The call before the call.
When the problem matters, the answer isn't obvious, and you need someone you can trust.
I work selectively with owners and CEOs of established, privately held companies.
Bespoke, in the original sense.
In tailoring, bespoke meant cloth already spoken for by one customer, cut to their measure rather than taken off a rack. That is how I work. Nothing starts from a template, because no two businesses have the same problem, or the same owner.
Someone from outside who has sat in your chair.
Owners bring me decisions, strategic challenges and problems they haven't clearly articulated yet. Some of it becomes a relationship that runs for years, and occasionally I become much more involved.
There is no team behind me and no one junior to hand the work to. If we work together, you work with me.
I don't publish client names. Most people reach me through someone they trust. If someone sent you, mention them.
Most of my career has been on the other side of the table.
I started in signals intelligence, then worked as a police detective in South Africa. Over the three decades since, I've built six businesses, raised tens of millions of dollars in venture capital, built companies to nine-figure enterprise values, and advised more than 100 entrepreneurs.
I've been founder, CEO, investor and advisor. The difficult decisions rarely look as clean from inside the business as they do in a case study.
Three books. Seven children. Now in Mexico, by way of South Africa, Canada and many other countries.
The next company won't look like the last one.
Most companies are adding AI to organizations designed around people. The more interesting question is what happens when the company itself is redesigned around what AI makes possible: structure, management, expertise, decision-making, intellectual property and competitive advantage all start to look different.
I'm particularly interested in established businesses where the most valuable knowledge sits in the heads of a small number of people, and where capturing it could change the economics of the company.
“The Inside Baseball of...”
What really goes on, from the people who know.
Each episode, one owner explains how their industry works from the inside: the economics, the unwritten rules, the things outsiders never see. I ask the questions.
It starts with a conversation.
About the business, what's happening, and why you're thinking of bringing someone in from outside.
If I think I can materially help, I'll tell you how. If I don't, I'll tell you that too.