Will the strategy hold?
Can the team carry it?
Financial diligence gets stress-tested. The two things that decide whether the thesis holds usually don't: a defensible position in the market, and a leadership team whose structure can execute it. We test both, together, in one engagement.
Most portfolio companies get one read. They need two.
A strategy consultant tells you where the company should compete. An operations or people advisor tells you whether the team can run it. Hired separately, they never sit at the same table, and the gaps between their reports become the plan's blind spots.
We work as one team, so the strategy and the structure that carries it are built together.
Eight questions every hold depends on.
Craig leads the strategy read. Debbie leads the operating read. Both are in the room, so each answer shapes the other.
Is the position defensible?
Can the team execute it?
Question four is where the two reads meet. What the company must be capable of is only real if someone decides, owns, and checks it.
From pre-close through exit.
Pre-close
Test the position and the team before the thesis is locked.
First 100 days
A strategic plan the leadership team agrees on, and the decision rights to carry it.
Add-on acquisition
One position for the combined company. One answer to who decides.
Mid-hold stall
Find out whether it's the strategy, the structure, or both, before you change the people.
Before exit
Show a buyer a documented position and a team that runs without heroes.
Answers you can underwrite. A team that can execute them.
Start with the question you need answered now. Each step stands on its own, and each one builds on the last.
Is the position defensible?
A documented competitive position, profit model, and gap register. You see whether the thesis rests on a real advantage or on price.
Can this team carry it?
A read on how the company actually runs, plus behavioral data on every leader. You see which seats are at risk before the plan depends on them.
One plan the whole team owns.
Both reads, external pressures, and industry benchmarks become one strategic plan, with a year of live tooling to track it.
A plan that survives Monday.
We install the operating structure under the plan: who decides, who owns each outcome, what comes first, and a meeting rhythm that tracks it. The team runs it after we leave.
Two disciplines. One engagement.
We're different in almost every way that matters to a leadership team, and that's the point. Between us, every room has someone who sees the market and someone who sees how the company actually runs.
Has sat in the owner's chair. Stepped in as CEO of a PE-owned company that had lost $500,000 the year before, turned it to $300,000 in profit within two years, and led it through a successful sale.
Spent 30 years in corporate leadership across operations, supply chain, and HR, finishing as a Global VP of HR. Has watched good plans stall because nobody owned the decision.
Built for the lower middle market.
Bring one portfolio company.
Fifteen minutes. Tell us about one company that's behind plan or about to change hands. We'll show you where we'd look first, and walk you through a sample deliverable.
Book a Portfolio Call with CraigInvisible Horizons teams up with Visionary Results