Strategy advisory · London
Advice for the irreversible.
Partner-led advice for boards facing decisions that are hard to reverse.
Five partners, one of them yours
120+
Engagements completed since 2008
Taking two new engagements this quarter
Market entry
Succession
Board effectiveness
Capital allocation
Pricing
Organisational design
Scenario planning
Transaction diligence
Our position
Most firms are hired to confirm a decision. We are hired while it is still open — when being wrong is counted in years.
Eleanor Hallam, Founding Partner
What we do
Clear answers to expensive questions.
Four kinds of work, and one habit of mind: a hard question, answered well.
01
Strategy review
A structured second look at the plan you already have — what it assumes, where it is fragile, and what would need to be true for it to work.
Typically · The plan has not changed, but the market has.
You get · A written position on where the plan is fragile.
02
Market and portfolio decisions
Which markets to enter, which to leave, and where the next pound of capital earns the most. Evidence first, then conviction.
Typically · Growth has spread you thinner than anyone will say aloud.
You get · Evidence by market, and a recommendation on where capital goes.
03
Transactions and major moves
Support before the bankers arrive and after they leave — the case for the deal, the price of walking away, and the first hundred days.
Typically · A deal is live and the board is not aligned.
You get · The case for and against, and a first hundred days.
04
Governance and succession
Boards, ownership, and the handovers that define a firm. The slow questions that reward being asked early.
Typically · A founder is leaving, or the board has outgrown itself.
You get · A transition plan the partners will actually sign.
The firm
Built small, on purpose.
The structure is the strategy — few people, senior people, and no ambition to be larger than useful.
Nine people. Five partners. No pyramid.
Partner-led by design
Every engagement is staffed by the people who sold it. Nothing is handed down.
H.
Independent since 2008
48h
A considered reply
Every brief answered within two working days.
Memos, not decks
Positions in writing, short enough to be argued with.
Scope
Evidence
Position
Decision
Six to twelve weeks, with an end date
Engagements are scoped to end. If the work should continue, that is a new decision — yours, not ours.
The difference
Consulting, without the theatre.
Most consulting is built to be sold. Ours is built to be used. The difference shows up in the room.
Elsewhere
Junior teams delivering the work
Sixty-slide decks, few decisions
A framework for every problem
Fees that reward duration
Advice that follows the room
With Hallam
Partners in the room, doing the work
Short memos, clear positions
First principles, not templates
Fees tied to the decision
Advice you can act on Monday
Where we work
Nine sectors, one way of thinking.
Most of our partners have run businesses in the sectors they now advise.
Logistics
Healthcare
Industrials
Energy
Financial services
Infrastructure
Consumer goods
Technology
Professional services
Selected work
Problems we were trusted with.
A few of the problems we have been trusted with. Client names stay confidential; the thinking does not have to.
How we work
How an engagement runs
Four steps, one owner each, and an end date agreed before we start.
01
Day one
A conversation
You bring the problem; we bring questions. No proposal until we both believe the work is worth doing.
02
Week one
A written scope
Two pages: the question, the evidence we will build, the fee, and the end date.
03
Weeks two to eleven
The work
Analysis and interviews, a partner in every session. You see drafts early and often, not once at the end.
04
Week twelve
The decision
A short memo with a clear position, argued in person. Then it is yours — we stay reachable, not billable.
Client voices
Trusted in the hardest rooms.
What clients say when the engagement is over and there is nothing left to sell them.
Insights
Writing on difficult decisions.
Occasional essays on strategy and governance, written by the partners.
Questions
Asked before every engagement.
The things most clients ask before the first conversation.
How do engagements usually begin?
How long does a typical engagement run?
Who actually does the work?
How are fees structured?
Do you work outside the United Kingdom?
What happens after the final memo?
Work with us
Bring us a difficult problem.
The first conversation is free and confidential. If we are not the right firm, we will say so.
What happens next
01
A reply from a partner within two working days
02
A forty-five minute conversation
03
A two-page scope, or an honest no
Taking two new engagements this quarter