» STRATEGIC ADVISER FOR CEOs
Growth brings complexity
I help entrepreneurs with growing businesses confidently make better strategic decisions.
Building a business is exhilarating. Leading one is something else entirely.
As your business grows, the decisions become bigger, the stakes become higher, and the people around you often expect you to have all the answers.
I've been there.
Whether you need a sounding board, strategic challenge or practical advice, our conversations will always be grounded in the realities of running a business.
When CEOs approach Alan
Many CEOs come to me because they're dealing with challenges like these:
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"My exec team is capable, but they're not scaling with me."
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"Everything still comes back to me. I've built myself a job I can't escape from."
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"I'm avoiding a conversation I know I need to have with someone senior."
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"I'm dealing with board dynamics I've never had to deal with before."
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"This decision matters too much for me to rely entirely on my own perspective."
Support that evolves with your business
Every CEO faces different challenges.
Sometimes you need a coach to sharpen your thinking. Sometimes you need a mentor who's faced similar situations. Sometimes you need an experienced strategic advisor who'll challenge assumptions and help you weigh the consequences of major decisions.
That's why my approach adapts to the situation rather than following a fixed coaching programme.
Experience that understands the weight of leadership
There are many leadership coaches.
Far fewer have built businesses, led executive teams and prepared organisations for sale.
I've spent more than four decades building, scaling and exiting businesses.
I've worked with investors.
Led acquisitions.
Managed leadership teams.
Navigated uncertainty.
Prepared businesses for successful exits.
That experience shapes every conversation we have. I won't tell you what to do.
I'll help you see your options more clearly and make decisions you can stand behind. And I’ll be your trusted running mate who’ll believe in you more than you’ll believe in yourself.
I typically work with CEOs leading established businesses with turnover between £5m and £50m.
20 minutes. No pitch. Leave with one clear next step.
£300m+
revenue
generated
40 +
years business experience
500 +
businesses supported
£1.4m
profit achieved in 12 months
7 & 8 figure
exits successfully delivered
What changes you'll see when we work together
Every engagement is different, but CEOs often tell me they leave with:
Greater clarity around strategic priorities
Stronger
executive leadership
A clearer roadmap for growth, succession or exit
REAL results from REAL businesses at pivotal moments
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What Clients Say
“Alan helped us grow a new revenue stream by 600%. He’s a first class business coach and an invaluable sounding board.”
Guy Cuthbert, CEO & CTO, Atheon Analytics
How we work together
Most relationships begin with a simple conversation.
We'll discuss where you are, what you're wrestling with and whether I believe I can genuinely add value.
Support can include:
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Regular coaching - weekly, fortnightly or monthly. Usually virtual.
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Intensive support during periods of change
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Long-term advisory relationships
20 minutes. No pitch. Leave with one clear next step.
FAQs
How do I know when it's time to hire a COO?
You'll usually feel it before you can articulate it: you're the bottleneck in every decision, your calendar is wall-to-wall firefighting, and growth has started to outpace your personal bandwidth. The clearer signal is pattern-based - if the same operational fires keep flaring up despite good people being in place, that's not a hiring problem, it's a structural one. A COO isn't a reward for size, it's a response to complexity. When I work with CEOs on this, we look at where your unique value lies and what else is stealing time from it.
How do you help me delegate without losing control of quality?
Control and delegation aren't actually opposites - the anxiety comes from delegating tasks instead of delegating outcomes with clear standards attached. We build out decision rights, define what "good" looks like in specific, checkable terms, and set up lightweight review rhythms so you're inspecting results, not hovering over process. Most CEOs who feel like they can't let go haven't lost trust in their team, they've just never made their quality bar explicit enough for someone else to hit it.
Do you work with founder-CEOs whose businesses have outgrown their systems?
That's most of who I work with. The instincts and improvisation that got you from zero to where you are now start to work against you past a certain size. What once felt like agility starts to feel like chaos. We focus on translating what's in your head into systems, roles and rhythms the business can run on without you personally holding it all together. The goal isn't to make you more corporate, it's to make your company less dependent on your constant presence.
How is this different from a traditional executive coach?
Traditional executive coaching often stays in the register of mindset, leadership style and interpersonal dynamics - valuable, but somewhat abstract. I work at that level too, but I pair it with a hard look at your actual business: organisational structure, decision-making bottlenecks, systems, and where the operational cracks are. You’ll leave our sessions with real shifts in how you think, and concrete changes for running your business.
How do we work together when my diary is already full?
Honestly, a full diary is usually the reason to start, not the reason to wait. We keep engagement lean - regular but not over-lengthy sessions, and we focus on the handful of decisions and structural shifts that will free up the most time downstream. Part of our early work is often about reclaiming hours in your calendar, so t
How much are your fees?
My fees are bespoke and reflect the scale, complexity and ambition of the work we do together. The best next step is a quick conversation to figure out what actually fits your situation. Investment levels start at a monthly fee of £1200 or fixed project fee from £10,000
Ready for a different kind of conversation?
The higher you rise, the fewer people there are who can genuinely challenge your thinking.
That's why many CEOs choose to work with someone like me, who's lived through the kinds of decisions they're making today.
If you'd value an experienced, independent perspective on the challenges ahead, let's talk.