A leading U.K. professional services firm, recently acquired by a global private equity sponsor, had grown through a highly entrepreneurial model. The business offered a broad portfolio across audit, tax, and advisory but lacked a cohesive commercial strategy. Leadership sought to chart a deliberate path toward higher enterprise value, balancing shareholder returns for partners with growth expectations from its new financial sponsor.

The Challenge

Without a unifying strategy, the firm risked diluted performance, under-scaled service lines, and missed opportunities in attractive market segments. Failure to act could significantly stall the projected post-acquisition growth journey and limit equity appreciation for all stakeholders.

Our Approach

We built a factbase spanning internal performance and external market perceptions. Internally, we assessed revenue growth, margin variability, partner productivity, and cross-service penetration; externally, we analyzed buyer preferences, sector dynamics, and competitor positioning. From this, we applied a dual-lens approach:

  1. Today-forward: A point-of-departure view of capabilities and profit pools
  2. Future-back: A 2030 “full ambition” vision with 2-3x EBITDA potential, stronger brand permission, and scale in priority markets.

We then built the “bridge” between the two, defining strategic bets, focus sectors, and growth enablers. Our case for change drew on ~15 comparative studies of diversified versus focused firms, illuminating the path most likely to succeed.

Our Impact

The work recast leadership’s role from stewardship to transformative growth, giving the CEO a clear case for change and the board a roadmap tying near-term actions to long-term equity value. Our recommendations identified the target market position, ideal customer profile, and five priority services for growth: three in advisory, one in tax, and one in audit. With this evidence, the firm gained conviction to move forward with a deliberate, enterprise-wide strategy, laying the groundwork for over £1B in new revenue potential and a 2-3x EBITDA uplift by 2030.