PORTFOLIO ADVISORY
Your portfolio companies have consultants. Do any of them actually understand brand?
McKinsey gives you rigour. Top agencies give you creativity. We give you both 40 years of global agency experience, the commercial discipline of a growth consultancy, and a proprietary AI diagnostic that tells you exactly which of your portfolio companies is about to hit a wall.
PORTFOLIO ADVISORY
Your portfolio companies have consultants. Do any of them actually understand brand?
McKinsey gives you rigour. Top agencies give you creativity. We give you both 40 years of global agency experience, the commercial discipline of a growth consultancy, and a proprietary AI diagnostic that tells you exactly which of your portfolio companies is about to hit a wall.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
Most consultants can map your market. Very few understand how brands actually become category leaders.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
The standard PE playbook for portfolio growth is operational: hire a better CMO, fix the funnel, test a new channel. And those things matter. But they’re tactics. The businesses in your portfolio that reach genuine scale - that command a premium, defend their position, and build enterprise value that survives a multiple - do it through brand strategy backed by commercial rigour.
That is a specific and uncommon combination. McKinsey won’t do it. A creative agency won’t do it. A fractional CMO probably won’t do it either. We do. Forty years inside the world’s top global agencies: Publicis Groupe, IPA-recognised work, WARC and Effies, applied to the growth challenges that actually face your portfolio companies.
We’ve sat on the boards. We’ve hired the agencies. We’ve briefed them, evaluated them, and replaced them when they weren’t working. We know the difference between creative work that wins awards and creative work that moves the commercial needle, because we’ve done both.
THE GROWTH DIAGNOSTIC
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
Every portfolio company is approaching one of two walls. We tell you which.
01 - PERFORMANCE PLATEAU
The marketing still works, but it's running out of road.
This is the most common and most misread growth problem in the mid-market. Paid media efficiency drops, CAC rises, and the response is usually more spend, more channels, more creative. It doesn’t work.
The real issue is that the brand has focused too much on converting demand, rather than creating it.
We diagnose this quickly and act on it. We make the brand easier to find and remember, rebalance the media mix so it shows up in the right moments, and build presence before people are ready to buy. We also strengthen consistency across advertising so performance compounds over time, rather than degrades.
02 - CATEGORY CEILING
The defined category is too small to grow into.
Growth still exists, but the category the brand is playing in is too narrowly defined. It’s harder to see, and more dangerous at exit. On the surface, the business can look healthy, but underneath, growth is constrained by relevance only within a tight competitive set.
We assess category dynamics, audience breadth, and how much permission the brand has to move beyond its current niche. Then we unlock it through combined media and creative strategy: identifying adjacent categories, building new entry points, and reaching audiences who don’t yet realise the brand is for them. This is what drives real expansion, and what ultimately moves the multiple.
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WHEN TO ENGAGE
01
s the growth story credible? Is the brand positioning defensible? Is the category expanding or contracting? We run the Growth Diagnostic as part of commercial due diligence, giving investment teams a structured view of brand and growth risk before the deal closes. The questions you want answered before you commit capital, not after.
Pre-deal/due-diligence
WHEN TO ENGAGE
02
The 100-day plan is operational. The value-creation plan needs a brand layer. We come in fast: audit brand, positioning, audience, agency relationships, marketing team capability and identify the highest-leverage moves within the investment horizon. Year one execution that earns investor confidence in year two and three.
Post-acquisition / value creation
WHEN TO ENGAGE
03
A strong exit story is a commercial story backed by a brand story. We help investment teams articulate the growth opportunity in buyer language: sharper positioning, cleaner category narrative, a growth trajectory that makes strategic sense to acquirers. The multiple reflects how well the growth case is made, not just how well the business performed.
Pre-exit / narrative sharpening
HOW WE WORK
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
Fast to insight. Rigorous in evidence. Practical to execute.
01
Growth Diagnostic
Deployable across single companies or whole portfolios. OSER.AI accelerates data capture. Laura and Diego provide the expert interpretation. Full diagnostic, one call, one written report. From £5,000.
02
Brand & Growth
Repositioning, category entry point analysis, audience identification, and go-to-market architecture. Built on evidence, Binet & Field, Ehrenberg-Bass, category intelligence, not opinion.
03
Agency Alignment
We’ve briefed and evaluated every type of agency. We can assess your existing agency roster, identify gaps, run pitches, and ensure the commercial strategy is properly supported in execution. No wasted retainers.
