When you need someone who has been at director level, made the hard calls, and built things that actually work. But you do not need them five days a week.
Most SMEs hit a point where the operational complexity outpaces the capacity to manage it. The symptoms are recognisable, even when the cause is not.
We are thinking about hiring an Operations or Strategy Director but we are not sure of the right profile, the right timing, or whether a full-time role is actually what we need.
We have a capable team but a specific challenge ahead (a growth phase, a restructure, a new market) and we need an experienced pair of hands who has navigated this before.
We are carrying decisions at a senior level that should sit with someone else, but that person does not exist in the business yet. It is creating a bottleneck at the top.
We have the vision. The day-to-day keeps getting in the way of executing it. We need strategic leadership, not more management.
Most operational problems are not what they first appear to be. The presenting issue (a team not performing, a process breaking down, a growth initiative stalling) is usually a symptom of something underneath it. Getting to that root cause, and being honest about it, is where the real value sits.
Mike brings over 20 years of director-level experience across some of the most operationally demanding environments in UK business: scaling SMEs, regulated healthcare providers, national franchise networks, and professional services firms. He has been Business Director, Operations Director, and Client Services Director. He has also built and sold his own business. That combination of operator and owner experience gives him a perspective most advisers simply do not have.
What makes Mike's approach distinctive is the MSc in Psychology, which underpins everything. Understanding how people actually behave (under pressure, in change, when their roles are threatened or their instincts are wrong) is not a soft skill. It is the difference between change that lands and change that is resisted. Between a strategy that gets executed and one that looks good in a document.
Mike works with a small number of clients at any one time, which means you get genuine senior attention, not a junior consultant with a senior name attached to the engagement. And because he has no internal politics, no agenda, and no financial stake in any particular solution, he will tell you what he actually thinks.
These are outcomes from Mike's career at director level, the kind of complex, cross-functional challenges that fractional engagements are built around.
30 minutes. No obligation. Mike will tell you honestly whether there is a fit.
Engagements are shaped around what you actually need. Whether that is one to three days a week on an ongoing basis, a fixed-term project with a defined outcome, or a lighter-touch advisory relationship, the starting point is always the same: a conversation about the real problem before anything else.
Project-based pricing is available for fixed-scope work. Get in touch and Mike will give you a clear picture of what an engagement would look like before any commitment is made.
Book a 30-minute call. Mike will ask the right questions, give you a straight answer on fit, and you will leave knowing exactly what working together would look like.
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