Aligning Leadership to the Scaling Journey

The Scale Up Collective, powered by Odgers Berndtson, is our platform for partnering with investors and their portfolio companies at every step of their value creation journey. Bringing together local and global expertise from our sector and functional practices, we support clients' unique talent agenda from leadership assessment to strategic hiring. 

To gain deeper insight, our experts have outlined a global perspective of how leaders need to adapt at each stage, and discuss the potential opportunities and challenges.

Early Stage 

• Early stage businesses range from seed fund through to series A, with many led by founder-CEOs and founder C-suite teams. 
• Leaders at this stage of business maturity will be highly entrepreneurial problem-solvers, adept at addressing a range of challenges on a daily basis.  
• It is likely their roles may not be clearly outlined, which gives freedom to be involved across the company’s operations. 

Small-Cap to Mid-Cap 

• Small-cap to mid-cap businesses have achieved a reasonable degree of maturity and can include companies which are considerably different to one another.   
• Companies of this type can be more stable and provide steadier growth compared with early stage businesses, making them popular with investors. 
• Leaders with a sophisticated skillset who can drive transformational growth will be needed to achieve this level of scale.  

Operationally Mature 

• Leaders of operationally mature businesses will still be aiming for continued scale even once the company has achieved a certain level of growth. 
• It will be vital for leaders to have a robust strategy and the resilience to make progress, whilst also adapting to the evolving needs of the business and market. 
• One of the most challenging aspects of such businesses can be developing the company’s culture alongside achieving the desired scale. 

Plotting a Successful Value Creation Journey 

• Long-term profitability will depend on the adaptability of leaders at each stage of the organisation’s scaling journey. 
• Investors and effective leaders know the success drivers for a mature company might be completely different from that of an early stage company. 

Placing the right talent for the specific stage in a company’s growth journey is paramount to success. 

Click here to find out more about how leaders need to evolve at different stages of the scale up journey. 

Get in touch. Follow the links below to discover more, or contact our dedicated leadership experts from your local Odgers Berndtson office to discuss your CEO requirements.