04
NED & Advisory
Laura sits on boards as a scale-up NED and growth advisor. Ongoing board-level oversight on brand, commercial strategy and marketing effectiveness for portfolio companies where governance matters.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
THE GROWTH DIAGNOSTIC
Every portfolio company is approaching one of two walls. We tell you which.
This structural diagnosis determines whether more capital makes the problem better, or more expensive.
This is the most common and most misread growth problem in the mid-market. Paid media efficiency drops, CAC rises, and the response is usually more spend, more channels, more creative. It doesn’t work.
The real issue is that the brand has focused too much on converting demand, rather than creating it.
We diagnose this quickly and act on it. We make the brand easier to find and remember, rebalance the media mix so it shows up in the right moments, and build presence before people are ready to buy. We also strengthen consistency across advertising so performance compounds over time, rather than degrades.
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The defined category is too small to grow into.
Growth still exists, but the category the brand is playing in is too narrowly defined. It’s harder to see, and more dangerous at exit. On the surface, the business can look healthy, but underneath, growth is constrained by relevance only within a tight competitive set.
We assess category dynamics, audience breadth, and how much permission the brand has to move beyond its current niche. Then we unlock it through combined media and creative strategy: identifying adjacent categories, building new entry points, and reaching audiences who don’t yet realise the brand is for them. This is what drives real expansion, and what ultimately moves the multiple.
WHEN TO ENGAGE
Investors typically bring us in at one of three moments.
Each one is different. All three are worth knowing about before the moment arrives.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
01
Pre-deal / due diligence
Is the growth story credible? Is the brand positioning defensible? Is the category expanding or contracting? We run the Growth Diagnostic as part of commercial due diligence, giving investment teams a structured view of brand and growth risk before the deal closes. The questions you want answered before you commit capital, not after.
02
Post-acquisition / value creation
The 100-day plan is operational. The value-creation plan needs a brand layer. We come in fast: audit brand, positioning, audience, agency relationships, marketing team capability and identify the highest-leverage moves within the investment horizon. Year one execution that earns investor confidence in year two and three.
03
Pre-exit / narrative sharpening
A strong exit story is a commercial story backed by a brand story. We help investment teams articulate the growth opportunity in buyer language: sharper positioning, cleaner category narrative, a growth trajectory that makes strategic sense to acquirers. The multiple reflects how well the growth case is made, not just how well the business performed.
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
HOW WE WORK
Fast to insight. Rigorous in evidence. Practical to execute.
We come in with a clear scope, a clear output, and a clear point of view. Then we deliver it.
01
Growth Diagnostic
Deployable across single companies or whole portfolios. OSER.AI accelerates data capture. Laura and Diego provide the expert interpretation. Full diagnostic, one call, one written report. From £5,000.
02
Brand & Growth
Repositioning, category entry point analysis, audience identification, and go-to-market architecture. Built on evidence, Binet & Field, Ehrenberg-Bass, category intelligence, not opinion.
03
Agency Alignment
We’ve briefed and evaluated every type of agency. We can assess your existing agency roster, identify gaps, run pitches, and ensure the commercial strategy is properly supported in execution. No wasted retainers.
04
Boards & NED Advisory
Laura sits on boards as a scale-up NED and growth advisor. Ongoing board-level oversight on brand, commercial strategy and marketing effectiveness for portfolio companies where governance matters.
Laura is a star, a brilliant synthesizer of complex data into clarity & ideas. Many people promise to do this, she actually does.
RICHARD MINITER, FOUNDER ZENGER
Unique brand insight to create a winning rebrand proposition. OSER feels like an extension of the exec team.
LINDA HARDY , COO BUSINESS LEADER
The strategic sessions with OSER were invaluable to help us focus & figure out our marketing strategy & activation plans.
JENNIE ALLEN , FOUNDER BAYLEY & SAGE
The OSER team are some of the best in crafting a clear positioning & go to market strategy.
TOM DARNELL, COO IRIS AUDIO
From day one they proved to be highly insightful & produced results beyond expectations - we would certainly recommend OSER.
MATTHEW SANDERS, CEO SUITS ME
The impact has been extraordinary - bringing creative thinking to our business & quick to implement ideas. A real force for good.
DAVID TURNER, PARTNER CITYWIRE
Which of your portfolio companies is either in or approaching a wall?
Sustainable growth requires clarity & alignment
PERSPECTIVE
CLARITY & IDEAS
for Growth
