Build a business you’re proud of. Give your people room to grow.
You can have big ambitions for your business and still find yourself carrying too much of its everyday work. Important decisions wait for you. Customer problems reach you. Finding time to lead what comes next gets harder.
I work with owners and leadership teams to build the clarity, confidence and capability to move forward. Together, we help your business achieve more without everything depending on you.
Based in the UK, I typically work with businesses of 20–50 employees and approximately £500k–£10m turnover.
A good business can change lives
I believe a business is a wonderful opportunity to improve life for the people it serves and the people who work within it, when it is run well.
That means customers who can rely on you, people with the support and opportunity to grow, and a commercially healthy company that can keep its promises. Strong leadership makes those ambitions practical.
Which version of founder dependency are you living with?
Everything still comes through me. Important decisions wait for my judgement or approval.
My team has responsibility, but still comes back to me before acting.
I cannot see what is happening without asking, chasing or getting pulled into the detail.
Sales, key relationships or commercial momentum still depend too heavily on me.
Processes and standards live in people’s heads, so consistency drops when the right person is absent.
I have built a team, but I still do not feel I can properly step away from the business.
A bigger business should not mean more for you to carry
When work keeps waiting for your judgement, even capable people can become hesitant. Start by understanding what they need to act: a clear outcome, reliable information, decision limits and support.
The aim is a team that can serve customers well, make appropriate decisions and solve problems with confidence. You have more room to set direction, develop your leaders and build towards the company you want to create.
Why hasn't all the hiring and delegation solved it?
A COO, better managers, SOPs and dashboards can each help with a particular problem. First you need to know where the business depends on you and why the work keeps returning.
The Founder Independence Framework starts with Sales, Customers, Operations, Finance and People. Then we investigate what is bringing work back to you: unclear priorities, decisions waiting for permission, delivery that needs rescuing, information nobody trusts or managers who still need you to lead.
The free 20-question Founder Independence Assessment gives you an indicative profile based on your answers. Use it to spot patterns worth investigating, then decide whether a conversation would help.
I have been the operator in the middle of it
I spent 11 years in the Royal Navy before moving into business, then worked across HP, Capita and complex public-sector and defence environments where decisions, accountability and delivery had real consequences.
I have also built a business that failed, dealt with the financial consequences and rebuilt. That experience changed how I think about control, resilience and the difference between carrying a business yourself and building one that can carry responsibility without you.
Today I work with founders whose businesses have grown faster than the way they are being run. I am not trying to remove the founder from the company. I help build an organisation that no longer needs the founder in the middle of everything.
What Founder Independence means
Decisions are made at the correct level.
Leaders take genuine ownership of outcomes.
Standards remain consistent without constant founder intervention.
Delivery does not depend on the founder chasing it.
Growth creates organisational capacity rather than more work for the founder.
The founder can focus on direction, value creation and the decisions that genuinely require them.
How we check that responsibility is moving
Start with a recurring decision, customer exception or delivery commitment that currently comes back to the founder. Agree who owns it, what they can decide and the point at which they must escalate.
Record a baseline, then review actual examples: routine approvals returning to the founder, exceptions resolved within agreed limits and commitments completed without chasing. Check whether responsibility has moved to the team or simply to another person.
Compare the evidence with the starting point and adjust the operating arrangements. The measures and review period are agreed for each engagement; they are not promised results.
Diagnose
Start with what you want the business to achieve and one real example of work that keeps coming back to you. Listen to the people involved and establish where decisions, delivery or ownership need attention.
Design
Agree clear ownership, decision limits and standards together. Give your leaders the information, authority and support to succeed.
Embed
Put the agreements into practice with your team. Review real outcomes, learn from what happens and adjust the places where people still need help.
Start with one recurring decision. Use the free delegation worksheet, worked example and conversation prompts to agree who owns it, what they can decide and when to involve you.
A practical guide to moving one recurring decision out of your queue: set ownership, limits and escalation rules, then use the free Seven-Day Decision Handover Plan to put it into practice.
A 90-minute working review with Antony. Identify the material dependencies, the primary operating constraint and your priorities for the next 30, 60 and 90 days. Begin with a 30-minute fit call.
Antony explains the failed business decision that changed how he works, the ten-minute test for real management authority and what Founder Independence looks like in practice.