Service area 1 of 5
Business strategy & performance
Most companies have a strategy. Fewer have one that drives resource allocation, and fewer still can show the board, week by week, whether it is working. The symptoms are familiar: growth has stalled or become expensive; leadership disagrees on priorities; capital is spread thinly across too many initiatives; margins are eroding while revenue grows; a transaction (acquisition, fundraise or exit) needs a commercial case that withstands scrutiny; the operating model was built for a smaller company.
The common root cause is a gap between the strategy and the commercial engine. The plan is approved without testing what the revenue organisation can execute, so the numbers in the plan and the numbers in the pipeline diverge within two quarters.
I design strategy with the commercial engine in view from the first week, so the plan you approve is one your teams can execute, measure and fund.
What I do
Who this is for
Economic buyers: CEO and founder; board and chair; CFO; Chief Strategy Officer or Head of Corporate Development; PE operating partner and deal team; business-unit president; promoter or family-business owner.
Typical situations
- A mid-market or PE-backed company that wants senior strategy work sized to the business, delivered as a short, evidence-led sprint rather than a long programme.
- A CFO whose sales and marketing spend is rising faster than revenue and who needs to know where growth is profitable before the next planning cycle.
- A deal team or operating partner who needs commercial conviction on a target's revenue engine within the diligence window, and a value-creation plan that starts on day one.
- A founder or promoter whose business has reached a size where growth depends on a few relationships, and who is preparing for institutional capital or a next-generation transition.
- A leadership team integrating an acquisition where the revenue synergies were promised but are not yet showing in the numbers.
How this connects to the other areas
Business strategy & performance sets the direction and the economics. The market, offer and channel choices that follow sit in GTM strategy & growth; the processes and cadences that execute them sit in GTM execution excellence; the structure and incentives that sustain them sit in GTM organisation, talent & enablement; and the AI business case that increasingly shapes all of them sits in AI-enabled GTM transformation.
A strategy engagement often starts with a diagnostic in this area and continues as a programme in one of the others. The 100-day commercial value-creation plan, for example, is scoped here and delivered through pricing, execution and talent work.
Engagement formats
- Strategy diagnostic or sprint (typically four to ten weeks): a fact base and a decision on a defined strategic question.
- GTM due diligence (typically two to four weeks within the diligence window): a GTM risk assessment and quantified revenue levers, feeding both price and the 100-day plan.
- Value-creation or transformation programme (typically ten to twenty-four weeks): design and implementation support across two or more categories.
- Executive and founder advisory retainer senior commercial advice to a CEO, promoter or operating partner, available on an ongoing basis.
- Leadership workshop or offsite a single structured session for a leadership team or board on a defined strategic choice.
Packaged offers that start in this area
- GTM diligence to day-100 plan (PE deal and operating partners): investment decision informed by GTM evidence; value-creation plan ready at close.
- Revenue efficiency sprint (CFO): agreed reduction in sales and marketing cost as a share of revenue, with growth protected.
- Promoter-led business professionalisation (Promoter / Managing Director): management systems, GTM plan and incentives that scale beyond the founders.
Outcomes the economic buyer can expect
- Higher and more predictable revenue growth.
- Improved EBITDA margin and capital allocation.
- A higher valuation multiple at exit or fundraise, supported by a defensible commercial case.
- Faster and better-aligned leadership decisions.
- A management system that shows weekly whether the strategy is working.
Executive briefing
Start a strategy conversation
We can discuss where I can help and what an initial engagement could cover.
- I begin with a focused discussion of your business priorities.
- Diagnose what is stalling growth.
- Identify the constraint across all or any of the five areas.
- Design a strategy blueprint.
- And align the changes that matter.
What to expect
- 01An initial assessment of the challenge and its commercial implications.
- 02A proposed scope of engagement where there is a clear fit.
Founder-led · Confidential · No obligation