Standardised insights for owners and for the accountants who refer them.

For accountants · NED / Chair · 7 October 2026

How to introduce a NED without it sounding like a rescue

Three sentences you can put in an email. The client hears governance, not first aid. You remain the adviser of record.

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For SME owners · Organisational structure · 7 October 2026

If the business cannot run without you for two weeks

Owner absence is a board test. If nothing moves when you leave, a Chair has nothing to chair.

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For accountants and professional firms · Scale up

9 tips on how to grow your client base

Professional-service firms grow an ideal client when the plan is specific. Nine steps, rewritten for partners who want advisory work rather than more of the same compliance.

For SMEs and professional firms · Marketing strategy

Building a brand

A brand is not a logo. It has to sit in the DNA of the firm — marketing, business development, how partners speak in the room.

For professional firms · Advisory

The difference between marketing and business development

Firms hired marketers. They now hunt for business-development people. The two are not the same job — and selling sits in a third place.

For accountants · Advisory

Growth hubs for accountants

A repeatable way for a firm to grow advisory: identify clients with headroom, put a defined NED seat around them, keep the compliance relationship.

For SME owners · Finance and exit

Planning for the future

Selling can take up to three years from the first adviser. Structure, pensions, IHT and what you do with the proceeds are the accountant’s file. Making the firm sellable is the board’s.

For accountants and SMEs · NED / Chair

Non-Executive Director

Progressive accountants and lawyers should recommend a NED to a growing client. A growing client means higher fees. Here is the role, rewritten for 2026.

For SME owners and accountants · Exit

Adding considerable value — early advice on a sale

Early planning around a disposal adds value. The tax structuring stays with the accountant. The Chair’s job is to put a business in front of that adviser that can actually be sold.

For accountants · Advisory

Sophisticated accountants

Automation will take the repetitive file. The firms that survive will sell judgement. A NED seat is one way to productise that judgement without competing with the monthly compliance.

For SMEs and professional firms · MBA specialism

Organisational structure for progressive firms

Hierarchy that works on a factory floor is a poor fit for a talent-driven or founder-led firm. Structure is how growth either happens or dies.

For SMEs and accountants · NED / Chair

What red flags should non-executive directors always be alert to?

Poor boards have patterns. A Chair who will not name them is decoration.

Also in this library

Further briefings written for the new site

When to appoint a NED · First 90 days · Preparing for PE or a listing · Numbers the board cannot take on trust · Building advisory with a NED · Succession, sale and investment · Marketing as a board issue · Structure that scales