Head of Consulting
Mark Roberts
Mark is an experienced Board Advisor providing clients with valuable strategic insight across a multitude of areas. These include strategic business planning and implementation; succession management; the delivery of profitable growth; the development of management teams and the creation of additional, measurable shareholder value. He undertakes both specific projects and business mentoring assignments.
In addition, he continues to operate in a strategic advisory capacity with a number of Yorkshire SME’s and is currently Non-Exec Chair of a private equity-backed business.
During his corporate career, his senior roles included managing a large multi-national company’s UK business division; MD of a family-owned multi-site distribution business and running a private equity-backed business. He has also experienced M&A activity from both the disposal and acquisition perspective.
Articles by Mark
21.09.2022
Why good leadership is like jet fuel for your business
Watching the magnitude of the events at the weekend, left me reflecting on the exceptional quality of leadership and high levels of organisation that enabled such a complex programme to be arranged and delivered over such short a timescale.
06.09.2022
What next, now the holiday period is over?
The holiday period is over, in more ways than one. While we’ve had an unrelenting narrative in the media on the cost of living crisis for some time, now it’s now starting to bite. And not just for individuals, but for many SMEs, too, in terms of…
24.05.2022
What is effective leadership?
The world today is increasingly uncertain, which ramps up the pressure to succeed and the pace at which you're expected to react. This makes effective business leadership an even harder task. We're seeing the pace of change increase enormously with…
16.05.2022
Achieving your business vision
What ambitions do you have for your business? How do you perceive its progress into the future? Do you know how you'll translate this vision into a positive business strategy with clearly defined goals?
05.04.2022
Is Your Business ‘Customer-Centric’?
All businesses are dependent on their ability to attract customers, satisfy their needs and retain them. But when we're focused on pursuing more sales and greater growth, we sometimes forget what really matters to our customers. When that happens,…
01.03.2022
Getting the balance right between urgency and importance
Our last blog post provided some useful tips to help you run a business at a time when there are many additional challenges associated with people resources and supply chain issues. We thought it would be beneficial to continue this theme this week…
25.02.2022
Top tips to help you navigate choppy waters
Running a business is certainly challenging with so many different factors to consider around resource, supply chains, the cost of energy and materials. However, now more than ever it is important that you spend enough time 'working on the business',…
07.02.2022
The Value of Delegation
To succeed in business, you must know how to make the best use of your own time and how to delegate what can be done by others. While your team gets on with the day-to-day stuff, you can then focus on the tasks that no-one else can do.
12.01.2022
More Pointers to Better Management
Being a business manager can be tough. You occupy a delicate intermediary position between senior management and the workforce, where you have to provide an effective balance to the needs of both parties. Here are some more tips for effective…
04.01.2022
Key Pointers to Better Management
There are some interesting philosophical questions that occupy those in business. One of these is whether management is different from leadership. Keen advocates exist on both sides, but the principal distinction is between thinking and doing...
16.12.2021
Is Your Business Vision Clear? Can You Translate it to Strategy and Concrete Plans?
When I meet a new client, this is often the first thing I ask them. Their answer will demonstrate the direction the company wants to take, and pinpoint the focus of its actions. From that basis, we can work together to help improve alignment within…
11.11.2021
Do you have a plan for future leadership?
Managing change in business is a challenge at any time. Over the last year or so, we have all had to adapt and become far more flexible as individuals and agile as businesses. …
11.11.2021
How can we connect more effectively with our team?
As we adapt to a mixture of office and remote or home working, making sure that your employees remain engaged is more important than ever. …
25.10.2021
Setting the reset button to deal with uncertain times
A good proportion of business’s we speak to and work with, have been busier than ever over the course of this last year. This is the case despite facing tricky capacity and safeguarding challenges onsite, managing increasingly difficult supply…
22.09.2021
Dealing with the challenges of supply
Over the last few months, we have often written about your customers and the importance of meeting their requirements. …
22.09.2021
How healthy is your customer base?
The long term resilience of your business is of course intrinsically linked to the health of your customer base, the demand this will create and your ability to service this. So how do we make sure we maximise our revenue in the future?
