Everyone advising you is paid if you say yes. I am not.
Independent commercial advice for Australian business owners and investors at a transition. Forty years running companies, not advising from outside them.
Or you want to hand it on. Or the fund that owns it needs it worth more before anyone will take it.
Whatever the trigger, the same question sits underneath. Is this business actually what it appears to be, and what happens to it when you are no longer the one holding it together?
Your accountant can value it. Your lawyer can structure it. Your broker can find a buyer. None of them can tell you whether the thing itself is sound, because none of them has run one.
That is the gap I work in.
Five years as chief executive of a business I grew from $5 million to $43 million with 1,200 staff. Nine years as global chief strategy and marketing officer of an industry I helped reposition into a $3 billion contributor to the Australian economy. Most advisers have read about businesses like yours. That is not the same thing.
No success fees. No completion-contingent income. No equity participation. The advice is the same whether the answer is proceed, renegotiate or walk away, and you should ask every other adviser in the room whether they can say that.
Artificial intelligence has made confident analysis fast and close to free. In one controlled study of 758 consultants it lifted the quality of the work by more than 40 per cent, while making them 19 percentage points less likely to reach the correct answer on a problem outside its competence. The machine is now most dangerous exactly where it is most certain. Judgement is what tells the difference.
Most engagements start small and deliberately so. The first piece of work should tell you whether the rest is worth having.
Two to three weeks. An independent assessment of one specific question: is this valuation defensible, is the business ready to sell, will this integration work. You get a written read and two hours across the table. Most people start here.
One day with your board or leadership team, built around a decision you actually have to make. Not a workshop. A session that ends with the decision made and recorded.
Ongoing access for owners and chief executives who want one independent voice in the room across the year. Twelve-month term. Limited to three clients at a time, because access is the product.
Commercial diligence on the side of the deal the accountants and lawyers do not cover. Buy-side or sell-side, integration planning, post-deal relaunch. Scoped and fixed. Never a success fee.
Non-executive and board adviser roles where an independent commercial voice is missing from the table.
Also available to clients: market access into Asia and the Middle East, stakeholder and government relations, and brand and marketing strategy. Full detail on the services page.
An accountant, broker or corporate finance adviser with a client at a transition? There is a page for you.
Service NSW, strategic advisor. Parramatta City Council, strategic advisor. Nusa Oil, executive vice president and board member. SpinalCure Australia, senior strategy advisor. Southern Cross AI, advisor. Lead advisor on a private venture capital acquisitions mandate across food, supplements and wellness. Collins and Partners, business, brand and communications strategy.
Earlier mandates and the full client history are on the about page.
I write monthly on succession, transactions and commercial judgement in the mid-market, and my book Simplify: Try or Die sets out the 5As™ in full, with four detailed case studies.
Two proprietary methods sit behind the advisory work, and they do different jobs.
5As™ is the five-stage method for cutting the complexity that stalls growth: Assess, Assimilate, Architect, Activate, Amplify. It is set out in Simplify: Try or Die, published March 2026, and built on forty years of engagements.
CALIBRA™ is a twelve-volume suite for evaluating the things that never appear on a balance sheet. Brand strength, pricing power, channel position, portfolio value, acquisition quality. Every reading gives one clear instruction, states how confident it is, and is checked against what actually happened twelve months later.
5As™ tells you what to do. CALIBRA™ tells you whether you are right. They run in sequence, not in competition: CALIBRA sits inside Assess, the first A. Neither is a product and neither is for sale. Both are made available to clients where the work calls for it.
If a transition is coming, or a number has landed in front of you and you want a second view from someone with no stake in the answer, start here. Most engagements begin with a Commercial Read.
Every enquiry gets a personal reply, usually within one business day.