Nicola Merritt, Founder & Chief Executive Officer at Cortus Advisory Group
In this episode of Leaders with Ambition, host Nicky Acuna Ocana welcomes Nicola Merritt, Founder & CEO of Cortus Advisory Group.
Nicola shares her journey from growing up in the North of England in an entrepreneurial family to building and scaling a multi-office advisory firm. From selling handmade gifts at primary school to founding and leading a fast-growing professional services business, Nicola’s story is one of focus, discipline, and bold decision-making.
Throughout the conversation, Nicola reflects on her early career ambitions, her formative years at KPMG, and the pivotal moments that led her to step away from partnership to launch her own firm during the COVID period. She offers thoughtful insights into modern leadership, the importance of culture, empathy, resilience, and why creating space to think is essential for long-term success.
Nicola also speaks openly about confidence, motherhood, managing pressure, personal growth, and redefining what success truly means both professionally and personally. This episode is packed with practical wisdom for leaders, founders, and anyone navigating ambition alongside real life.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
Early life and entrepreneurial roots
Growing up in the North of England, Nicola’s exposure to her father’s business and early money-making ventures shaped her entrepreneurial mindset from a young age.
Early ambition and career focus
How deciding at 14 to pursue chartered accountancy and one day work at KPMG set Nicola on a highly focused career path.
Building strong career foundations
Lessons learned from over a decade at KPMG, including audit experience, client exposure, teamwork, and the lifelong value of professional networks.
Navigating change and major life transitions
Balancing career ambition with marriage and motherhood, and why Nicola ultimately chose to leave Big Four partnership to pursue a different path.
Founding Cortus Advisory Group
The emotional, practical, and strategic realities of launching a business during COVID including the challenges, risks, and excitement of starting from scratch.
Mentorship and trusted advisors
The importance of long term mentors, trusted sounding boards, and surrounding yourself with people who challenge and support you.
Leadership vs management
Nicola’s reflections on evolving from managing tasks to leading people and why modern leadership requires empathy, authenticity, and self awareness.
Culture as a growth engine
How embedding values, listening to people, and genuinely living your culture underpins sustainable growth in professional services.
Resilience redefined
Moving away from toughness toward resilience built on space, recovery, and systems that allow leaders and teams to adapt when things go wrong.
Personal growth and self reflection
Why creating time to think, reducing working hours, and investing in mental clarity have transformed Nicola’s leadership and energy.
Defining success on your own terms
Why success isn’t just commercial wins and how presence, discipline, and balance shape a more meaningful definition of achievement.
Industry challenges and the future
Insights into competition, private equity investment, AI, talent retention, and the need for the UK to better support entrepreneurship.
Key Takeaways
Start with culture
Strong cultures aren’t slogans they’re lived daily through behaviours, systems, and leadership actions.
Own your ambition
Clarity, focus, and discipline can take you far but knowing when to slow down is just as important.
Mentorship matters
Long term mentors and trusted advisors provide perspective, challenge, and support through every stage of a career.
Leadership evolves
Modern leadership requires empathy, authenticity, and reflection not ego or performative toughness.
Create space to think
Sustainable performance comes from recovery, clarity, and stepping back not constant intensity.
Define success personally
Achievement looks different at different life stages success should align with your values, not external expectations.
Networks are powerful
Strong relationships inside and outside organisations create opportunity, resilience, and long term growth.
Be courageous
If the idea keeps coming back, it’s probably worth acting on.
Key Quotes
“If not now, when? And if not me, who?”
“Culture lives and dies with how people feel when they walk into work.”
“You don’t need to go at 100 percent all the time to get where you want to go.”
“Leadership requires holding the mirror up to yourself.”
“Resilience isn’t toughness, it’s having space for things to go wrong.”
“The world is big enough for all of us low ego wins every time.”
“Success is consistently being the best you can be on that day.”
“You’re only really competing against yourself.”
About Nicola Merritt
Nicola Merritt is the Founder & CEO of Cortus Advisory Group, a fast-growing financial advisory firm with multiple offices and an international footprint. A chartered accountant by background, Nicola is known for her clarity of vision, people-first leadership, and commitment to building strong values-led cultures.
Passionate about modern leadership, resilience, personal growth, and mentorship, Nicola regularly shares insights through thought leadership, including her widely followed Thursday Thoughts. She is also a qualified Olympic weightlifting coach and a strong advocate for balance, discipline, and continuous development.
About Nicky Acuna Ocana
With over 25 years of experience leading high-performing recruitment teams, Nicky Acuna Ocana is a dynamic leader in the recruitment industry. As President, Americas, UK and Europe at Ambition, she oversees specialist teams connecting top talent with professional services firms.
Her teams focus on niche areas. The US division specialises in Legal Marketing and Business Development recruitment, while the UK and Europe team excels in placing professionals within Business Services functions across Legal, Practice and Consultancy.
Passionate about Allyship, Belonging and Inclusion and talent retention, Nicky is a sought after keynote speaker who regularly presents at industry conferences, sharing insights on leadership, hiring strategies, retention best practices, and inclusive cultures.