06.09.2021
Why it is important to think about tomorrow
During a recent discussion with a client, I was asked how could they go about more deliberately starting to grow their business? …
28.07.2021
Sales teams, a luxury or money well spent?
It can be very expensive to build your own sales team. However, sales are the lifeblood of any business. Without a successful sales organisation and sales performance, it is very difficult for a business to hit its profit targets. …
12.07.2021
The art of successfully Managing succession
Managing change in any business can be a challenge. …
05.07.2021
How to make yourself more effective
One of the first questions we get asked is often, “how can I become more successful?”. …
30.06.2021
Is communicating the art of understanding or being understood?
Over the last year, businesses through necessity have had to increase their use of technology for business communications. …
07.06.2021
Kick starting your business again
As we slowly move out of lockdown we thought it would be useful to share some ideas on kick-starting your business again.
02.06.2021
Why putting your customer front and centre really works
What’s the secret to successfully growing a business? Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to that question. But we have put a few thought-provoking top tips to help you in our latest blog.
26.05.2021
Re-energising your sales pipeline
Business owners and leaders are busy people. So, managing your time is a vital ingredient to being successful and developing your business. …
28.04.2021
Getting the best out of yourself
We cover a wide variety of subjects during our emails, including Marketing, Business strategy, Developing and leading teams. However, as always, if you want to implement your strategy effectively, the impetus must come from you. …
22.04.2021
How can I kick start faster growth?
Recently a client asked me how they could grow their business more quickly. They wanted to grow but weren’t sure where and how to start. …
14.04.2021
Planning for Your Business Future
When you think about the future of your business, how do you see it progressing? Are you able to translate this theoretical vision into a sound plan, directed by a coherent business strategy?
12.04.2021
Successful businesses are powered by your team
Team-building is critical to a successful business, and fielding a solid team becomes even more crucial if you hope to grow. …
30.03.2021
Your path to growth
We are always talking about the business leader's role, and how they can most effectively utilise their management team to develop and optimise performance. Factors contributing to this theme that we’ve discussed in the past include how best to…
01.03.2021
How ‘customer-centric’ is your business?
Especially in the present circumstances, all businesses stand or fall on their ability to attract, satisfy and retain customers. …
17.02.2021
How Can You Become More Effective?
Our emails often cover important areas for the business such as sales or e-commerce strategies but ultimately the success of the business is down to successful implementation and in most cases, it is you who has to implement them.
10.02.2021
Struggling with Succession? Our Top Tips and Self-Help Plan
Managing change in business is a challenge at any time. The last few months have taught us all the importance of being flexible and having the ability to adapt to changing situations. …
08.02.2021
Adapting to Changing Circumstances
The world we live in today is full of change and new challenges, we only need to look at the impact of the pandemic to realise this. Now more than ever, just because something worked yesterday, doesn’t automatically mean it will work tomorrow.
12.01.2021
More Tips on becoming a better manager
It's sometimes tough to be a manager in the business world. You're slotted in between the workforce and your senior leadership, valiantly translating future strategy and business direction into the clarity of purpose and tasks for your teams to…
18.11.2020
What has top level sport taught us about leadership?
You might be surprised by the connections to be found between business and sport. These utilise business know-how in the sporting field and sports inspiration in business. …
18.11.2020
How can I explore and deliver a new opportunity?
Running a successful business brings many different challenges. How often do you set out to achieve one objective and find yourself dealing with something completely different? …
18.11.2020
What are your future ambitions for your business?
How do you see your business progressing? How can you translate this vision into solid plans and a clear business strategy? …
18.11.2020
Why is the business not delivering the results I want?
When I first speak to a business owner, one of the first questions I ask them, is what are their aims and goals for the business? …
26.10.2020
Developing team motivation
In 2012, BUPA conducted a survey of 5,000 workers in Britain, with some alarming results: more than 25% of those surveyed revealed that they were reluctant to pursue new business opportunities, because doing so would only lead to a greater workload.
08.10.2020
What is effective leadership?
It’s not easy being an effective business leader in today’s fast paced and often pressurised and uncertain world. …
12.06.2020
Getting your business back to work
Every business will have faced different challenges due to Covid-19, but one thing we all have in common is that it is perhaps now, as restrictions ease, that we face some of our most difficult decisions.
