BOARD & EXECUTIVE
Discuss a situation
Some situations require more than a project recommendation. They require an experienced person inside the decision-making system—challenging assumptions, aligning stakeholders and owning progress.
Growth outpaces governance more often than boards realise. Good decisions need real challenge, not informal advice — and that gets harder to find precisely when it matters most.
The founder needs a trusted challenger.
A board needs sharper strategic debate.
Investors need stronger visibility and alignment.
A business is entering a transaction, capital raise, turnaround or scale-up phase.
The executive team needs additional capability without a full permanent hire.
Governance needs strengthening ahead of a funding round or transaction.
A rapidly growing business has outpaced its existing board structure.
Decisions need the discipline of formal challenge, not informal advice.
The board needs an independent, founder-appointed voice to balance investor board seats.
The business has hit the scaling danger zone — where leadership bandwidth, hiring and culture start to crack under growth.
Board roles
Senior appointments and direct board-level support.
Chair and Executive Chair
Leading the board itself, setting tone, agenda and governance discipline.
Non-Executive Director
Independent challenge and oversight from inside the boardroom.
Interim or permanent CEO
Taking direct ownership of the business and its performance.
Fractional CEO or senior executive
Senior leadership capacity without a full-time permanent hire.
Founder and CEO adviser
A trusted, experienced sounding board for the person carrying the decision.
Advisory roles
Support around board effectiveness, investor alignment and strategic delivery.
Board adviser
Supporting the board’s own effectiveness and strategic debate.
Investor or shareholder representative
Representing investor interests with operator credibility.
Strategic programme and transaction leadership
Owning delivery of a specific strategic or transaction programme.
Governance and board development
Strengthening how the board itself is structured and run.
Board & Executive support can operate as a recurring advisory product: regular strategic steering, challenge on difficult decisions, investor-lens scrutiny and practical support between formal board cycles.
Hard expertise. Consistent presence.
What this brings
Freeing the CEO or founder from operational fire-fighting to focus on strategic leadership
Strategic positioning and category narrative
Go-to-market and commercial acceleration
Capital strategy and fundraising readiness
International expansion and scaling playbooks
Leadership, organisation and operating-model design
Exit strategy and long-term value engineering
Network and introductions across venture capital, private equity and real estate capital
How it works
Weekly or monthly 1:1 calls, not just quarterly board meetings
Ad-hoc problem-solving when it’s actually needed, not on a fixed schedule
Strategy days to align leadership on direction and milestones
A structured onboarding month — meeting the team and running an early strategy day to align on direction
Real-time market intelligence, shared as it happens
Avoiding a single major scaling mistake often outweighs a full year of advisory investment.
Direct, constructive and commercially grounded. The objective is to improve the quality and pace of decisions while strengthening—not displacing—the executive team.
This isn’t governance for its own sake, and it isn’t a ceremonial seat. It’s a hands-on, collaborative partnership — closer to how a trusted Chair works with a founder than how a traditional NED sits at arm’s length.
Appointments are taken where the strategic challenge, alignment and potential impact justify senior involvement.
The right fit matters as much as the right opportunity. Involvement is taken only where there’s genuine potential to add value well beyond the time committed — and where that impact is something both sides will actually enjoy pursuing.
of strategy, transformation and senior advisory experience
14 yrs
Board Director experience
Senior roles, actively held.
Chair, Supported Housing real estate fund
Chairing a fund aggregating a £250m portfolio toward institutional exit, building the operating capability to scale toward £1bn+ of high-yielding residential assets.
Non-Executive Director, CrowdProperty Australia
Supporting the Australian business through its current international scaling phase.
Chair, Social Housing Asset Manager
Chair, Conveyancing Proptech
Non-Executive Director, CrowdProperty (2013–2018)
Co-founder and Non-Executive Director before taking on the CEO role in 2018.
Venture Partner & Investment Committee Member, Pi Labs
Europe’s most prolific venture capital fund specialising in innovation in the built environment.
Board-level strategic engagement across an 18-year consulting career
Extensive work at board level with portfolio businesses of private equity funds such as Bain Capital, BC Partners and Hg Capital, alongside mid-cap to large corporates.
Read more about Mike Bristow
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