Senior in the work
The person you hire is the person who does the work - the research, the model and the call at the end.
Independent strategy & transaction advice
Analysis is abundant.
Judgement is scarce.
In a world increasingly awash with data and analysis - from colleagues and computers alike - knowing which to trust, and when to move, is what stays rare.
For the CEOs, boards, owners and investors who decide before the evidence is in - and want a straight, independent read before they commit.
25 years
of strategy under uncertainty
A senior pair of hands
on your work, start to finish
Board & committee ready
evidence built to withstand scrutiny
Yours to keep
models, evidence and tools handed over
The buying moment
The most important decisions arrive before certainty does.
By the time it reaches you, the answer can feel half-decided. Management has a preferred outcome. The deal has momentum. You are inundated with analysis and points of view - none of it settling the one question that actually makes the decision.
That is where Lion comes in - an independent view on not just how to proceed, but whether to at all.
Your board is split on a call that really matters.
A deal is riding on assumptions no one has rebuilt.
A fast-moving market is outrunning your planning cycle.
A major investment has backing - but not yet a case that survives scrutiny.
Three kinds of decision
The work starts with a decision.
Not a workstream.
01
Strategy under uncertainty
What is changing enough to matter - and what should you do now?
Independent strategy for markets moving faster than the planning cycle: enter or wait, build or buy, scale or stop.
02Transactions & investment
Is the case real - and what would make you walk away?
Commercial and vendor diligence, investment cases and capital raises. The management case is rebuilt, not defended.
03Major capital commitments
What scale does the evidence support?
Demand, economics and opportunity cost tested before a board or sovereign institution commits capital it cannot easily recover.
Selected decisions
The right evidence for the decision - and for whoever signs it off.
Transaction · Founder-led group, MENA
PE raise → IPO
raise supported; since listed
A founder-led grocer’s capital raise, proven through three hard years.
An operating record blurred by three years of shocks, rebuilt into a case investors backed - and the company has since listed.
Read the case ↗︎
Corporate strategy · Listed European operator
No-go
one week before the window closed
Headwinds identified ahead of a high-pressure market entry.
A market said to be growing 20% a year - but the published numbers were inflated by player winnings. We said no, on the evidence.
Read the case ↗︎
Transaction · Mid-market PE
8-figure exit
to one of six PE bidders
Vendor due diligence on a digital marketplace sale, in five weeks.
Four marketplaces, a live process and a thin US evidence base - one million rows and 60 interviews rebuilt the equity story.
Read the case ↗︎
Capital commitment · Gulf
9-figure capital allocation
A stadium resized to put capital to better use.
Demand supported 25,000 seats, not 40,000. Capital moved from empty capacity into yielding assets instead.
Read the case ↗︎
Why Lion
Independent enough to recommend less.
Advice is only worth having if the answer can be no. Lion is not paid to build you the biggest programme - only to find what the evidence actually supports.
Evidence you can inspect
You can see what is fact, what is estimate and what is judgement - and exactly which assumptions would break the case.
Useful after we leave
Everything is documented and handed over, so your team keeps the capability - not a dependency on Lion.
Discreet by design
Your situation stays confidential. Specialists come in only where the decision genuinely needs them.
Practitioner depth
Frontier advice, grounded in hard work - and your real business needs.
AI and digital assets are the same problem in its sharpest form: real money, thin evidence and rules being rewritten while you decide.
Lion pairs board-level strategy with AI systems built and shipped first-hand, and digital-asset capital held through two full market winters since 2017.
See where that pattern recognition comes from↗︎