Advisor to private equity and mid-market leadership
A second opinion on the plan before the money goes behind it
Independent review of value creation plans for mid-market sponsors, written so your board can act on it rather than discuss it.
Track record
500+
companies advised since 2010
40+
acquisitions as an operator
6
companies founded, 2 exited
$1.45B
GMV managed through DevriX
The engagement
How this works
Where value creation plans quietly break
You get your value creation plan pressure-tested by someone who has run the operating work, before capital and headcount commit to it. Value creation plans fail in predictable ways. The lever that looked mechanical in the model turns out to depend on a system nobody has looked inside. The commercial upside assumes a sales motion the company has never run.
The integration timeline was built backwards from the exit date rather than forwards from what the team can absorb. None of that shows up in a diligence report, because diligence answers whether to buy, not whether the plan you wrote afterwards survives contact with the business.
Where this fits
When sponsors bring me in
Your plan needs testing
Which levers are real, which are optimistic, and which depend on a system nobody has opened since diligence. The model rarely knows what the codebase or the sales motion can absorb.
The asset is behind plan
Whether your plan was wrong or the execution is. Those are different problems with different costs, and arguing about which one you have burns quarters.
A hold decision is due
Invest further, change the team, or start preparing the asset for sale. The answer is rarely the comfortable one, and it is worth having in writing before the board meets.
Sponsor and management disagree
Usually both are right about different things, and the disagreement is a proxy for an assumption nobody has tested. Naming it tends to end the argument.
Scope
What the engagement covers
The written verdict
What is true, what it costs to change, and what happens if nothing does. Something your board can decide against in a single meeting rather than discuss across three.
Lever by lever
Each value creation lever tested against the systems and the team that have to deliver it, with the optimistic ones named rather than quietly carried. A lever that needs a capability the company does not have is a hiring plan, not a lever, and the distinction is worth making before the quarter it fails.
Standing advisory
Ongoing input as conditions move, sized so the attention is real rather than nominal. Plans do not fail on the day they are written, they drift, and someone has to notice the drift while it is still correctable rather than at the next reporting cycle.
Independence
The review is not sold by the party who would deliver the remedy, which is the entire point of a second opinion. If the finding is that nothing needs doing, nobody loses revenue by saying so.
Sequence
How the first 90 days run
01
The read
Two to three weeks against your plan, the numbers behind it, and the people expected to deliver it. Interviews with the CEO and the functional leads, plus the systems the plan quietly assumes.
02
The document
A short written verdict your board can act on, not a maturity score.
03
The follow through
Ongoing advisory where the plan needs defending or changing as conditions move.
An advisor whose own plan is under review is not a second opinion.
Why independence is the product
Most firms that review your plan would also like to execute it, so your diagnosis and your remedy arrive on the same invoice. That is not dishonest, it is just structural: a party paid to deliver the fix has no incentive to find that the plan was fine. Where your plan needs delivery capacity, that comes through DevriX as a separate commercial conversation you are free to have with someone else, and frequently should.
Independence is the product here, not a positioning line, and it is the reason the written verdict is worth reading: nobody is incentivised to find work that does not need doing. Engagements are capped at a small number at a time for the same reason. A reviewer carrying a dozen assets is producing generic advice that any deck could have given you.
Boundaries
What this is not
This is not commercial due diligence, which supports a decision before close. It reviews the plan you are executing after it. It is not interim management either: your CEO keeps the mandate and the accountability, and the review exists to make that easier to discharge rather than to take it over. It does not replace your bank, your accountants or your lawyers, and it does not produce a framework you then pay someone to implement. Where the honest answer is that your plan is sound, or that you need a full-time hire, or a different specialism entirely, that is what you get in writing rather than a proposal for more work.
Before you commit
Questions sponsors ask
Is this the same as commercial due diligence?
No. Diligence supports an investment decision before close. This reviews the value creation plan you are executing after it, against the systems and people who have to deliver it.
How long does a review take?
Two to three weeks for a single asset. Roll-ups with several acquired stacks take longer, and the scoping conversation will tell you so before you commit.
Will management cooperate with this?
They generally do, once it is clear the review covers the plan rather than their performance. The framing on day one decides this.
What if the plan turns out to be sound?
Then that is the finding, in writing, and it is worth having before the next board meeting. A confirmed plan is a cheaper outcome than a suspected one.
What does it cost?
Scoped to the asset and agreed after the first conversation rather than quoted from a rate card, because a single portfolio company with a contained estate is a different piece of work from a roll-up carrying four acquired stacks. The diagnostic can be commissioned on its own as a fixed piece of work if you want to see the quality of thinking before committing to anything ongoing. That is usually the sensible first step.
How do engagements start?
A conversation about the specific asset and what you believe is causing the gap between plan and reality.
Start with the asset, not the engagement
Tell me which portfolio company is behind plan and what you believe is causing it. That conversation is free and usually clarifies whether this is the right instrument.