Advisory and corporate finance
We caught up with Marina and Adrian to discuss how founders can deal with difficult relationships in the board room with investors. Marina Traversari is a Board Advisor, Link Stone Advisory who has founded, scaled and exited business as senior executive, Chair and Board Advisor and draws from experience at Spherics, Gapsquare, Sage, Oracle and … Continue reading Managing difficult investors in the Board Room
In 2025, raising equity is no longer just about the “Hockey Stick” growth chart. It is about transparency. Investors—whether VCs or Angels—are demanding a level of data integrity and ESG compliance that most Series A companies simply don’t have. Richard Spilsbury discusses this shift with Marina Traversari. Having moved from scaling Spherics (a carbon accounting … Continue reading The “Glass Box” Business: Why Transparency (and ESG) is Your New Valuation Multiplier
The Scale Up Institute’s last report identified ‘infrastructure’ as one of the key challenges for scale up businesses. While not clearly defined, the term appears to refer to the ecosystem of local hubs and enterprise agencies available. If you are a scale up business (sales growth > 15%; hitting sales of £10m or more; or … Continue reading Time short entrepreneurs understand that a reliable infrastructure scales their business
Leaders read articles like this one, but if you do, you’re probably alone. The Scale Up Institute’s last report identified one of the biggest challenges for leaders as ‘the solitary nature of leadership.’ So what does it mean to go it alone? There are a variety of approaches to developing personal leadership skills, from peer-to-peer … Continue reading Common pitfalls for high growth business leaders
While there is extensive analysis available on how boards of established companies should operate, especially those in the public interest or publicly traded shares, there is very little guidance on how to make venture boards (for fast growing scale up businesses) work effectively. Most companies have a set of obligations in their Articles that are … Continue reading Five steps to creating an effective Venture Board