plan, client introductions and account development priorities. A coordinated approach allows the firm to connect the rationale for recruiting a lawyer with the business development activities intended to support that lawyer after joining.

Make Strategic Account Planning a Firmwide Activity

Important client relationships frequently involve multiple practices, offices and individuals. A chief growth officer can help establish an account planning process that reflects the full scope of those relationships.

The process may begin with identifying the firm's priority clients and assigning responsibility for coordinating each account. Business development teams can then work with relationship partners to understand the client's business, review existing matters and identify colleagues with relevant experience.

Company intelligence adds another dimension by helping the team understand developments involving the client and its industry.

An existing client may announce a series of acquisitions, expand into new jurisdictions or change its ownership structure. These developments can inform discussions about the client's evolving priorities and whether additional practices may have relevant capabilities.

Gatsby Aware can support ongoing monitoring of selected accounts, while Gatsby Intel can provide more comprehensive research when teams need to investigate a particular development or prepare for a strategic meeting.

The chief growth officer can help establish expectations for how account teams use this information, coordinate across practices and record follow-up activity.

Give Partners Information They Can Act On

Lawyers have limited time for business development, and the information they receive needs to support a specific activity or decision.

A lengthy research report may be appropriate when preparing for a major pitch or evaluating a new market. A partner preparing for a meeting tomorrow may need a concise briefing that identifies the company's recent developments, relevant background and issues worth discussing.

The chief growth officer can work with business development and intelligence teams to define the information required for different activities. For client meetings, the emphasis may be on company background and recent developments. For strategic account reviews, the team may need a broader understanding of the business and its priorities. For recruiting decisions, leadership may require market research and profiles of companies associated with a candidate.

Establishing these use cases can help the firm select appropriate research resources and create workflows that reflect how lawyers actually work. Gatsby Intel delivers company research through source-cited reports, while Aware provides briefings about relevant developments involving selected accounts. These capabilities can support different information needs within a coordinated growth program.

Build Accountability Into the Process

Access to intelligence doesn't guarantee that information will be reviewed or acted upon.

A chief growth officer can help establish clear responsibilities for identifying priority accounts, reviewing developments, preparing research and coordinating follow-up.

The business development team may manage account monitoring and initial research, while relationship partners determine whether a development warrants client outreach. Practice leaders may be responsible for identifying relevant expertise and participating in discussions when appropriate.

These responsibilities can be incorporated into existing account planning meetings and business development processes.

The firm also benefits from a consistent method of recording activity. If an intelligence briefing leads to a meeting, introduction or pitch, the team can document the connection in its existing systems.

This information helps leadership understand whether the intelligence program is being used and how it contributes to business development activity.

Evaluate Growth Across the Entire Relationship

Revenue remains an important measure of business development performance, but it may take time for a new relationship or strategic initiative to produce financial results.

A chief growth officer can examine additional indicators, including introductions across practices, meetings with priority prospects, new opportunities, pitches and the development of relationships with additional contacts at existing clients.

These measures can help leadership understand how the firm's growth initiatives are progressing and where additional support may be required. The same approach can be applied to lateral integration. Tracking introductions, client meetings and collaborative opportunities can provide insight into whether an incoming partner is establishing relationships across the firm.

Company intelligence can inform these activities, but its contribution needs to be evaluated alongside the work of lawyers, business development professionals and other teams.

A coordinated measurement approach helps the firm understand which activities are generating engagement and where its resources are producing results.

Create a Growth Function That Connects the Firm

The chief growth officer has an opportunity to connect activities that have traditionally operated independently. Client development, recruiting, marketing, competitive intelligence and practice strategy all contribute to growth, and each can benefit from information gathered by the others.

A shared approach to company intelligence can help these teams work from a more consistent understanding of the firm's priority clients, prospects and markets. It can also make research more useful by connecting it to specific decisions and establishing clear responsibilities for follow-up.

Gatsby Intel and Aware can support this approach through on-demand company research and ongoing monitoring of priority accounts. Their value within a growth program comes from how firms incorporate that information into strategic planning, relationship development and coordinated business development activity.

For chief growth officers, the opportunity is to create a system in which information collected across the firm informs decisions, supports collaboration and contributes to a more deliberate approach to growth.

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