November 09th, 2016

A ceo profile

Listen to the following audio, write down the information that you feel is important to you. This training is extremely useful if you have a high level of interaction on the phone with clients. Listenting and being able to write at the same time is a skill.

---

1.  Who is the CEO in the story?
2.  What is the name of the consultancy company?
3.  When was the consultancy company established?
4.  Where is the consultancy company based?
5.  How many employees does the consultancy company have?
6.  What service does the consultancy company provide?
7.  How much does the consultancy company charge for their service?
8.  In which locations are the consultancy companies based?
9.  What does the CEO attribute the company´s success to?
10.  In which year did the company re-structure?
11.  How m any new Directors are there and which departments are they responsible for?
12.  How old is the CEO?
13.  How many children does he have?
14.  Which company did the CEO work in before his current position?
15.  Where was the company based?
16.  How long did he work there for?

---

Conversation section

1.  Having consultants working on short-term contracts has become a fashionable business model.
2.  Do you think that this concept has become fashionable because it is a cheap option?  If so, why?
3.  Some people believe that short-term contracts offer more flexibility for companies.  Discuss what you think the advantages and disadvantages are to both the company and individual.
4.  Do you think that restructuring an organisation is a necessity or a waste of time and money?  Why?
5.  Can CEO¨s be too old or too young?
6.  Do you think that the name of a company can help it to grow - if so, why?
7.  Is training important?  Why?
8.  Do people tend to favour job security over money in your country?
9.  Do you prefer working for smaller or larger corporate structures?  Why?
10.  What is better from your perspective - having lower rates but a higher volume of business or the opposite?
11.  The success of an organisation depends on its CEO?
12.  The bigger the structure, the faster you get promoted - or is it the opposite?
13.  Job titles no longer reflect the job that you do.
14.  Every employee does tasks that they are not supposed to do.

Ian Slater is the CEO for a company called X-Motion.  The company is one of the seven consultancy companies based in Madrid.  Established in 1995, it has grown to a considerable size and now has over 2,000 employees.

X-motion provides Project Managers to companies on a short contract basis.  They charge between 25€ and 85€ per hour for their service and have offices in London, Paris, Italy and Spain.

The CEO believes that the company success is mainly due to its training program which every consultant has to attend.  In 2016, the company changed it´s corporate structure and has three new directors - each one responsible for a different area of the business to include sales & marketing, training & development and accounts.

Ian is thirty-eight years old, married with one child and lives in a small town on the outskirts of Madrid.  Before this position, he was a Sales Director for a sports company called "Premier Sports" based in Valencia.  He worked there for six years.