-- New partnership with Meraki People will help founders build businesses that can perform, grow and inspire confidence without them in the room.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
London, 6 Aug 2026
Archer Fleming has partnered with leadership and succession specialist Meraki People to tackle a problem that repeatedly costs business owners money when they sell: a company that still depends too heavily on its founder.
Most advisers discover this problem during due diligence. By then, the buyer has already spotted the weakness, the seller has less room to negotiate and years of over-reliance on the founder must somehow be fixed in a matter of weeks.
Archer Fleming and Meraki People will work with owners much earlier—often years before a transaction—to strengthen leadership, make it clear who decides what, create credible succession plans and build boards that provide useful challenge rather than simply agreeing with the founder.
The aim is not to make good businesses slower or more corporate. It is to make them easier to hand over: able to keep performing if the founder steps away for three weeks, three months or permanently.
For many entrepreneurs, the business is their life’s work. Yet the very energy and judgement that built it can become a source of risk when every major decision, customer relationship or disagreement still comes back to one person. Buyers do not ignore that risk. They price it.
A different approach to exit preparation
Traditional exit preparation often begins with accounts, forecasts and a data room. Archer Fleming believes that is too late and too narrow.
A buyer is not only buying historic profits. It is buying confidence: confidence that customers will stay, decisions will still be made, the leadership team can cope and the business will continue to perform after the founder leaves.
The partnership with Meraki People expands Archer Fleming’s pre-exit work beyond the financial side of a sale into the leadership and decision-making needed to protect and increase the value of the business. It reflects the firm’s wider belief that owners should improve their options three years before exit, not try to repair the business three months before sale.
Chris Grove, Founder of Archer Fleming, said:
“One of the biggest myths in business is that buyers only buy profits. They don’t.
They buy confidence—confidence that the business will continue performing after the founder leaves.
Too many owners only discover how dependent the company is on them when a buyer points it out in due diligence. At that stage, the problem is no longer theoretical. It is affecting price, terms and sometimes whether the deal happens at all.
We would rather help owners solve that two or three years earlier, while they still have time, control and choices.”
Through the partnership, clients will receive practical support with succession planning, assessing future leaders, making clear who is responsible for which decisions, improving the board, coaching senior leaders, managing leadership changes and finding experienced Chairs or Non-Executive Directors where appropriate.
The work will be led by Kate Davis, founder of Meraki People, who advises founders, managing directors, senior leadership teams and boards through periods of growth, transition and ownership change.
Kate Davis, Founder of Meraki People, said:
“Too many founders unknowingly become the bottleneck in their own businesses. Every difficult decision comes back to them, every disagreement lands in their inbox and stepping away feels impossible.
The greatest compliment a founder can receive is that the business has become genuinely capable without them. That does not diminish what they built. It proves they built something durable.
Our work together will help owners create stronger leaders, clearer responsibility and a credible succession plan, making the business better run today and much more attractive to a buyer tomorrow.”
From dependent on the founder to ready for the future
The service is designed for owner-managed and mid-market businesses where growth has stalled, too many decisions still sit with one person, succession is unclear or a future sale, investment or employee ownership deal is being considered.
It is equally relevant to owners who are not yet planning a sale. Making the business less dependent on one person can improve day-to-day performance, free the founder from being dragged into every issue, create room for acquisitions and make the company more resilient long before any transaction begins.
By combining Archer Fleming’s experience of what buyers, investors and lenders examine with Meraki People’s work inside leadership teams and boards, the partnership aims to fix these problems before a buyer uses them to push down the price or demand tougher terms.
About Archer Fleming
Archer Fleming advises ambitious business owners on growth, funding, acquisitions and company sales. Its work focuses on building businesses that can succeed without the founder, reducing avoidable problems during a deal and helping owners improve both the price they achieve and the choices available to them before, during and after a transaction.
About Meraki People
Meraki People is an organisational design consultancy founded by Kate Davis, specialising in organisational effectiveness, board facilitation, succession planning, leadership development and executive coaching. It works with founders, managing directors, senior teams and boards on succession, leadership development, decision-making, board performance, executive coaching and periods of major change, helping businesses become less dependent on any one individual and better prepared for growth, investment or a change of ownership.
Media enquiries
Archer Fleming
Chris Grove, Founder
+44 (0) 203 886 2118
Contact Info:
Name: Chris Grove
Email: Send Email
Organization: Archer Fleming
Address: 3rd Floor, 45 Albermarle Street, Mayfair
Phone: +442038862118
Website: https://archerfleming.com/
Release ID: 89199969
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