Weeks to a strategy.
Months of accountability.
Six-month planning cycles deliver six-month-old answers. We run strategy in eight to twelve weeks, put it on one page the executive team wrote and the board approved, and install a monthly review that ties it to EBITDA, free cash flow and earnings. Then we stay, if you want us to.
CEOs don't have strategy problems. They have one of these.
Growth has stalled
Revenue plateaued at a size the current model can't push past. Organic, adjacent, acquisition, geography — the team is spread across all four and funding none properly.
Margin is under pressure
Input costs, pricing power, mix, complexity — margin has drifted for three years and the budget keeps assuming it comes back. It doesn't come back without a decision on what to exit.
The board is asking about AI
You have pilots. You don't have a position. The risk is not being late to AI — it is buying a roadmap that produces decks while a competitor uses AI to change the economics of your category.
The hold period is ticking
PE-backed, with a value-creation plan written at close and a sponsor who wants proof by the next board. Two years of runway means eighteen months of real execution time.
You're new in the seat
A hundred days to set direction, with the organisation watching. A listening tour is not a strategy. You need clarity, credibility and momentum before the window closes.
You have a strategy. It isn't executing.
The plan is good. The quarter didn't move. The gap is not the plan — it is ownership, Strategic Numbers, and a monthly review that changes something when the number is red.
How the weeks run
AI-accelerated research on markets, competitors and your own numbers. The executive team names the assumptions the business is actually running on — and tests the ones that break it against the market, not the room.
Where to play, weighted by profit, advantage, growth and risk. What to stop. Scenarios run against the base case and evaluated with AI before the decision, not after. Decisions are made in the room.
Five Strategic Numbers the CEO watches. A funded project portfolio with named owners. Page one is done; the CEO has challenged it; the board approves it as an earnings commitment.
Page two. Owners report against the numbers. Root cause on every variance, positive and negative. When a number is red, something changes — an assumption, a project, an owner.
Seven ways in. One of them is three half-days of your time.
CEO-only start
Three half-days with a senior partner and nobody from your team. Inputs you already have. Your current strategy on one page, tied to your numbers, and the first scenario panel built around your question. See how it works
Strategy sprint
The eight-to-twelve-week programme above, run with your executive team. Ends with a one-page strategy the board has approved and a working monthly review.
Retained advisory
A senior partner on call, framed as outcomes with the CEO each month rather than hours. Monthly and quarterly recalibration. The person the CEO phones before the board does.
Portfolio programme
For sponsors, family offices and groups: one strategic language across every company, compressed planning cycles, roll-up reporting the holder can read the same way in every board. The operating partner sees five numbers per company, one owner per number, and which assumptions have broken since the last review.
Decision sprint
One decision, one executive team, one to three weeks. An acquisition, an exit, a pricing move, a capital allocation. Scenarios against the base case, then the call.
Board and offsite sessions
Strategy reviews that test assumptions with current data, not last year's deck. Provocative, practical, grounded in real engagement results.
Pro bono
Select non-profit and owner-operator engagements each year. The same rigour, applied where it matters most.
The questions CEOs ask first
Asked in the first conversation, every time. Answered here so the conversation can start further along.
Why not a big strategy firm?
You can hire one. You will get a large team, a long timeline and a document their name is on. We put two senior partners in your room, finish in weeks, and the strategy carries your executives' names. Over 25 years, 97% of clients who built their strategy this way hit the EBITDA targets they set.
Why not do it internally?
Most mid-market companies do — and 78% report running strategy with no method at all. Internal teams have the knowledge and none of the licence to force a trade-off among peers. We bring the method, the licence and the outside data.
Where does AI actually fit?
AI does the analysis: market research, competitor moves, scenario modelling, assumption testing. Weeks of analyst work in days. What it cannot do is decide what your company will stop doing. That stays with your executives, and it is where we earn the retainer.
What is the investment?
Retainers are framed as outcomes with the CEO each month, never as hours or activities. Scope and investment are agreed in the first conversation, before any work begins, against the EBITDA the decision is worth.
How long does it take?
Eight to twelve weeks to a board-approved strategy. Decision sprints run one to three weeks. Retainers are ongoing.
What does the board actually receive?
One page, not a deck: the three product-markets carrying the earnings commitment, the accountable executive for each, the exit or reallocation that funds the bets, where AI changes a specific P&L line, and the assumptions with their triggers. The board tests it against current data and approves it as a commitment. From then on it receives the monthly review, with root cause on every variance.
Do you work outside North America?
Yes — the firm is headquartered in the United Kingdom with partners in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific: Vancouver, London, Washington, Asolo, Johannesburg, Singapore, Sydney and Pune.
What is in front of you this quarter?
A senior partner reads it. One page back within five working days: what we see, three questions for your team, a straight answer on fit. Confidential.
Or start alone: the five questions (PDF)