Ace & Co. is a small senior-led practice working with owner-managed British businesses on the things that decide whether the next five years feel intentional or accidental: how leaders lead, how managers manage, and how the commercial picture comes back into focus.
Leadership development, management training and the commercial counsel that sits next to them. Engage one strand on its own, or weave them together when the situation calls for it.
Programmes designed around the actual leaders you have, not a generic syllabus. Cohorts of six to twelve, three to six months in length, built on real situations from the room. Quiet enough to allow honest conversation, structured enough to leave behind habits that hold.
One-to-ones that work, delegation that does not become abdication, feedback that lands, performance conversations that move things forward. Workshops for first-time managers, refresher cohorts for the experienced, and the operating cadence underneath both.
Confidential, contracted around what should change, and held to a standard of honesty rather than encouragement. Useful in transition, under pressure, or when the role has quietly outgrown the habits that built it.
Light-touch advisory for owner-managers whose business has grown faster than the picture of it. Pricing, margin, channel mix, the difference between revenue you want and revenue you can keep. Not a strategy deck; a working session that ends with a decision.
An older-hand view of marketing for owner-managers who have spent enough on the wrong things to be cautious about the next round. Positioning, proposition, what to keep, what to stop, and how the spend should sit alongside the sales effort.
Owner-managed businesses do not need more frameworks. They need a few honest conversations, held by someone who has been in the chair. Operating Principle
Pick the shape that fits the decision in front of you. Most clients start small — a diagnostic conversation or a single cohort — before anything longer is committed.
A small group of managers or leaders moves through a structured programme together. Live sessions, work between modules, and a shared language by the end of it.
Twice-monthly sessions with one of our senior consultants. Contracted around outcomes, reviewed at the halfway mark, and held with discretion as the default.
A monthly seat at the table for founders and managing directors. Calls, a working session, and an honest second opinion on the moves you are considering.
Every piece of work moves through the same four stages, whether it is a coaching contract or a multi-cohort programme. The shape is the same; the depth varies.
A working session to understand the business, the people and the decision behind the brief. Often the work needed is smaller than the original question suggested.
A proposal scoped to the actual problem. Cases, cadence and people are chosen for the room in front of us; nothing is pulled from a template.
The work runs. Sessions in person where it matters, online where it makes sense, and clear progress reports for the person paying the invoice.
The work is handed back to the business as habit. We stay on call for the next cohort or the next decision — useful where invited, absent where not.
The questions founders, managing directors and HR leads tend to ask when they are weighing whether to bring us in.
Owner-managed and founder-led SMEs, typically between five and two hundred people. Most of our clients are profitable businesses past the start-up phase whose management layer is now the thing that decides what growth feels like inside the company. We work across the South East from our Colchester office and remotely UK-wide.
Off-the-shelf courses teach a syllabus; we work to a brief. Every cohort is shaped around your business, your people and the actual decisions they make on a Tuesday afternoon. The model and structure come from us, but the cases, language and assessments are pulled from the work in front of the room.
No. Our office is in Colchester and we deliver in person across Essex, Suffolk, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire and London. The rest of the UK is covered remotely, with structured virtual cohorts and occasional travel days when the work warrants the trip.
A diagnostic conversation is a single morning. Leadership development cohorts run for three to six months. One-to-one coaching tends to sit on a six-month contract reviewed at the end. Advisory work is monthly, with a quarterly review and no auto-renew. We do not sell long retainers for their own sake.
Senior consultants only. The person who scopes the brief is the person in the room with your team. We do not subcontract to a bench of juniors and we do not sell engagements designed around someone else's diary. If we do not have the right person to lead a piece, we will say so.