COO, PE-backed agency group: your mandate, mapped against my record.
You're hiring an integration-minded COO for a three-agency group post-acquisition, with a hold period ending in 2029.
Prepared 21 July 2026 · Reviewed and approved by me before publishing · This page is private to you and not indexed.
The mandate as I understand it
A mid-market PE fund has assembled a group of three creative and digital agencies, roughly 400 people combined, and needs a group COO to integrate operations, standardise commercial management, and prepare the group for exit within the hold period.
The first year has to deliver a common operating model, a single view of revenue and margin, and credible progress on AI within delivery functions.
How my record maps
You need someone who has run operations through an actual sale.
I led the sell-side of Consulum's $160m acquisition by Stagwell: every due diligence workstream, the integration plan, and the stakeholder management around both. I also led the corporate project team on Ebiquity's £26m divestiture. I know what buyers probe, which means I know what to build into the group from day one so the exit doesn't become an archaeology project.
Evidence: Consulum, 2024 · Ebiquity Plc, 2016–19
Multi-agency integration is the job I've done most often.
At Craft I ran operations across eight offices in EMEA through a restructure that produced the strongest margin in the global group. At SapientRazorfish I converted a negative margin to 13% by repositioning the business and rationalising the client portfolio. Both were about making separately-built operations behave as one business.
Evidence: Craft EMEA, 2020–22 · SapientRazorfish UK, 2014–16
The AI requirement is the part most candidates will hand-wave.
I ran an enterprise AI programme to 90% adoption across 170 people in four months, with governance written for a government-facing firm. In an agency group, the same method applies to delivery functions first, where the margin case is clearest. I would treat it as an operational change programme with a measured competency baseline, because that's what made it work last time.
Evidence: Consulum AI programme, 2024–25
A single view of revenue and margin is familiar ground.
At Ebiquity I was global owner of revenue forecasting and pipeline management, headed the group-wide Salesforce implementation, and rebuilt management information so decisions ran on numbers. That is the same plumbing your first-year plan depends on.
Evidence: Ebiquity Plc, 2016–19
What I'd examine in the first 90 days
Revenue quality by agency. Client concentration, contract terms, and how much margin is real once intercompany trading is stripped out.
The operating model gap. Where the three agencies duplicate functions, and which consolidations pay back inside the hold period.
Commercial discipline. Pricing, scoping and utilisation practice in each agency, against one standard.
The exit file. Start the data room now: entity structure, contracts, IP, systems. Buyers pay for order.
AI in delivery. Diagnostic first: where it moves cost or speed in each agency's actual workflow, then a measured rollout.
Where I'd be learning
I have not worked inside a PE-owned portfolio company; my transactions were trade sales from the operator side. The value-creation-plan cadence and fund reporting rhythm would be new, albeit the underlying disciplines, margin, cash and exit-readiness, are the ones I've run for years.
I'm an operator, not a creative leader. I partner well with CEOs and CCOs who own the product; I make the business underneath them work.