Merlin5 · The Podcast Series
Everybody knows the number is behind.
Almost nobody agrees on why.
Conversations with people who have run global sales organisations from the inside — at IBM, HPE, KPMG, Avanade, Hays and DXC — and now spend their time finding what is actually holding the number down. Unscripted. Built from real situations, anonymised.
Three reasons to listen
Operators, not commentators
Real situations, anonymised
No script, no sponsors
latest episode
Why the diagnosis is almost never where the symptom appeared
Nigel Kirkham spent thirty years running sales and client organisations at Avanade, TMF Group, Hays and DXC, and made partner at KPMG. Then he did something unusual: he investigated Merlin5 the way an investor would, spoke to its clients directly, and put his own money in. This conversation is about what he found when he went looking.
SPEAKERS
Nigel Kirkham
Martin Hess
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Who this series is for
Made for the people the number lands on
Growth plans rarely fail for lack of ambition. They fail on execution, forecast discipline, pipeline quality and customer leakage — and those stay hidden until the plan starts slipping. This series is about finding them earlier.
Chief Revenue Officers
You can see the gap. Locating it is the hard part.
Conversion rates vary by team, forecasts drift, and the symptom almost never appears where the constraint actually sits.
Chief Executives
The commercial engine has to carry the plan
How to tell whether the sales organisation you have is capable of delivering the growth you have already committed to.
Transformation leaders
Change that survives contact with the field
Why programmes designed in the centre stall in the territory, and what has to be true for a new way of selling to hold.
Private equity
Value creation runs on a clock
For investors and portfolio boards: what to look for early in the hold period, and the commercial signals that surface far too late.
Portfolio leadership
The plan is already committed
What changes when the growth number is underwritten by an investment case rather than set in an annual planning cycle.
Recognise any of these?
Most leadership teams recognise three or four
The work is establishing which one is actually holding the number down — and that is rarely where the symptom appeared.
The speakers
Two careers spent carrying the number
Merlin5 only employs people who have run sales organisations at scale. Both of these are practitioners, not board observers — they still deliver the work.
Host · Chairman, Merlin5
Martin Hess
Senior leadership positions across IBM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Telefónica Tech. Led HPE's sales organisation and HPE Enterprise Services — a multi-billion-dollar global operation. Grew Telefónica Tech UK&I more than tenfold as CEO and Chairman.
IBM
HPE
Telefónica Tech
10× Growth
Guest · Investor & board advisor
Nigel Kirkham
CEO, CRO, CGO and CCO positions at Avanade, TMF Group, Hays PLC and DXC. Partner at KPMG Consulting, leading large-scale transformation and establishing KPMG's consulting practice across the Middle East.
Avanade
Hays PLC
TMF Group
DXC
KPMG
FROM THE EPISODE
An investor's verdict
30 yrs
running sales and client organisations before he invested
"If I'd known about this during my career in the corporate world, I'd have brought Merlin5 in."
Nigel Kirkham
Investor & Board Advisor, Merlin5
The episode raises the question. We can help you answer it.
Merlin5 is a sales transformation and commercial growth firm built by experienced sales and revenue leaders. We help leadership teams find what is limiting commercial performance, focus on the few actions that matter most, and accelerate value creation — built from your evidence, delivered with your team.
