Four problems I am useful on, and what each costs.
Whether an acquisition is what the model says it is. Whether the hundred days after it are governed or improvised. Whether a management team is being built or merely reported on. And whether your board is asking the questions the executive team cannot ask itself.
I work on four things: whether an acquisition will behave the way the model says once you own it, whether the hundred days after it are governed or improvised, whether a management team is genuinely being built, and whether the board above it is asking the right questions. Everything below is one of those four, with the fee agreed before it begins.
What I bring is not a framework. It is that I made the same decisions last quarter in my own company, with my own reputation attached, and that I will tell you when the honest answer is not to do it. Nothing is subcontracted, no fee depends on your deal closing, and there is no day rate to argue about. Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and northern France in person; anywhere, remotely.
- Screening€9,500 fixed · 2–3 weeks · 10–15 page memo and a 90-minute readout
- Integration€85,000 fixed · 100 days · invoiced 40 / 30 / 30 against milestones
- Retainer€7,500 a month · six-month minimum, then rolling with 30 days' notice
- Advisory boardFee on request · annual mandate · four to six meetings a year
- Intro callFree, thirty minutes, and there is no version of it that becomes billable
- CapacityTwo to three mandates a year. One retainer seat and one programme at a time
- WhereBenelux and northern France in person, from Brussels · remote anywhere, gladly
- Delivered byOne person. No team, no subcontractor, no third-party tool holding your data
Integration – the hundred days after you sign.
A fixed-fee hundred-day programme for mid-market acquirers and PE-backed platforms. I design the integration and chair the governance; your managers execute it, and your own integration manager is coached to run the next one without me. One at a time – ask which window is open. The same structure is used for carve-outs and post-merger reorganisations.
- A written hundred-day plan with a human name against every milestone, not a function.
- A synergy register splitting banked from reforecast from written off, each with a reason your board can interrogate.
- A steering committee I chair on a fixed cadence, with decisions minuted.
- Your integration manager, trained – they chair the final two meetings while I sit in the room and say nothing.
- Monthly board reporting in your board's format and language, which continues after I leave because your team writes it.
- A close-out memo naming what to do differently next time. On a buy-and-build this is the document with the longest half-life.
Diagnose and write the plan
Both organisations mapped as they work, not as the org chart claims. The synergy case re-cut into independent, sequenced and conditional. Gate: you sign the plan.
Land what only works early
Retention conversations with the people you cannot lose. Reporting harmonised. Customer communication out before the market invents its own version.
The honest reforecast
Every synergy moved to banked, reforecast or written off, with a reason. The meeting most integrations avoid for another two quarters. Gate: reforecast accepted.
Hand over and leave
Governance folded into your normal cadence. Close-out memo. Gate: handover accepted.
Screening – one scoped question, answered in writing.
One question, agreed up front, answered in a memo you can hand to your board without editing it first. The most common use is a deal pressure-test before signature. It is also used on a cost base nobody has taken apart in three years, an underperforming business unit, a make-or-buy decision, or the question of where AI and automation actually belong in the business – including which EU AI Act obligations now apply to you. Same shape, same fee, whichever question you bring.
- A memo of 10–15 pages in plain sentences. No maturity matrices, no traffic lights, no appendix that hides the finding.
- The question restated – usually not the one you asked, which is most of the value.
- Two or three options, each with what it costs, what it risks and what it forecloses.
- A named recommendation, in writing, with my name on it – including "do nothing" where that is the honest answer.
- A 90-minute readout with your team, where you are entitled to argue with every line.
- A follow-up call after 30 days. No charge. By then you know which finding was real.
NDA and intake
Thirty minutes to agree the question. I name SOD.DEL's sectors before you tell me anything specific, and decline on overlap.
Read and talk
Your existing material – or your transaction data – then three working sessions with the people who know. I am looking for the gap between what the file says and what the people say.
Write and defend
The memo lands 48 hours before the readout, so nobody reads it in the room.
Follow-up
A free call once reality has had a month to vote.
Retainer – a standing commitment, not a timesheet.
A fixed monthly fee for work that cannot be scoped in advance: a buy-and-build programme across several targets, a board that needs its papers and its cadence rebuilt, a management team being professionalised, or an owner preparing a company for transfer. Six-month term, then rolling with 30 days' notice. One seat at a time.
- A fixed monthly fee, so neither of us spends the relationship counting hours.
- Written output every month. A paper, a decision record or a board memo – never just a conversation you have to remember.
- Availability between sessions for the calls that will not wait: a diligence finding at 22:00, a board paper before Thursday, a key person handing in notice.
- Board attendance included, when you want the argument made by someone with no career in the room.
- A quarterly memo written to be read by your shareholders rather than by you.
- A term that ends by default. Continuing is a decision, not an omission.
Scope and cadence
We agree what the retainer is for and what written output each month produces. One page, signed.
Working sessions and writing
A standing agenda you set, and something written within 48 hours of each session.
Shareholder memo
A memo pitched at your board or sponsor, and a review of whether the arrangement still fits the work.
Continue or stop
The term ends by default rather than renewing silently. Continuing is a decision.
