What we do, and how it starts
The moments we work on
Each of these moments can decide the company's future. It is a turning point, and it calls for care, focus and the commitment to take your situation as it is, since no two are alike. Templates and canned thinking produce poor results here. We work on your reality, with your people, to shape what will work for you.
- Succession
- Who decides next, and on what terms.
- Selling the company, or integrating one
- Preparing the company and its owners for a sale; or absorbing the company you have bought without losing the people who make it work.
- Financing
- What the numbers must show before a lender or investor will look.
- A change of scale
- The way of running the company that worked at 40 people fails at 150.
- Growth that must become deliberate
- The point where a company will stall or break unless it uses its momentum to reach critical mass: a commercial strategy that is chosen rather than opportunistic, and an organisation built for it.
- Growth across borders
- Opening operations in other countries and growing by a mix of organic growth and acquisitions made for growth, not for cost-cutting. Which markets, which targets, and how to stay one company while doing it.
- AI reshaping the business model
- Which offers, revenues and decisions change, and which should be left alone.
Where we are useful, and where we are not
We are useful when
- someone holds the mandate to decide
- the numbers exist and can be shared
- there is a trigger with a date
- the company can fund the change it is asking for
We are not the right fit when
- the owners have not yet agreed among themselves on what they want. We then propose an owners' and next-generation programme first, not a transformation.
- the need is to have software built or deployed. We specify, help you choose, and can propose a shortlist; we do not build it.
- the need is standard, off-the-shelf training.
How an engagement starts
Executive session
One working session with the management committee. You leave with a shared diagnosis and the questions worth answering.
Diagnostic
Two weeks. You receive a roadmap and a prioritised backlog of initiatives, with the governance needed to run the change.
Engagement
One of the three forms below, by proposal.
Not sure which step? Answer seven questions.
Three ways of working together
Advisory to owners and boards
Strategic consulting, executive workshops and tailored training, for the people who own the decision.
Executive session
“Get the management committee to one view of where digital and AI touch the business, and leave with a roadmap we can take to the board.
Audit, diagnostic and re-engineering
“Tell us what is really going on in operations and finance before we commit to a transformation.
Commercial strategy
“Segment our customers, size each segment, and give the sales team targets that add up to the budget.
Financial modernisation
“Build the budget from the ground up, with scenarios, so we can go to the bank with a case.
Organisational design and development
“Design the organisation for the next generation, and the governance to run it.
Platform and tender specification
“Specify what the platform and its integrations must do before we tender, and help us judge the bids.
Commercial, buying and finance in one loop
“Put sales, buying and finance in one room on one calendar, with the plant and the depot at the table.
Owners' and next-generation programme
“Shaped on the first call, from your situation. There is no standard version, by design.
Board mandates and special projects
Independent directorships, advisory boards, and projects that need a board-level hand: an acquisition, a due diligence, a takeover.
Board mandates and transactions
“Sit on the board through the sale.
Embedded executive support
Management services, piloting of a transformation, coaching on the job. We sit inside the executive team for a defined period.
Embedded executive support and coaching on the job
“Be inside the executive team for six months while we change how we run the company.
Commercial, buying and finance in one loop
“Put sales, buying and finance in one room on one calendar, with the plant and the depot at the table. (also delivered as embedded support)
Three things you can buy today
Executive consultation
A one-to-one working session with Alexandre Papanastassiou, by video, on a question you bring. You leave with a written view and the next step.
Buy an executive consultationExecutive consultation subscription
Eight hours a month with Alexandre Papanastassiou, by video, on the strategic, tactical and operational questions of your company's long-term development: AI, digitalisation, strategy and business development. Booked as one-hour slots, at most two in a row, at times agreed with you. Thirty-five per cent below the single-hour rate. Hours do not carry over; a slot can be moved with 24 hours' notice.
Subscribe, month by monthCancel any month; no annual commitment.
Tailored training
We design training for executives, companies and their boards, built for your situation and your questions. There is no standard content to buy from us: if you need generic material, the world is full of good options. Training is often combined with workshops and support on the job. To start: a short call to establish the need, then we schedule.
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Four themes
Strategy and development; finance, from FP&A to financing and M&A; digitalisation and AI; governance and sustainability.
In a company of this size they are one problem, so we treat them together.
Nothing we sell is a template. We work from situational awareness: every engagement starts from a reading of your company as it is, and is shaped to it. That is what makes the difference at a turning point.
Ready to decide?
Thirty minutes, by video, to establish whether we are the right fit.
Book a 30-minute call