When a design-led business outgrows its structure, growth becomes the problem as much as the solution.

A specialist lighting design and manufacturing business | UK & International

This business was built on the strength of its founders. Led by talented designers who had created a range that was genuinely distinctive in its market, with a growing international presence and a client base that valued quality and specification above price.

But the business had grown to a point where its structure could not keep pace with its ambition. There was no formal governance. Strategic decisions were made informally and inconsistently. Around half of all revenue was concentrated in a single geographic market, with no contingency plan if that market shifted. The founders were still at the centre of everything, doing what they did best — designing and selling — but without the board-level infrastructure to support sustainable growth.

I was brought in four to five years ago, before Covid, to develop the growth strategy. What followed tested that strategy in ways nobody anticipated.

What we worked on

I took a Non-Executive Director role and established a formal quarterly board meeting structure, bringing governance into a business that had never had it. A strategic plan was developed and reviewed regularly, giving the business a clear direction.

A detailed commercial analysis identified the key levers for revenue growth; conversion rate improvement, lapsed customer re-engagement across a database of over 1,300 accounts, and a more deliberate approach to the international markets that were already driving growth organically.

When geopolitical instability began to threaten the business's primary international market, we built a contingency framework that gave the founders early warning indicators, clear decision triggers, and a structured response plan, turning an existential risk into a managed one.

What changed

Over the course of the engagement the business has grown from £5M to £12-13M in revenue. That growth was achieved through a period that included a global pandemic, significant geopolitical instability in the business's primary international market, and the structural challenge of scaling a founder-led business without losing what made it distinctive in the first place.

The founders now have a functioning board, a live strategic plan, and a governance structure that means the business is being led as well as run. The concentration risk that once kept them awake at night is now actively managed rather than quietly ignored.