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5 articles
Most reference checks ask an adviser's clients to present a flagship success, which confirms little beyond the fact that two satisfied names were available on a weekday morning. A better question is quieter and far more informative: ask the referee to describe a piece of work that slipped, who noticed first, and how the correction was paid for.
When a client gives notice, most UK firms convene an internal post-mortem and quietly let the relationship lapse. The one person who has seen the whole engagement from the outside is never asked. This article sets out a structured approach to client exit interviews — who should ask, how to earn candour, and how to convert individual departures into governance-grade intelligence.
Client concentration rarely announces itself as a crisis. It accumulates through successful years, renewals and friendly requests until one relationship shapes the firm’s fate. A simple threshold debate can help partners and directors decide how much dependency they are willing to carry.
Most leadership teams can describe their competitive advantage in four minutes. Very few can do it in ninety seconds — and the gap is rarely about eloquence. This is a practical diagnostic that any UK board can run in its next session, with a scorecard that exposes where authority, evidence and ownership genuinely sit.
Growth rarely breaks a firm's governance in one dramatic moment. It erodes decision-making quietly, through bottlenecks, meeting sprawl and unclear commercial ownership. This diagnostic sets out six signals UK leadership teams can watch for — and a practical remedy for each.