"You built a successful business. Now it needs a board, a strategy and someone who'll tell you the truth."
Many owner-managed businesses reach a point where what got them here stops working. I’m Mike Collett, and I work as a Chair and board adviser to owners of established businesses, typically £1M to £100M, in manufacturing, engineering and specialist services, helping them build the board, business strategy and governance their business needs.
I have done this myself. I joined WILA, a UK and German lighting group, as UK Managing Director in 1993, added export and then the US business, and from 2002 ran the whole group from its German headquarters. In 2004 I led the management buyout, took turnover from £9M to £18M and EBIT from 2% to 12%, and sold to private equity in 2016. Since 2018 I have worked with more than 110 owner-managed businesses through EXALTA.
How I work
It usually starts with a defined piece of work: a growth strategy, a commercial restructure, a governance review. Where it goes well, it becomes a board-level role, as Chair, Non-Executive Director or Board Advisor. That is not a report and a handshake. I sit alongside you, challenge your thinking, help you build the governance and strategy your business needs, and stay until the work is done. Board roles run for two to four years. Some people now call this fractional. In practice it means a day or two a month, at board level, for as long as it is useful and no longer. The measure of success is not the quality of the advice. It is whether the business is in a materially better position when we are done.
Who I work with
Independent Chair for owner-managed manufacturers
Owners of established manufacturing and engineering businesses who want to step back, put a proper board in place, or get ready for succession.
Board support for private equity backed engineering firms
Investors and management teams who want a Chair or NED who has run a PE backed manufacturing group and led the integration that followed.
Preparing for sale or investment
Owners two to three years out from a sale or investment who need the board, the numbers and the management team to stand up to due diligence.
Based on the Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire border, an hour from London, working across the UK and Europe.