Growth Assessment
You can’t fix what you cannot see clearly.
Most leadership teams have a detailed view of their financials, product and market. Few have an equally clear picture of their people: the leadership, the culture, and the management infrastructure that supports them. That is what drives growth, or holds it back.
A Growth Assessment gives founders and VC investors a precise, benchmarked picture of leadership, culture and organisational health, and a plan to act on it, across every dimension that decides whether a company can carry its next phase of growth.
What we consistently see in European scale-ups
Each of these patterns starts as a strength of the early company. The data shows where it starts to cost, and what sits underneath. Based on 25 in-depth case studies.
"We have a strong learning culture."
25/25
Leadership teams that described their learning culture as strong. Few of them met the learning-orientation benchmark that scaling companies need.
What’s underneath:
When everyone sat together, learning happened by itself. At scale it needs deliberate feedback and review.
"Accountability is lived in word and action."
87%
Of scale-ups where OKRs were introduced but never cascaded to individuals. Accountability was named as a value, yet underperformance was rarely addressed.
What’s underneath:
In a close, loyal team, addressing underperformance can feel like breaking trust.
"We are MT-led."
24/25
Scale-ups with a formal MT where the founder(s) still controlled all key decisions. The founder-to-CEO transition was unfinished or unnamed.
What’s underneath:
The founders still hold the context and the relationships, so decisions keep finding their way back to them.
"We know our market."
4.94 /10
Customer orientation is the single lowest-scoring category across the portfolio.
What’s underneath:
Customer focus was a founder habit, never a company habit. When founders step back from customers, no process or ritual takes its place, and decisions drift inward.
For VC and PE Investors
The picture your due diligence isn’t giving you.
Reference calls and pitch decks show a leadership team at its best. Our assessment shows how it works day to day, benchmarked against 500+ European scale-ups at comparable stages, across every dimension that determines whether a company can carry the weight of what you're about to put into it.
We don't tell you whether to invest. We give you the full picture so the leadership conversation shifts from intuition to evidence.
Benchmarked organisational effectiveness report, with MT-level and company-wide findings.
Leadership readiness: where the team is strong, where it will strain under growth pressure.
Culture vs. infrastructure gap: the most common hidden risk pre-Series A or B.
Run pre-investment or post-close, we’ve done assessments from late Seed through Series D
Looking at several companies at once? See Portfolio Scan.
For Founders, CEOs & MTs
You sense something is slowing down. Now find out what.
Full assessment across leadership, culture and organisational effectiveness, tied to your growth objectives.
MT-level and company-wide view, including the perception gaps between them.
Benchmarked against 500 European scale-ups at comparable stages.
Facilitated MT session to translate findings into a clear set of priorities to hit your growth goals.
You’re in meetings all day. You’re hiring fast. The strategy is clear, and yet the organisation isn’t moving the way it should. Something is stuck, but you can’t name it clearly enough to fix it.
The Growth Assessment starts from your growth plan: the targets, the hires, the next round. It shows you and your management team what in your leadership, culture and organisation will carry that plan, and what will hold it back. In two to three weeks you have a shared picture, benchmarked against 500+ European scale-ups, and a prioritised plan of what to change first to hit your goals.
Full assessment across leadership, culture and organisational effectiveness, tied to your growth objectives.
MT-level and company-wide view, including the perception gaps between them.
Benchmarked against 500 European scale-ups at comparable stages.
Facilitated MT session to translate findings into a clear set of priorities to hit your growth goals.
How it works
From first call to actionable plan in 2 to 3 weeks
Step 1
360 Inquiry
Surveys and in-depth interviews across MT, management, and the wider organisation. Covers leadership style, management effectiveness, decision-making, accountability, learning culture, and customer orientation.
Step 2
Scale-up Benchmarking
Your scores placed against 500+ European scale-ups at comparable stage and size. You see not just where you are, but how that compares to companies that scaled successfully and those that did not.
Step 3
MT Findings Session
A facilitated session with your leadership team to work through the findings, surface what needs to be named and align on the top priorities that need to shift to achieve desired growth.
Step 4
Findings Report
A report with quantitative findings, qualitative patterns, the gaps between MT self-perception and organisational reality and prioritised recommendations tied to your growth objectives.
12 months later
Re-assessment
The same instrument a year on. You see what has changed, and you have evidence of your own progress.
Need support after the assessment? See Management Team Effectiveness, Executive Coaching and Cultural Transformation.
Who you’ll work with
Senior practitioners, each with a different lens on the same room.
Anna Dia Adriani
Experienced COO · Executive Coach · Corporate Anthropologist
Experienced scale-up leader who has been in your shoes. Brings a systemic lens: the patterns between people and the unwritten rules of how a company and team functions.
Laurie Kemp
Psychotherapist · Entrepreneur · Facilitator
A trained psychotherapist with a decade designing leadership programs for Founders, MTs and scale-ups. Sees the behavioural patterns limiting a team before leaders can name them themselves.
Neena Madhok
Executive Coach & Facilitator • ICF Master Certified Coach
Over a decade of startup and scale-up experience and a background in investment banking. Done 4,000+ coaching hours and nearly 1,000 workshops on team and group dynamics.
Learn more about the team.
Get started
The most clarifying conversation your leadership team will have this year
A Growth Assessment takes 2 to 3 weeks from first call to MT session. It gives your leadership team a shared, evidence-based picture of where you stand and what needs to change before the next phase of growth. Most clients say it surfaces conversations that were years overdue.
Questions we get asked
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A 360° diagnostic across 15 dimensions of leadership, culture and organisational effectiveness. It combines surveys and in-depth interviews across your MT, management layer and wider organisation, a written findings report benchmarked against 500+ European scale-ups, and a facilitated MT session to translate findings into aligned priorities.
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Two to three weeks from first call to facilitated MT session. The process is designed to be fast and immediately actionable, not a months-long engagement.
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It depends on the size of your management team and your organisation. Get in touch and we'll send you a proposal.
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Yes, we run assessments at both moments. Pre-investment it functions as a leadership due diligence instrument, giving investors the picture that pitch decks and reference calls don't offer with a clear development perspective. Post-close it gives the incoming investor and the MT a shared, evidence-based starting point for the next phase of growth.
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The benchmark and focus on actionable implementation. Your scores are placed against 500+ European scale-ups at comparable stages, so you see not just where you are, but how that compares to companies that scaled successfully and those that stalled. Most leadership assessments give you a picture of your organisation in isolation. Ours gives you context and a clear plan forward.
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Some scale-ups use the assessment as a standalone diagnostic. Others use it as the starting point for a tailored intervention, like executive coaching, MT effectiveness work, culture change, or organisational redesign. Either way, the findings are yours and the next step is always your choice.