Solving problems fast in growth businesses
Scaling businesses face many challenges at the same time. Every day brings critical decisions and inevitable setbacks. Founders often find themselves tackling tricky situations they haven’t experienced before.
I’m a specialist consultant COO working with founders in businesses with 10-200 people that are experiencing rapid revenue or headcount growth.
I diagnose operational and leadership issues holding back growth and implement ways of fixing them fast. I focus on creating sustainably high performing organisations by solving these challenges collaboratively.
Working with me as a consultant COO.
Enabling business growth.
Growth businesses often struggle to hire fast enough, develop culture and scale operations alongside customer growth.
I help solve complex problems like these in scale-up businesses through growth-accelerating projects including:
Growth roadmaps and strategies
Developing and nurturing culture
Value proposition development
Operating models & organisational design for growth
Identifying and resolving growth blockers
Transformation and change.
Scale-up businesses have to successfully transform and change at pace. Typically changes are happening in different parts of the organisation at the same time, increasing complexity and distracting focus away from growing the business.
I help founders in scale-up businesses deliver real and lasting change through consultancy projects such as:
Organisational design, role design and team reviews
Operational audits and improvements
Sell or buy-side M&A preparation and execution
Integration and major organisational change
Leadership in growth businesses.
I work with founders, leaders and leadership teams in scaling businesses to help them be more effective.
With a focus on progressive models of leadership, I help tackle common challenges of leading scale-up businesses such as:
Founder and leadership succession
Improving leadership team performance
Increasing leadership accountability
Boards and governance
Delivering operational improvements.
I help founders identify operational issues, understand root causes and implement improvements quickly.
Taking a pragmatic and evidence-led approach, I work on a wide range of operational improvement projects such as:
Improving communications and effectiveness
Customer and employee experience enhancement
Process definition and optimisation
Systems architecture, review and change implementation
“Simon brought a level of insight and expertise that profoundly impacted our company’s leadership strategy. His customized approach helped us outline a clear path for our company’s growth in the short and long term and establish personal goals for each founder. Simon’s strategic thinking, coupled with his ability to provoke thoughtful discussions, made the entire process not only effective but also enjoyable. We highly recommend Simon to any company looking to solidify their leadership structure and future plans.”
Matt Linder, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Strand LLC
“As our fractional Transformation Director, Simon designed and implemented several new processes that have significantly improved our operational efficiency. Notably, he introduced our new 1:1s to enhance team engagement and helped create a new ‘lead to sale’ process for our agency. Simon is a collaborative and supportive executive in whom we had trust and confidence from the start. He listens and advises, leveraging his extensive agency and consultancy experience to build trust with the team and deliver results quickly.“
Peter O’Brien, Co-founder & Creative Director, Hidden Creative
“Following a team restructure, Simon played a crucial role in navigating the complexities that can come with big change. His calm demeanour and intuitive approach made everyone at ease, which gave different personalities the opportunity to speak and feel listened to. The team went from being deflated and uncertain, to being a united, high-performing team with clearly defined roles and goals to look forward to. I highly recommend Simon to any team leader looking for direction, support and guidance across a multitude of business needs.”
Louise Ioannou, Marketing Director at National Geographic Kids Magazine
“I have a good Venn Diagram with Simon! We are both passionate about clear governance and structure in organisations and while we both help companies to achieve that often in similar ways, we each see the problem with a slightly different lens. This makes the bit in the middle, when we collaborate, very powerful. Simon is a great collaborator and teammate; working with him is a complete pleasure. He brings a diligence, pragmatism and focus rarely seen, he matches this with an open mind to change, which means we can adapt plans at pace, often required in the fast changing world of a SME.”
Jess Gregson, Founder & CEO, Extra Brain global advisory & consulting collective
“With his knowledge of agencies, tech, and delivery at all levels, Simon is an excellent person to have on your bench. He has great intuition and knows when to ask the right questions to help you come to your own conclusions, and when to lean on his own extensive experience. He works to understand the challenges specific to my organisation, and helps me to see them in the context of the broader market. We’ve worked through everything from operating models to team dynamics, and his counsel has always been wise, measured and insightful. I always look forward to our time together – his impact has been felt throughout our company.”
Siobhan McKeown, Chief Operating Officer at Human Made
Leading a growth business?
My B3 framework® helps you get your scaling journey right and reduce the challenges of successful business growth.
Developed from interviews with more than 50 founders and personal experience, it’s a simple yet powerful framework for company building, giving you everything you need to know build a brilliant business.
