Growth
- Pricing architecture and discount governance
- Sales process, coverage and incentive design
- Customer segmentation and key account programmes
- Channel economics and distributor network design
- Market entry. New segment, geography or category
Growth / Margin / Cash / Transactions / Operating model / Technology
Strategy that shows up in the numbers.
We work with founders, management teams and investors on the decisions that move revenue, margin and cash. Not a deck that gets filed, a decision someone owns, and a number that changes.
Start a conversation- “We’re not growing fast enough.”
- “We’re busy and the money isn’t showing up.”
- “We’re profitable and can’t make payroll.”
- “We’re buying, selling or raising.”
- “It can’t run without me.”
- “We’re spending on technology and can’t see the return.”
Clients rarely arrive with a brief. Pick whichever sounds closest.
Something else on your mind? Tell us.
What we do
What we do about them.
Each of those questions has a body of work behind it. Engagements are scoped from wherever you actually are, not from a standard package.
Margin
- Cost to serve. Which customers and products actually pay
- Vendor renegotiation and procurement consolidation
- Portfolio and mix. What to push, what to kill
- Overhead and productivity review
- Cost programmes with savings tracked to the P&L
Cash
- Working capital release across the full cycle
- Receivables and collections recovery
- Inventory and supplier terms
- Cash forecasting the team can run themselves
- Lender conversations and facility restructuring
Transactions
- Commercial due diligence for buyers and lenders
- Vendor diligence and pre-transaction readiness
- Fundraise support. Model, data room, narrative
- 100-day plans and value creation after close
- Integration. Synergies landed, not modelled
Operating model
- Organisation design and decision rights
- Founder dependency. Delegation that holds
- Reporting and MIS. The numbers to see weekly
- Performance management and accountability
- Governance, boards and succession
Technology
- AI opportunity assessment. Ranked use cases with cost and payback
- Automation mapping across the back office
- Tech stack rationalisation and licence consolidation
- System selection. The business case, not the implementation
- Data and reporting foundations when every report disagrees
Most strategy fails in the gap between the analysis and the person who has to act on it.
How we work
Small teams, senior people, short engagements.
The people you meet are the people who do the work
No pyramid, no handover to a junior team after the pitch. Engagements are run by someone who has done the job inside a company, not only advised on it.
Scoped in weeks, not quarters
Most engagements run three to eight weeks against a defined question and a named end date. Longer programmes exist, but they’re built from pieces that each stand on their own.
Judged on what moves
Savings found, cash released, margin recovered. If an engagement ends and nothing measurable has changed, it did not work.
Who we work with
Two ways in, one standard of proof.
Some clients are deciding where to put capital. Others are running the business the capital goes into. The work is different, the test is the same: a number that changes.
For investors
When you are deciding what to buy, what to back, or what to do with it after the deal closes.
Who
- Private equity and venture fundsCommercial diligence on targets, and value creation across portfolios.
- Funds seeing more flow than they can assessScreening retainers that give you a fast, independent first view.
- Lenders and corporate development teamsDiligence on the business case behind a loan, an acquisition or a partnership.
What they usually bring us
Talk to us about a deal or portfolioFor operators
When you run the business and the decision is yours to make and live with.
Who
- Founders and promotersOwner-led businesses where the founder is still the bottleneck, and growth has started to cost more than it returns.
- Startups past product-market fitPricing, unit economics, a repeatable sales motion, and fractional commercial leadership before the full hire.
- Family businessesProfessionalising ahead of a raise or a generational handover.
- Corporates and large enterpriseSpecialist input, benchmarking, and independent challenge on a major decision.
What they usually bring us
- “We’re busy and the money isn’t showing up.”
- “We’re profitable and can’t make payroll.”
- “It can’t run without me.”
Portfolio companies
Where the two meet. 100-day plans, value creation programmes, integration after a bolt-on, and reporting a sponsor will actually accept, done with the management team rather than to it.
Insights
What we are seeing in the numbers.
Short notes on the decisions that keep coming up across our work: what usually goes wrong, what the numbers show, and what we would do about it.
- Profitable on paper, short on cash Most cash crunches in growing businesses are not losses. They are receivables, inventory and supplier terms that nobody revisited as the business grew. Read the note
- The 100-day plan is usually too long After close, three decisions matter more than thirty workstreams. How to find them before the first board meeting. Read the note
- Nobody owns the price Discounts drift when no one is accountable for them. Why pricing governance is the cheapest margin lever in most mid-sized businesses. Read the note
One note a quarter.
A decision we saw clients face, the numbers behind it, and what we would do. No newsletter padding, and easy to unsubscribe.
Get in touch
Tell us what you’re trying to decide.
It does not have to be a brief, or even a fully formed question. If you want to think something through, we are happy to be the people you do it with.