About
Why this exists, and how it works
Most business owners spend 20 or more years building something meaningful, then make the biggest financial decision of their lives without proper preparation. The gap between what they expect and what they receive is almost always preventable, but only if you understand how buyers think before you sit across from one. I built Succession Advisory because that gap exists, it's common, and it's fixable.
My background is in law and quantitative finance, with an MBA from INSEAD. I spent the early part of my career working on the buy side of M&A transactions, commercial due diligence, deal origination, and valuation, across professional services, technology, healthcare, and manufacturing. I've been the person stress-testing a seller's numbers and looking for the gaps between what they believe and what the data says. That experience informs everything I do on the sell side. I know what good buyers focus on, what they discount, and how they structure offers to protect their downside at a seller's expense.
Independent matters here in a way it often doesn't elsewhere. There's no commission on the sale. I'm not incentivised to push you toward any particular buyer or any particular price. The work is in helping you understand your actual position, and preparing for a process that gets you the best available outcome, not just any outcome. That distinction shapes every conversation I have with clients.
I work with a small number of engagements at a time. Every piece of work is done by me, not delegated. The assessment is the starting point, it gives us both a grounded view of where you stand before we decide whether working together makes sense. If it does, we move forward. If it doesn't, you still leave with a clearer picture than you had before.
How we work together
Three stages. Each one is designed to give you more clarity before you commit to the next.
The Assessment
You complete a short online assessment covering your business's financials, structure, and exit goals. An indicative valuation report is generated immediately. It gives us a shared baseline, what your business looks like on paper, how buyers are likely to read it, and where the gaps are.
The Conversation
We talk through your report, your position, and what a realistic sale process looks like for your specific situation. This isn't a pitch, it's an honest discussion about what the numbers say, what the market looks like, and what preparation would actually change the outcome. No commitment required.
Preparation
If we decide to work together, we build and execute a preparation plan: cleaning up the financials, documenting the business, reducing owner dependency, positioning it for the right buyers, and running the process from start to settlement.
Principles, not platitudes
The things I actually believe about how this work should be done, and why they matter to the outcome.
Honest over optimistic
A lot of people will tell you what you want to hear about your business's value. That's not useful. What's useful is knowing the real number, the real gaps, and the real options, before a buyer has that conversation with you. Optimism is free; preparation costs something and returns multiples.
Prepared beats lucky
The businesses that sell well are almost always the ones that started preparing 18–24 months before going to market. Preparation is the competitive advantage most owners never use, not because it's hard to access, but because most advisors don't tell you how early it needs to start.
Independent means independent
No commission arrangements with buyers. No referral fees that colour the recommendation. The work is to get you the best outcome, not to close a transaction. Independence is easy to claim, what it actually means in practice is that every recommendation I make, I'd be comfortable explaining in full.
Start with the assessment
The assessment takes about 2 minutes and produces an indicative valuation report immediately. It's the clearest way to understand where you actually stand.
Get Your Free Assessment →