We provide strategic support to founders and leadership teams across finance, operations and commercial strategy. Core services include:
- Strategic and commercial advisory: guidance on business models, pricing, market entry and decision-making frameworks;
- Operational and organisational design: support with team structure, process clarity and scalable systems;
- Fractional CFO and financial leadership: part-time financial stewardship, board reporting, forecasting and commercial oversight;
- Transactions and IP: M&A preparation, EIS and SEIS fundraising structuring, IP assignment and valuation, and investor positioning; and
- Strategic offsites and executive sessions: bespoke sessions to align leadership teams and sharpen commercial thinking at the leadership level.
We work with a small number of clients at any one time to ensure depth of engagement and long-term value.
The best starting point is a short exploratory conversation. There is no pitch or pressure, just a chance to understand your context, challenges and goals. If there is a good fit, options for working together can be outlined from there.
We work alongside existing teams and advisers. The interest is in clarity and progress, not in expanding an advisory footprint. Email hello@ashvaren.com or use the contact form to get started.
Several things, but principally these:
- Every engagement is led personally by Mike Warriner: there are no juniors, no account rotations and no work delegated to people who were not in the room;
- We bring a genuinely wide-ranging skillset across law, finance, operations and board-level decision-making, applied directly and not via a team;
- We work quietly, discreetly and with a preference for depth over volume; and
- We are direct when something is not working. Clients engage us precisely because they will hear what is true, not what is comfortable.
By email at hello@ashvaren.com, or by completing the contact form on this website. All enquiries are treated in confidence. You will hear directly from Mike: not a PA, not an automated response, not a member of a team.
We work on three models depending on the nature and duration of the engagement:
- Monthly retainer: for ongoing advisory or part-time CFO/COO work, a fixed number of days per month, billed in advance;
- Fixed-fee project: for defined deliverables such as strategic reviews, financial model builds or leadership programmes; and
- Day rate or sessional: for executive teach-ins, board preparation or short-term targeted support.
Pricing is transparent, with no hidden charges. We will discuss scope and structure directly. If we are not the right fit, we will say so plainly.
Clients often describe it as structured, direct and commercially grounded. We operate with clear structure and communicate directly, focused on practical outcomes rather than theoretical frameworks.
We ask good questions, challenge constructively, and help founders and senior teams think more clearly about what matters now and what needs to be true at the next stage. Vague frameworks and generic recommendations are not what we are for.