Advisory board – an operator in the room, four to six times a year.
A named seat on your advisory board, or on your board of directors where the structure calls for it. For owner-led companies and PE-backed platforms that want one member who is running a business of this size now, rather than a room of people who once did. Remuneration is agreed per seat: a family business preparing a transfer and a platform on its third bolt-on are not the same work, and a published figure would flatter one and insult the other. A small number of seats, and never one I cannot prepare for.
- A named seat, held by me for an agreed term and never delegated to someone else.
- Papers read before the meeting, with written comments circulated in advance, so the meeting is spent on decisions rather than on presentation.
- Four to six meetings a year, plus the calls in between that will not wait until the next one.
- An operator's read on the plan – where it is optimistic, what it assumes about people who have not agreed to it, and what the executive team is not saying out loud.
- One written note a year to your shareholders on what the board should be worrying about next, in their language.
- A conflict rule stated first. Anything touching SOD.DEL's markets is declined in writing before the mandate begins, not discovered halfway through it.
Fit and conflicts
One conversation with the owner or sponsor about what the board is actually for, and a written conflict check against SOD.DEL's markets. Gate: both sides say yes in writing.
Read-in
Two years of board papers, the current plan, and an hour with each executive beforehand. I arrive knowing the business rather than learning it in front of you.
A position, not a presence
Papers commented in advance and a stated view on every decision item – including a minuted one when I disagree with where the room lands.
Renew or stand down
The mandate ends by default. Renewing is a decision the shareholders take deliberately, and a board seat nobody has re-argued for is a board seat doing nothing.
Four numbers, and one seat agreed per mandate.
| Engagement | What it covers | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Integration | 100 days. Written plan, chaired governance, synergy register, board reporting, close-out memo. Invoiced 40 / 30 / 30 against milestones. | €85,000 |
| Screening | Two to three weeks. One scoped question, 10–15 page memo, three working sessions, 90-minute readout, day-30 call. | €9,500 |
| Retainer | Monthly. Standing commitment, written output every month, board attendance included. Six-month minimum, then rolling. | €7,500 / mo |
| Advisory board | Annual mandate. A named seat, four to six meetings a year, papers commented in advance, one written note a year to your shareholders. | On request |
| Intro call | Thirty minutes, video or coffee in Brussels. Before any of the above. | Free |
Working together: frequently asked
What is a deal pressure-test, and what does it cost?
A deal pressure-test is an independent review of an acquisition before you sign it, carried out by someone with no fee contingent on the deal closing. It does not replace financial due diligence – it asks the different question of whether the business will behave the way the model says once you own it. It runs as a €9,500 fixed-fee Screening over two to three weeks.
Can a Screening look at supply chain, procurement or cost structure?
Yes, and it is one of the three most common questions. Two to three weeks on your own spend and transaction data – supplier concentration, price variance on the same article, landed cost against invoiced cost, contract margin by customer – and you get back a ranked list of what is recoverable, what each item is worth and how hard it will be to get. Same €9,500. No percentage of savings, because a success fee would give me a reason to overstate what is recoverable.
Can a Screening cover AI and automation?
Yes. Two to three weeks deciding which processes in your business are genuinely worth automating, which are being sold to you and should be refused, what each would cost to do properly, and which EU AI Act obligations apply to you as a company that merely uses AI. You get an inventory, a risk classification and a costed twelve-month roadmap. Same €9,500 – the fee follows the depth of the work, not the fashion of the subject.
How much does post-merger integration support cost?
€85,000 fixed for the full hundred days, invoiced 40 / 30 / 30 against milestones. No day rates and no monthly extension creep. A large firm's PMO for the same period typically costs several times that, because you are paying people to do the work rather than to design and govern it.
What is a first 100 days plan for a new CEO?
It is the written sequence a newly appointed chief executive follows before they are expected to have answers: what to diagnose in week one, which decisions to take early and which to refuse, who to talk to and in what order, and what to have written down by day ninety. Here it runs as a €9,500 fixed-fee programme – a playbook, a week-one diagnostic and six fortnightly sessions – and is usually paid for by the shareholder or fund that made the appointment.
Why not just run the integration for us?
Because then the capability leaves when I do, and you buy again next year. The companies that get good at acquiring are the ones whose own managers ran the second integration better than the first.
Do you take advisory board or board seats, and what does a seat cost?
Yes, a small number, and only where I can be useful at least four times a year. It is a named seat held by me rather than by a firm: papers commented in writing before the meeting, a stated position on every decision item, and one written note a year to the shareholders. Remuneration is agreed per seat rather than published, because a family business preparing a transfer and a PE-backed platform on its third bolt-on are not the same work. Anything touching SOD.DEL's markets is declined in writing before the mandate begins.
Is a sitting CEO really available for this?
For two to three mandates a year, yes – that is a commitment I can hold for years without touching SOD.DEL's performance. It is also why there is one retainer seat and one programme at a time. I will tell you if it is taken, and roughly when it frees up.
Start with thirty minutes.
No charge, no obligation, and nothing you have to disclose before you are ready. Pick a slot that suits you.