What Makes a Newground Person?

Some people thrive in specialist firms almost immediately. Others never really settle in, no matter how strong the CV is.

The difference is rarely technical competence alone.

Across Newground, the companies vary widely in size, domain, and expertise. Some work with AI agents and analytics. Others operate inside financial infrastructure, technology transformation, procurement, or organizational change. Yet over time, Patrick Donovan, Head of Talent Acquisition at Newground, began noticing the same pattern across the alliance.

“I often know someone is a Newground person before I know which company they belong in,” he says.

That recognition has little to do with titles, polish, or traditional corporate signaling. If anything, Patrick believes those things can sometimes become misleading.

“A lot of people are used to structure carrying them,” he says. “Clear hierarchies. Clear ownership. Clear processes. But specialist firms work differently. The environment assumes people will move things forward without waiting to be told.”

That changes what makes someone successful.

The people who tend to thrive here are usually highly autonomous, but still collaborative. They move naturally toward responsibility. They do not wait for structure to create momentum for them.

“It’s a very grown-up environment,” Patrick says. “People are trusted to operate without heavy structures around them. That freedom works really well for some people. Others find it uncomfortable surprisingly quickly.”

Per Appelgren, who has spent years building specialist firms and working closely with founders across the alliance, believes that dynamic exists because these environments operate differently at a structural level.

“Specialist firms don’t really scale through control,” he says. “They scale through trust. The people who thrive in these environments are usually the ones who become easier to trust the more responsibility they get, not harder.”

The challenge is that these qualities rarely appear clearly on paper.

CVs can show experience. Interviews can show confidence. But the traits that matter most inside specialist firms are often behavioral: judgment, ownership, trust, and the ability to contribute without needing constant direction or validation.

Patrick describes one of the strongest signals as forward movement.

“The people who do well here tend to see what needs to happen and start moving toward it,” he says. “Not aggressively. Not politically. They just naturally take responsibility for momentum.”

That mindset also shapes how companies inside Newground work with each other. Recommendations carry weight because they are tied closely to personal credibility. People put their own reputation behind the people they bring into the alliance.

“When we recruit senior people, trust becomes the deciding factor surprisingly often,” Patrick says. “The real question is usually: would I trust my own reputation recommending this person to a customer?”

“In specialist environments, reputation compounds very quickly,” Per says. “That’s why personal recommendations carry so much weight. People are effectively lending out trust they spent years building.”

That creates an environment where trust matters more than hierarchy, and reputation matters more than internal politics.

It also changes how people develop.

“In these environments, progression becomes less about managing visibility and more about expanding responsibility.”

The people who advance are often the ones who consistently create clarity, strengthen the people around them, and make complex situations easier to move through.

Patrick believes that is part of why many people coming from larger organizations experience a period of adjustment.

“In more layered organizations, structures absorb a lot of friction,” he says. “In specialist firms, people absorb it themselves. That requires a different level of ownership.”

Per believes that difference ultimately shapes the culture itself.

“A lot of company cultures are built around managing risk,” he says. “Specialist firms are often built around enabling judgment. That attracts a slightly different type of person.”

Over time, that ownership becomes part of the culture itself. Not as a formal value statement, but as a shared expectation between people who trust each other to operate at a high level without constant oversight.

The companies inside Newground may differ in expertise, focus, and market. But across the alliance, the people who thrive inside these firms tend to recognize each other almost immediately. Not through titles or status, but through how they operate when structure stops carrying them.