We provide a third route on operational work that sits between two unsatisfactory options. A consultancy will analyse the situation but not execute. An interim appointment carries the right capability but disrupts the structure and signals a change of confidence in the senior team that may not be intended. We do the work, alongside the team in place, without disturbing the structure.
Engagements are commissioned by a portfolio manager, board, or chief executive. The senior team remains in place, runs the business, and directs the work. We bring evidence, judgement, and execution capacity to the parts of it the team has agreed need outside hands.
Most engagements concern one of three areas: recruitment of senior or specialist roles, restructuring of the business, or operational right-sizing of teams and structures. The pattern is recognisable. Real work needs to happen at pace. The senior team has the experience to do it but not the time. The alternatives are either slow, disruptive, or both.
(For senior interims already in role on assignment, see on-assignment support.)
Recruitment support
When the business needs to recruit senior or specialist roles at pace, we run the search. We are researchers, not recruiters: we define the role properly, build a credible long list from real research and direct outreach, and hand over a shortlist that can go straight into interview. The senior team owns the appointment decision. We own the work of finding the right people to put in front of them.
Restructuring support
When the business needs to be restructured, we provide the operational analysis that supports the plan. The decisions that hold up under board scrutiny are the ones supported by independent evidence: what is genuinely surplus, what is load-bearing, and what looks like cost but is actually the connective tissue holding delivery together. We work alongside the senior team to produce that evidence and shape the plan, in a register that stands up to the board and the wider business.
Operational right-sizing
Right-sizing picks up where restructuring leaves off. Restructuring asks what the shape of the business should be; right-sizing asks how to design and execute the change without breaking the operation in the process. We provide the practical execution work: where capacity can come out cleanly, where it cannot without consequence, and how to sequence the change so delivery continues through it. The senior team owns the change. We provide the operational hands and the analytical work that make it deliverable.
How an engagement works
The first conversation is short. We do not arrive with a methodology or a deck. We listen to the situation, agree what the work actually is, and propose how we would run it alongside the senior team. The shape of the engagement is set by the work, not by a fixed model.
Once the brief is clear, we are operational within days. The senior team is running the business; we are doing the work they have agreed needs doing. Reporting is into whoever the engagement is contracted with, with the team’s agreement on what we are doing and how.
The engagement ends when the work is complete. There is no nudge to extend.
Fees
Operational support engagements are charged on a day-rate basis, scoped at the briefing stage with a clear estimate of the total work before it begins. Recruitment support within an engagement is fixed-fee where it can be.
We do not work on success fees, contingency, or upside-linked structures. The commercial relationship is straightforward and stated upfront.
A confidential conversation, or a professional profile on request.