Home / Practice 01
Corporate Strategy and Operating Partnership
You already know something has to change. What is usually missing is a peer who will think it through with you, disagree where it matters, and then help you carry it.
Board advisory, fractional leadership, growth planning and restructuring — from the owner’s side of the table.
01 / The position
Strategy is the easy part.
Carrying it is not.
Owners and management teams are usually the deepest subject-matter experts in their own business. That is rarely the constraint.
What makes a significant decision difficult is consequence. It reaches the balance sheet, the people who have been with you for years, and often family wealth. Consequence makes a well-informed decision harder to take, not easier, and it is why capable management teams can hold a view for months without acting on it.
An experienced outside view does not replace that expertise. It tests the assumptions behind the decision, sets out the trade-offs plainly, and considers what the choice does to the company’s position both in the next twelve months and over a longer horizon.
Owning a business is also a curiously isolating job. Everyone has a view — the bank, the investors, the team — and almost none of it is disinterested. We work from the owner’s side of the table: on the cash, the people and the consequences, rather than the slide.
Do you need advice, or an operator?
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A short self-assessment. Not every situation needs an outside operator, and establishing that early costs you nothing.
Source: Working Capital Group analysis
02 / What we do
Four ways we work with you.
Strategy and planning
Where the business is actually making money, where it is not, and what the next stage requires. A plan with an owner, a resource requirement and a measure against each item.
Board and shareholder advisory
A considered second view on the decisions that reach the board: structure, succession, shareholder alignment, major commitments and the trade-offs behind them.
Fractional leadership
A senior operator in the business part-time, holding a specific remit — commercial, financial or operational — where hiring a full-time executive is premature or unnecessary.
Restructuring and turnaround
When cash is tight and time is short: stabilise, prioritise, and rebuild a plan that creditors, lenders and shareholders can accept.
Worth saying plainly
If nobody owns the outcome, commits the resources or measures the result, it is not a strategy. It is a document.
03 / Shape
What an engagement
looks like.
These are points on a line rather than separate products. Most relationships begin at one level and move along it as the work reveals what is actually required. The right starting point depends on how much of the change your team can carry without help.
Engagement intensity and duration
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Four shapes an engagement can take, compared by senior time committed and duration. Durations are very rough guides only. Every engagement differs, and scope, readiness and decision speed move these ranges considerably.
Board advisory means we attend at board or leadership level on a recurring basis — typically quarterly — to challenge the plan and the numbers. We do not run anything day to day.
Defined project means one piece of work with a start, a finish and an agreed deliverable: a growth plan, a cost review, a restructuring proposal. It ends when the work is delivered.
Part-time senior role means a senior operator inside the business for an agreed number of days each month, holding a specific remit with real accountability — commercial, financial or operational. It is often called a part-time senior role arrangement, and it suits a company that needs the seniority but not a full-time salary.
Operating partner is the deepest form. We are involved in setting the direction and in carrying it out, and we stay until the result has been delivered and handed over to your team.
Source: Working Capital Group analysis
Questions
Common questions.
How is this different from management consulting?
Consulting is built to answer a defined question and concludes when the answer is delivered. An operating partnership is built for situations where the decision and its execution cannot be separated.
What does fractional leadership involve in practice?
A senior operator in the business on a defined part-time basis, holding a specific remit with real accountability, rather than observing and advising from outside.
Do you work with businesses in difficulty?
Yes. Restructuring and turnaround work is part of the practice. Earlier is materially better than later, because the options narrow quickly once cash is constrained.
How long does an engagement usually run?
From a quarterly board cadence to twelve months or more for an embedded role. Most relationships begin narrow and extend as the work makes the requirement clear.
What if we only need a second opinion?
That is a legitimate engagement in its own right, and often the most useful one. If a conversation is all that is required, we will tell you that rather than construct a project around it.
Next step
Start with a conversation.
An initial confidential conversation is usually enough to establish whether we are the right people for the situation. If we are not, we will say so.