Case Study · The Financial Times · FT Strategies and Sifted · Developing managers across two of its businesses
Even if you think you don't need 10X Managers, you do.
Laura Balboni
Head of People & Operations, Sifted, the FT-backed title
The Financial Times brought 10X in to develop the managers at Sifted, then brought us back for FT Strategies, its strategy consultancy. Two very different businesses. 45 managers. One partner. Two bespoke programmes.
A Financial Times company on developing managers across two of its businesses with 10X: even if you think you don't need 10X Managers, you do.45 managers
developed across two Financial Times businesses, the consultancy FT Strategies and the media title Sifted
10 / 10
every manager rated the sessions on the Sifted programme a perfect 10 out of 10
Since 2024
the relationship began with Sifted and the Financial Times extended it into FT Strategies, still running
Executive Summary
- Sector
- Media, publishing and professional services
- Buyer
- Human Resources and People
The Brief
Develop the managers inside the Financial Times group, and build for what each business actually needed rather than rolling out one course twice. Sifted is a fast-growing media title with lots of first-time managers, people promoted for being brilliant at the craft who were now leading others for the first time. FT Strategies is a boutique consultancy whose experienced consultants needed to build and lead the firm itself, a different skill from advising clients. The brief was to meet each set of managers exactly where they were.
The Outcome
45 managers came away leading differently, not just thinking differently. Sifted's first-time managers built the foundations of managing people; FT Strategies' consultants took practical models straight back onto live client and team work. Senior leaders at Sifted put their names to the result, and the Financial Times trusted the same partner across both businesses.
From the leadership
Working with 10X Managers has not just been needed, but pivotal in bringing out the best not only for our managers but their teams as well.
10X Managers created the programme we needed and was highly actionable.”
Laura Balboni
Head of People & Operations, Sifted
01 / The trigger
Two of the Financial Times' businesses, and two completely different jobs for the managers inside them.
The Financial Times is not one business. It is a group of them: one of the world's most trusted newsrooms, a pioneering subscriptions and data operation, the consultancy FT Strategies, and fast-growth titles like Sifted. The mistake would be to assume they need the same things from their managers. They do not. What FT Strategies needs to build a boutique consultancy is not what Sifted needs to grow a young media team, and the Financial Times wanted development that respected that difference rather than flattening it.
Sifted, the FT-backed title that much of Europe's start-up world reads first, was growing fast, and growth had created a wave of first-time managers: editors, analysts and commercial people who were excellent at the craft and now, for the first time, responsible for others. What they needed was the foundations, the confidence and the habits of managing people well, built from the ground up.
FT Strategies had the opposite starting point. It grew out of the Financial Times' own transformation into a subscription business, and now advises media and subscription organisations around the world on how to grow. Its consultants are experienced operators who spend their days making other organisations better. Many had moved into leadership by being brilliant at the consulting, not by being trained to lead, and the challenge was a different one: building and leading the consultancy itself, growing a boutique firm, developing talent, and leading projects and people as the business scaled. Generic management content would not have fit them; they needed development pitched at how you build and run a professional-services business.
So the work for 10X was never one programme rolled out twice. It was to meet two very different sets of managers exactly where they were, and build for each.
02 / Built for each business
Two businesses, two starting points, and a programme shaped for each rather than one course run twice.
10X did not arrive at the Financial Times with a fixed course to install. Each programme started from where that business's managers actually were. For Sifted, that meant building first-time managers up from the foundations of leading people. For FT Strategies, it meant working the real challenges of building and leading a boutique consultancy, from turning innovation into action inside the firm to where the next wave of revenue comes from in a shifting media model. Same belief, two genuinely different builds.
How it worked
We met managers where they were, and built the room around them.
10X's belief is that managers learn fastest from each other, working the real problems on their plates rather than sitting through theory. That held in both businesses, but it looked different in each. At Sifted, first-time managers worked through the situations they were hitting for the first time, alongside peers facing the same step up. At FT Strategies, experienced consultants compared how they were actually building and leading the firm.
In both, the Performance Partner's job was to draw out what the managers already knew between them and connect it, rather than hand down a generic answer, and to stay reachable between sessions and work the problems on managers' plates, so the development was part of the job rather than a break from it.
