MSP board advisor
What got you here won’t get you there.
Board advisory for ambitious MSPs – and why you may have more to gain than you think.Most of my clients are between £1m and £5m. Some are smaller and growing fast; some are well beyond it. It’s the stage that matters, not the number.
Part of your team · Honest fit · Rolling monthly · No tie-in
The growth stage
Where the owner’s strengths quietly become the ceiling
Around a quarter of UK MSPs are at the £1m–£5m stage. Only around one in ten UK MSPs have grown beyond it. Nobody is doing anything wrong – the game has changed.
The owner is the single point of failure.
Sales, escalations, vendor relationships and finance all still lean on you.
The skills that built it aren’t the skills that scale it.
Technical excellence and hard work got you to £1m. Structure, data and leadership get you to £5m.
Mistakes now cost six figures.
A bad hire, a failed marketing push or a tooling misstep used to sting. Now it stalls a year.
Firm-size figures: DSIT, Research on the UK managed service provider market (2025).
Where it goes wrong
The things that stall an MSP at this stage are rarely technical
These are the conversations I’m in your boardroom for. Most of them come down to the same thing: a decision that’s too big to make on instinct, and nobody independent in the room.
Opinions differ and there’s no tie-breaker.
Two directors, two views, and the loudest one wins – or nothing moves.
→ An independent voice with experience of both sides of the argument. Balance, not a casting vote: I’ll say what I think and why, then it’s your call.
The numbers report last quarter; they don’t predict the next one.
→ Reliable P&L and balance sheet reporting, analysed in depth at every board meeting – margin by service line, MRR quality and cash – so you see what’s coming, not just what’s happened.
Marketing spend that goes nowhere.
Spend without positioning, pipeline without process.
→ Position first, then spend. A sales process your team will actually follow.
The hire you can’t afford to get wrong.
→ Help shaping the role, reviewing CVs and sitting on the panel. A second opinion on the decisions that are too expensive to make alone.
Every meaningful decision still routes through you.
→ Leadership depth: mentoring the next tier so the business runs on a team, not on the owner.
Tool sprawl and vendor noise.
→ Stack decisions with no vendor to please and no favourite tools to promote.
Standards you’ve been meaning to do properly.
→ ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus, done once and kept.
Buying, selling or taking investment.
→ 11 M&A deals, buy and sell side: five implemented for TMB’s former owners, making them work post-deal, and six as owner-director post-MBO. What it’s worth, what to look for, and what the other side will look for in you.
A conversation that needs board-level weight.
→ As and when the need arises, I’ll represent you as your board advisor – with a major client, a key supplier, a lender, an investor or an acquisition target. An independent, board-level voice carries weight in the conversations that matter.
The budget question
It isn’t a cost line. It’s the most effective lever you have on four numbers that matter.
Margin.
Pricing, service-line profitability, whitespace in your existing base, tool sprawl, utilisation. Most MSPs at this stage are leaving several points of EBITDA on the table without knowing where.
Mistakes avoided.
The marketing spend that goes wrong so often. The mis-hire. The acquisition that wasn’t. One avoided mistake pays for years of advisory.
Valuation.
Less owner dependence, documented process, leadership depth and clean reporting move the multiple – whether you sell in two years, twenty, or never.
Your time.
Decisions made once, properly, with the right data. The owner’s time comes back – to grow the business or to enjoy it.
Illustrative. And at exit, a board advisor’s fee is usually treated as an add-back, so the cost doesn’t reduce your EBITDA or your valuation. The question isn’t “can I afford an advisor?” – it’s “which of these four am I confident I’ve already maxed out?”
Clients
Across the UK and Ireland – from under £1m to well beyond £5m
No tie-in. No hard feelings.
Four things you can hold me to
Part of your team.
In your boardroom, on your side, focused on your best interests – not on selling you a next phase, a product or an exit.
Honest fit.
If I don’t believe I can add value – before we start or six months in – I’ll tell you before you spend a penny more.
Rolling monthly.
No long contract, no exit fee. 30 days’ notice, either way. Clients stay because it works, not because they’re tied in.
No tie-in.
The discovery call is on me. An hour on your business, your numbers and your goals, and you leave with a short list whatever you decide.
The discovery call is on me
Book your discovery call.
An hour on your business, your numbers and your goals. You’ll leave with a short list, whatever you decide.