Fixed fees · Named partners · Two engagements each, never more

London · Copenhagen · Singapore

Advisory since 2011Twenty partners, no leverage model

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Management advisory · since 2011

20 partners · 3 offices · fixed fees only

The partner who sells the work is the partner who does it

Most firms scale by putting analysts on partner rates. We do not scale. Twenty partners, fixed fees agreed before we start, and no deck that took four people a week to assemble.

Arrange a conversation Read the results

Advising 31 clients. The next partner free to start is Kemi Balogun, on 9 February.

2

engagements per partner, at most

£0

ever charged for an overrun

78%

of clients return for a second

1Diagnose · weeks 1–4 2Decide · weeks 5–9 3Deliver · weeks 10–16
  1. 1Diagnose, weeks 1–4
  2. 2Decide, weeks 5–9
  3. 3Deliver, weeks 10–16

Exhibit 1 · An engagement is a route, not a summit: three waypoints, agreed before we set out.

16 weeks, median

Clients in the last three years, and who they are

Named with their permission

01 · Practices

Three practices, and nothing outside them

A firm that claims every capability has none. These are the three where our partners ran the function themselves before advising anybody on it.

01 · Operating model Who decides, written down Structure, decision rights and spans of control — usually the real answer to a problem that arrived dressed as a strategy question. Length14–20 weeks OutputA decision-rights charter How we run it → 02 · Commercial strategy What to stop selling Pricing, portfolio and where to compete. We load service cost honestly first, which is why our reviews name more lines to retire than anyone expected. Length10–16 weeks OutputA priced, costed portfolio How we run it → 03 · Integration The first 200 days, before close Most deal value leaks in the eight weeks after completion that nobody owned. We plan them before signing, including the decisions that will be unpopular in week three. Length20–40 weeks OutputAn owned day-one plan How we run it →

02 · The model

Most firms sell a partner and deliver a pyramid

The economics require it: the partner is why you signed and the analysts are why it is profitable. We gave that model up in 2011, which is why we cannot sell a day rate — there is nobody underneath to leverage.

20

partners, all of whom ran the function first

1 : 2

partners to associates. The usual ratio is 1 : 12

31

clients currently advised, across three offices

0

day-rate engagements sold, in fifteen years

Exhibit 2

Who is in the room, by hours worked

A typical engagement elsewhere

Partner 8% of hours. Manager 22%. Analysts 70%.

A Ridgeline engagement

Named partner 55% of hours. One associate 45%.

Partner Manager or associate Analyst

Each dot is 5% of billed hours. Elsewhere: median of eleven proposals shared with us by clients, 2023–25. Ridgeline: all engagements, 2025.

03 · Results

Two engagements, and what changed

Five are written up in full on the results page, with the numbers — including the one that did not work, which is the most useful to read.

Wren Industrial · Operating model · 18 weeks

Nine layers became five. The real work was agreeing who now decided what.

12840
11 weeks 4 weeks
Month 161218

−64%

weeks from a decision to the people it affects

0

change in headcount, by design

Exhibit 3 · Decision latency, monthly

The full case

Aldridge · Commercial strategy · 14 weeks

A fifth of the portfolio retired, and a better business for it.

+4.2 pts

gross margin, twelve months on

−6%

revenue, deliberately and on the plan

Exhibit 4 · Gross margin bridge, axis from 28%

The full case

04 · How it runs

Sixteen weeks, typically, with the same two people throughout

The plan is agreed in the first conversation and priced as a whole. This is the shape of an operating-model engagement; the other two practices differ in the middle, not at the ends.

Exhibit 5

An engagement, week by week

Our work Your owner leads Steering review

Median of the fourteen operating-model engagements completed since 2022. The longest ran twenty weeks; none was re-priced for time.

Weeks 1–4

Diagnose

Forty interviews, the management accounts and two days on the floor. We report what we found before recommending anything.

Weeks 5–9

Decide

Every contested decision is argued once, with the people who hold it, and written into a charter the board signs.

Weeks 8–13

Design

Structure, spans and roles follow from the charter. In that order, because the other order relabels the confusion.

Weeks 13–16

Hand over

Your owner leads the last month; we sit behind them. The engagement ends when they no longer need to ask us.

A client, unprompted

They told us to stop selling our second-largest product line. Nobody we had hired before would have said it out loud, and nobody else would have been in the room when we did it.
GF

Gerald Fenwick

Chief Executive, Aldridge

05 · Insights

Written by the partner who did the work

No content studio and no quarterly outlook. A note appears when a partner has learned something worth a reader's twenty minutes.

No. 14 Reorganising before the decision rights are settled Operating model · Sep 2026 Reorganising before the decision rights are settled Helena StrandHelena Strand · 14 min No. 13 Your least profitable product is probably your second largest Commercial · Jul 2026 Your least profitable product is probably your second largest Kemi BalogunKemi Balogun · 11 min No. 12 The eight weeks after completion that nobody owns Integration · May 2026 The eight weeks after completion that nobody owns Adrian VosAdrian Vos · 9 min

Begin here

Begin with a conversation, not a proposal

Ninety minutes with the partner who would run the work. If the answer is that you do not need a firm for this, that is the call where you will hear it.

Arrange a conversation Who is free, and when
  • First conversation90 minutes, no charge
  • Who you meetThe partner who would run it
  • A fixed-fee letterWithin five working days