The rhythm
We did not teach a model and leave. The work came back to the real job.
Each capability ran on the same cadence. Managers learned a practical model in the room, applied it on live client and team work between sessions, then came back to troubleshoot what actually happened and sharpen it. That loop is what turned content into change managers could feel in the work, rather than notes they filed away.
01
Learn the model
A practical management tool in the workshop, from framing the real problem to running a proper retrospective.
02
Apply it in the real work
Managers took it straight onto live client projects and their own teams, between sessions.
03
Come back and troubleshoot
A follow-up session to report what happened, work the snags, and sharpen it for next time.
Repeated for each capability, so the learning landed in the job, not just the room.
03 / Across both arms
One partner, two very different programmes, built for two very different businesses.
What started with Sifted's first-time managers extended into FT Strategies' consultants. The part a group rarely gets from a development partner is not a single template stamped across everything; it is a partner who can build very different programmes for very different businesses, and be trusted in both. Each build was its own, shaped for the managers in front of it.
The boutique consultancy
31 managers
What they needed
Experienced consultants who needed to build and lead the firm itself, a different skill from advising clients.
What we built
A programme for leading a professional-services business: identifying innovation opportunities, building balanced and inclusive cultures, coaching and developing talent, leading project execution, and owning their impact.
The fast-growing media title
14 managers
What they needed
Lots of first-time managers, promoted for being brilliant at the craft and now leading others for the first time.
What we built
A foundational programme that builds management confidence from the ground up: the role of a manager, building relationships, managing performance, and creating collaborative teams.
The Financial Times did not buy a course off a shelf and hope it fitted two very different businesses. It had each one met where it was, with a partner it could trust to build for a boutique consultancy and a fast-growing media title alike.
From the FT Strategies leadership
“Leading our own people is a different skill from advising clients, and 10X built a programme for exactly that. They met a room of experienced consultants where they were, and it showed up in how our managers now lead.”
04 / What changed
The clearest proof is who went on record, that the Financial Times came back, and what managers did differently.
There is no single before-and-after number on this page, and pretending otherwise would be the wrong move for a business like the Financial Times. What there is, is harder to fake: senior people putting their names to the work, the clearest verdict a client can give, which is to do it again, and managers who changed how they actually work. After Sifted, the Financial Times brought the same partner in for FT Strategies, a different business with a different brief.
At Sifted the endorsement runs top to bottom. The Head of People & Operations, who sponsored the work, called it pivotal. The Chief Editor, who lived it as a participant, valued the reflection time and the focus on managing upwards. When both the person who buys development and a senior person who sits through it say it landed, that is a stronger signal than a tidy chart.
What changed in the work
The strongest evidence is what managers did differently back in the job.
01
A project lead rebuilt how their team runs client work, finishing a first version early and ring-fencing the final days for improvement. When a planned client session was pulled at short notice, that lead time was what let the team build a new framework from scratch in an afternoon instead of cancelling.
02
A manager started using AI as a thinking partner for the first time, pairing protected solo time with a tool to stress-test ideas and find angles they would otherwise have missed.
03
Managers began running retrospectives on their own teams, not just on client projects, and closing the loop with a simple what, so what, now what, so the problems they surfaced turned into owned actions rather than lists nobody returned to.
04
Protected thinking time spread across the team, from do-not-book calendar blocks to simple systems for catching ideas before they were lost.
By the end, the cohort had built its own shorthand. A handful of phrases ran through the rooms and into the work, the clearest sign that one way of managing was forming across the business.
- What, so what, now what
- Incremental innovation, not flying cars
- Remove the friction
- Dolphin, not a whale
The Sifted programme saw every manager rate the sessions 10 out of 10.
From a senior seat at Sifted
“The programme encouraged valuable reflection time away from the usual workload. The approachable style made it easy to engage and share ideas without unnecessary platitudes. The discussion on managing upwards was particularly useful.”
05 / Start here
If you run a group of businesses that each need their own kind of development, you are turning first-time managers into confident leaders as you grow, or you are building the leadership layer of a consultancy or professional-services firm, that is the work we do.
Every partnership between 10X and a client is entirely bespoke and unique. Book a no-obligation call with one of our Development Experts to scope how we could support you and your situation.