McMillan & Associates is marking eight years in business after growing from a one-person operation to six employees and 10 associates, giving HR teams and SME owners a view of how a specialist consultancy has scaled while maintaining a people-centred strategy. Forecast turnover for 2025/26 is up 23%. 

McMillan & Associates, founded in October 2018 by Natalie McMillan, a former NHS chief executive and chief people officer, is a York-based HR consultancy at Clifton Moor providing organisational development, training, coaching and mediation across Yorkshire and the UK. Its clients include large businesses, SMEs and business owners. 

The strategic logic is scaling through a blended model. Six employees and 10 associates deliver HR consultancy, organisational development, training and coaching, allowing capacity to grow while the strategy set at the start is maintained.

Natalie McMillan, founder of McMillan & Associates, said: “When I started the business, I wanted to create an HR consultancy that made a genuine difference to people and businesses.”

McMillan said she is proud of the growth achieved over the past eight years and attributed it to the talent within the business and to maintaining the strategy set from the start, which holds people central to everything the firm does.

The structural driver is the SME market. In July, the firm appointed Partners PR to raise its profile in that market. McMillan said at the time: “Our business is poised for growth and there are opportunities to educate the SME sector on key HR topics.”

The firm also delivers fully funded HR and leadership sessions for York and North Yorkshire businesses, and is a delivery partner in the Thriving Workplaces and People programme. McMillan has also delivered training on recruitment and onboarding best practice at the firm’s York office.

McMillan has more than 20 years of experience in HR and organisational development, according to the University of York’s Enterprise Works.

For the sector, the anniversary shows a specialist HR consultancy scaling through associates, public programme delivery and SME-focused marketing rather than headcount alone.

Source: York Press / Prolific North / University of York