A commercial programme built specifically for founders and MDs running scaling businesses between £2m and £50m. Straight thinking, senior experience and a peer group that knows what it's like to be in your position.
Not a networking event. Not a coaching programme. A structured commercial peer group run by a fractional commercial director who's sat in the seat you're sitting in.
Michael will be in touch within two working days to discuss whether the Founders Circle is the right fit for you.
The MDA Founders Circle is a small, closed group of founders and MDs running UK scaling businesses between £2m and £50m. It meets monthly. It is run by Michael Alty, Director of MDA Business Advisory — a commercial director with two decades across Nike, Adidas, Liverpool FC, The Very Group, JD Sports and a string of scaling DTC and FMCG businesses.
Every session tackles a real commercial problem. Pricing architecture. Channel decisions — wholesale, retail, DTC. Working capital and cash flow discipline. Margin management. Supply chain cost. Building the commercial structure that lets a founder stop being the bottleneck. These are the problems MDA solves for clients every week. They are the problems the Circle works through together.
Places are limited to eight per group. No competing businesses. Every member is at a relevant stage with a relevant problem set. This is not a networking event. It is not a coaching programme. It is a structured commercial peer group led by someone who has sat in a buying meeting at Morrisons, rebuilt a pricing architecture for a DTC brand doing £500k in EU revenue, and turned around a business in administration.
You are selling more but the P&L is not moving with it. The margin is leaking somewhere in pricing, channel mix, cost of goods or fulfilment — and you haven't had the right person in the room to find it and fix it.
All the commercial calls land on your desk. Supplier negotiations, pricing decisions, new channel conversations. You know the structure needs to change. You haven't had the commercial framework to build into.
Wholesale, retail, a major grocery account, an international market. You can see the opportunity. You want to go into those conversations with a strategy and a margin model, not a hope and a handshake.
Not advisors. Not investors. Other founders at the same stage, dealing with the same pressure, who have no interest in impressing each other and every interest in getting better.
Tell us your revenue, your sector and your biggest commercial problem right now. We review every application personally. If it's not the right fit, we'll say so.
Before your first session, Michael spends 30 minutes on your specific position. Where you are. Where the margin is going. What's in the way. That shapes how you get value from the group.
One structured 2-hour session per month. Topic chosen for the group, with space for live problems from members. No slides for the sake of slides. Direct conversation with a commercial director who has done it.
Between sessions you have a direct line to Michael. Not a ticketing system. Not a 3-week wait. A commercial director on call for the decisions that need a straight answer now.
The Founders Circle is deliberately small. If you're scaling a business between £2m and £50m and you're ready to get serious about the commercial side, register your interest today.
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