Case Studies

THE DESIGN CONSULTANCY THAT WAS ABOUT TO LOSE EVERYTHING

A London design consultancy

Business Improvement

The situation

A London-based interior retail design consultancy. A dozen talented designers. An excellent reputation in the cosmetics industry. Turnover around £2m, profits of about £350,000.

On paper, everything looked fine.

But behind the scenes, the business was a couple of months away from disaster. Their principal client held three separate contracts covering three geographical territories – and all three were coming to an end. The client was unhappy. They'd made it clear they weren't going to renew.

Without those contracts, the business would be insolvent almost overnight. The entire value of the company was at risk.

What I found

When I looked inside at the operations, the problems weren't hard to spot. The product was out-of-date. The service was packaged in a rigid, inflexible way the client had grown to resent. And the relationship had deteriorated to the point where the client was actively bad-mouthing the company.

This wasn't a broken business. It was a good business that had stopped listening to its most important customer.

What we did

Three things, in the right order.

Updated the product. We introduced new technology and streamlined production. Modest investment, but it meant faster turnaround and lower costs.

Repackaged the service. Instead of the old all-or-nothing contract, we unbundled the offering. The client could now buy what they needed, item by item, at transparent prices. This was the big shift – we stopped selling what we wanted to sell and started offering what they actually wanted to buy.

Repositioned the business. With the new product and the new pricing, we had something genuinely different to talk about. The company went from being seen as overpriced and unresponsive to being seen as innovative and great value.

The outcome

The client signed new three-year contracts across all three territories. The unbundling led to them ordering more smaller, incremental services which combined to a larger sales income.

Then something unexpected happened. The new approach impressed them so much that they awarded the company a contract to take over running their design studio in New York. That contract turned out to be hugely profitable.

Within two years, revenue had doubled to over £4m and profits had risen more than 2.5 times to over £1m.

What this taught me

The business absolutely needed a new strategy — but the right strategy only became obvious once someone asked the obvious question: *what does the client actually want?* Update the service, repackage it, reprice it. The answer was right there — it just needed someone with fresh eyes and the courage to say it out loud.

At its heart, this was a Strategy Question that was showing up as a Cash crisis. The company didn't need more sales effort — it needed to rethink what it was selling and why.

THE IT COMPANY THAT WAS TEARING ITSELF APART

An IT services company

Turnaround

The situation

A family-run IT business providing broadband, web hosting, web design, and IT support. For years it had been profitable. But by the time I was brought in as CEO, it was losing £200,000 a year and the losses were growing.

The atmosphere was toxic. Staff were literally shouting at each other across the office. Morale had collapsed. Cash was haemorrhaging.

What I found

This was a family business where the family dynamics had become the business dynamics – and neither was healthy.

The patriarch who owned the company couldn't separate his family responsibilities from the decisions the business needed. His son, who led the technical side, had pursued every shiny new idea that caught his eye – resulting in a sprawl of unprofitable products that had nothing to do with the core business.

There was no management information worth the name. The bookkeeping system told you almost nothing useful. Nobody knew which products made money and which were draining it. Nobody was accountable for anything specific.

The business wasn't just losing money. It had lost its way entirely.

What we did

The honest assessment was that the company was insolvent. With the agreement of the owner, the directors, and the bank, we put the company into administration and bought back the assets to restart on a clean, professional footing.

Phase one: Stripped it back. We identified which products and services were actually profitable and which had a future. Everything else was closed immediately. None of the non-core activities contributed positively to either profit or cash.

Phase two: Rebuilt the culture. The old secretive, family-first approach had to go. I introduced an open management style – frequent staff meetings, clear communication about the plan and our progress, honest answers to difficult questions. We created a proper functional structure so everyone knew who was responsible for what. We developed procedures, provided training, and introduced best practice across the business.

Phase three: Planned the succession. My job was never to stay. The goal was always to get the business healthy enough that the son could take over as CEO with confidence. We strengthened key operational roles and built a proper board around him.

The outcome

By the time I handed over, the business was profitable, cash positive, and had a culture that could support sustainable growth.

What this taught me

Turnarounds are never only about the numbers. They're about people. The cash crisis was a symptom of a leadership crisis, which was itself a symptom of a family that couldn't have honest conversations. Fix the people dynamics and the numbers follow.

This is why the four challenges I work with are never really separate. What looked like a Cash Question turned out to be a People Challenge at its core – with Performance issues masking the real problem. You have to trace things back to where they actually start.

THE GAMING START-UP THAT WAS GROWING FASTER THAN ITS FOUNDATIONS

Veloce eSports

High-Growth Start-Up

The situation

Two young founders with a background in motor racing and a colleague who was passionate about gaming spotted an opportunity in the fast-growing world of online gaming. They had limited funding, bags of energy, and very little business experience.

They'd started out coaching racing drivers. Now they were pivoting into the online racing space, and things were moving fast – faster than their ability to manage the risks.

I was asked to provide guidance, initially on establishing solid business practices and growth strategy. As the company grew, I became Chairman of the Board.

What I found

What you often find with talented, ambitious founders: passion and vision in abundance, structure and governance in short supply.

The energy was incredible. The ideas were genuinely exciting. But the investors who were funding this growth needed reassurance that their money was being managed properly and that the company was building real, lasting value – not just chasing the next opportunity.

What we did

Established board discipline. We met monthly, sometimes more often. Every meeting had a carefully prepared agenda covering strategy, milestones, and accountability. In a volatile start-up environment, this rhythm was essential – it turned good intentions into actual progress.

Built monitoring and control systems. We put processes in place to safeguard investors' cash. Working closely with an exceptional General Counsel, we ensured that contracts properly managed the risks and rewards. The goal was always the same: maximise equity value so that when a liquidity event came, due diligence would find a well-run company with nothing to renegotiate.

Provided the credibility investors needed. Sometimes the value of an experienced person in the room is simply that they're there. The investors needed to know that someone with experience and battle scars was making sure these talented young founders were building something sustainable, not just exciting.

The outcome

The company introduced solid governance and financial controls – not always welcomed by the founders at the time, but essential for what came next.

The result: multiple successful rounds of funding, each building on the credibility and structure that was now in place.

What this taught me

Founders don't need someone to clip their wings. They need someone who believes in what they're building and who'll make sure the foundations are strong enough to support it. The best mentoring relationship is one where you're occasionally unpopular in the short term because you're genuinely useful in the long term.

With Veloce, every one of the four challenge areas was in play– Cash, People, Performance, and Strategy. But the thread that ran through all of it was governance: giving talented people a framework that focussed their energy not just constraining it.