Whether you’re preparing for exit, building the case for growth capital, or just looking to scale more profitably, there are questions you should be able to answer about your cash, customers, team and future
As part of Liberti Club’s nationwide tour in 2026, we invited some of Liberti’s Regional Directors and partners in Scotland for perspectives on these questions and how they are supporting businesses in the region.
“There is a decent level of M&A activity across Scotland,” observes Steve Rowntree, Chartered Financial Planner at wealth management firm Amber River. “Experian say there were 557 announced deals in 2025, up around 5% on the year before, so deals are still happening despite uncertainty.”
Despite a surge in Scottish M&A in the first quarter of 2026, deals are taking a bit longer and valuations have become tighter as buyers look for the closest strategic fit and strong evidence for profitable future growth.
“We work with a lot of investors who ask us to review insurance as part of their due diligence process looking at a target business, including cyber risk, key person exposure and other deal specific areas,” says Julie Scott, Head of M&A Advisory at risk & insurance specialist Partners&. “Post deal, because investment sometimes stays longer than planned, value creation teams are increasingly tasked with ways to drive both savings and organic growth. This is where we’re seeing fractional partners can add value. Partners like People Puzzles are helping to integrate and retain good people and work with us to maximise employee benefits solutions.”
Despite the hype around AI, talent is still the biggest driver of growth in businesses. “We look at people through a commercial lens,” says Zoe Hamilton, Scotland Regional Director at People Puzzles. “A significant part of our work is identifying where the organisation is carrying unnecessary cost, risk, complexity or dependency and then building the people infrastructure required for the next phase of the business.
“Following an acquisition, businesses often inherit duplicated roles, inconsistent terms and conditions, multiple ways of working, overlapping management structures and different cultures. Unless those issues are addressed, some of the value that originally underpinned the acquisition case can quickly disappear. For PE-backed organisations, we often become the senior People capability that sits alongside the CEO and leadership team during that period of acceleration.”
STRATEGIC FINANCE
Fractional CFOs have long supported preparation for investment, helping founders build the strongest case for the best terms and advising on how to maximise growth capital.
“The clients we support across Scotland are mainly founder-led, owner-managed SMEs, where most of the decision-making rests with the owner, and a high proportion are family businesses,” says Marie Rodgers, Regional Director (Scotland West) of The CFO Centre. “Roughly 80% come to us with immediate needs around cash flow and visibility of the numbers, profitability and funding for growth. Once those are sorted, the conversation becomes strategic and moves to longer-term goals such as succession and family transition, sale or exit, and restructuring.”
As value creation teams look at ways to drive growth, fractional CROs and CMOs are being brought in before and after investment to build stronger foundations for scale.
“We typically support established, ambitious SMEs that are already successful, but have reached a point where something needs to change if they are going to keep growing,” explains Hari Farzin, Scotland Regional Director at The Marketing Centre. “The issue is rarely just marketing. It might be the proposition, the brand, the client base, the route to market, or the structure and capability of the team.
“That might mean moving towards higher-value or more profitable customers, reducing reliance on a small number of accounts, sharpening how the business is positioned, or making sure sales and marketing effort is focused on the opportunities most likely to convert and deliver a good return. Sometimes the answer is to invest more, but just as often it is about stopping activity that is not working, using existing resources better, or putting more discipline around measurement and decision-making.”
MAXIMISING NETWORKS
Demand for fractional leadership has grown as the cost and risk of full-time hires has increased. According to Data Intelo, 61.4% of global SMEs are accessing fractional executives – with the majority looking to networks for higher value solutions.
“Once the numbers are clear, FDs and CFOs show where the next challenge sits, and that’s when we bring in the right Liberti sister company or partner, with the data behind the conversation,” adds Sonia Lee, Regional Director (Scotland East) at The CFO Centre. “Some great examples of CFO Centre clients who have worked with other sisters to drive scale or build the strongest case for investment are M Squared (The Marketing Centre and People Puzzles) and Full Proxy (The Marketing Centre and Kiss The Fish), which was acquired by Viatel Technology Group in July this year.”
Commenting on his decision to build a fractional ‘board’ for finance, marketing and sales, Ewan Ferguson, CEO of FullProxy, says: “The fractional solution gives us access to top level skills from enterprise-level executives and brings them into the SME space, and we’ve hugely benefited, from an increase in revenues and a higher profile to winning awards. Being able to source different leaders with the same high standards from one network has been transformational.”
“This is what the Liberti ecosystem looks like in practice,” says Marie Rodgers, “one trusted route in, then joined-up support across finance, marketing, people and sales as the owner’s needs develop.”
This point is echoed by Hari Farzin, who adds: “The same applies to strategic partners, including banks, advisers and insurance specialists, who are often close to businesses at key points of change such as investment, succession, acquisition or rapid growth.”
Liberti Club partners like Amber River and Partners& are helping business owners and leaders to minimise risks and maximise wealth, in the short and long term.
“A big part of our role is helping owners understand what ‘enough’ looks like, for them personally rather than the maximum business value,” explains Steve Rowntree. “We can model what they need to support their lifestyle over the longer term, taking account of tax, inflation, investment risk and any wider family commitments. This helps when looking at offers because a higher headline price with a sizeable earnout or deferred payments might not give someone the same financial certainty as a lower offer with more paid upfront.”
As more business owners tap into ecosystems to find the right fractional leader or business advisor, it’s important to find the right expert rather than looking for generalists.
“As risk advisors, we don’t pretend to be tax advisors or lawyers and the partners we work with shouldn’t try to be insurance people,” says Julie Scott from Partners&. “It’s always better for the client if you respectfully stay in your own lane, but work collaboratively like pieces of jigsaw, to avoid friction.”
Smart business owners and leaders are maximising partner networks to understand the questions they should be asking to create the most business value and personal wealth.