Interim CEO / MD | Turnaround, Scale-Up & Exit Leader for SaaS, FinTech & Employee Benefits
This executive brings a strong track record as a CEO and transformation leader within growth-stage, founder-led and investor-backed businesses. Their career has centred on helping SMEs move from founder dependency and operational inefficiency towards scalable, better-governed and more commercially effective models. They are particularly strong in businesses where growth ambitions have outpaced process maturity, or where leadership teams need to reset around a clearer strategic and operational plan.
They have meaningful exposure to both private equity and venture-backed environments, including fundraising, exit planning, due diligence, board reporting and working directly with founders, shareholders and investors. Their experience includes both scale-up and turnaround situations, from building businesses for funding and sale to creating acquisition-ready operating platforms and improving profitability in legacy businesses.
Well suited to interim CEO, Managing Director or transformation leadership assignments, they bring commercial sharpness, operational discipline and the ability to build high-performing teams. Their ability to align growth strategy, people, systems and governance makes them particularly valuable in SMEs requiring stabilisation, scaling or preparation for exit.
Led the transformation of an FCA-regulated employee benefits business, increasing revenue from £1.5m to £2m and improving profit margin from 18% to more than 25% while delivering a 24-month transformation programme across legal, compliance, infosec, operations and finance.
Implemented three integrated SaaS systems and a new fee structure across 400 B2B clients, delivering 25% efficiency gains and significantly improving operational control and scalability.
Secured £4m in funding for a SaaS fintech / insurtech business, led its scale-up from start-up to scalable platform, increased SaaS adoption from 1% to 73%, and positioned the company for a successful trade sale.
Built leadership teams, governance frameworks and growth engines from scratch, including establishing functioning Boards, strategic reporting and sales and marketing infrastructure within tight timeframes.
About the Candidate
This interim executive is a commercially driven CEO and transformation leader with more than 20 years of experience scaling, restructuring and exiting PE- and VC-backed SMEs. With a background spanning SaaS, fintech, HR tech, employee benefits and financial services, they bring a blend of strategic leadership and hands-on execution, helping founder-led and investor-backed businesses strengthen their operating models, improve commercial performance and build scalable platforms for growth. Their experience includes full P&L ownership, fundraising, proposition development, go-to-market execution, governance and exit readiness.
They are particularly effective in situations where businesses have grown quickly but lack the systems, structure or leadership discipline needed for the next phase. Their strengths include operational redesign, team and leadership development, sales and marketing engine build-out, digital transformation, pricing and revenue optimisation, and embedding governance, compliance and risk frameworks. Known for combining strong commercial instincts with people-centred leadership, they are especially effective in businesses that need stabilising, scaling or preparing for sale.