Forty years in the room. Not on the sidelines.

I joined WILA as UK Managing Director of a German-owned lighting business. In the two years before the buyout I relocated to Germany to run the German operation directly, and in 2004 led a management buyout to take ownership of the UK and German operations, running the group for the next thirteen years. During that time I also ran WILA USA and led WILA's export business across multiple international markets. In 2016 I sold the business to a private equity buyer and exited the company in 2017.

Before WILA, I spent eight years based across the Middle East, employed directly by leading regional partners across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain, managing significant international workforces and building commercial relationships across four countries.

That experience, forty years of building, running, growing and ultimately selling a business, is what I bring to the owner-managers I work with today. Not a framework. Not a methodology. The real thing.

I founded EXALTA in 2017 to do one thing well. To sit alongside owners of established businesses at the point where what got them here stops working, and help them build what comes next. Board, strategy, governance, leadership. Whatever the business actually needs.

Current and recent clients include businesses in glass and glazing, holiday parks, electronics manufacturing, specialist lighting and sleep technology, typically £5M to £50M, often at a point of transition, growth or structural change.

Founder & Director, EXALTA Business Growth Limited, 2017 to present
CEO, WILA Lighting Limited, 1993 to 2017
Senior Advisor, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Trustee, Worshipful Company of Lightmongers, member since 1997
Chairman, Institute of Directors, Oxfordshire
President, Lighting Industry Federation
Chairman, Lumicom NFP WEEE Recycling Scheme
Mentor, OxLEP Business Growth Hub and Oxford Brookes University Help to Grow Programme

mike@exalta.co.uk | +44 (0)7785 904230