Hybrid: How do you prepare a thriving consulting business for exit?

Andriy Panasenko and Mark Palmer

6.00pm – Doors open and pre-event networking for venue attendees
6.30pm – Event start with welcome and introduction notice
6.40pm – Presentation
7.40pm – Q&A
8.00pm – End of talk and networking for venue attendees only
9.00pm - Event close

Selling a consultancy is notoriously tricky. Unlike selling a software product or hardware, you are selling a pipeline of trust, reputation, and human expertise. For the technical founder, the biggest hurdle is often decoupling the business’s value from their own personal technical brilliance.
This event brings together two perspectives to help bridge the gap between technical delivery and exit-readiness. Mark Palmer offers the lived experience of scaling a boutique consultancy from $2m to $45m and navigating a major trade sale. Andriy Panasenko provides the structural expertise of a Private Equity veteran who understands the specific "operating rhythms" and "value creation levers" that professional investors look for when acquiring a firm.
How do you prepare a thriving consulting business for exit? Key topics to be covered:

• Growing through to a successful exit.
• Valuations and corporate advisors
• Preparation Timeline
• Types of buyers and their motivations (Financial buyer vs. Trade buyer)
• Closing the deal (factors impacting value - concentration, founder-led, automation, repeat business, cashflow, etc.)
• Earn-out

Andriy Panasenko, Founder & MD, Renaissance Advisory Services.

Leveraging a 25-year track record in consulting and private equity to help PE funds prepare portfolio companies for high-value exits. Andriy provides battle-tested frameworks that drive operational rhythm and commercial excellence, helping management teams translate ambition into multimillion-pound outcomes.

Andriy is the Founder and MD of Renaissance Advisory Services, a specialist boutique consultancy dedicated to value creation and exit maximisation for mid-market portfolio companies across the UK, Europe, and the Middle East. Headquartered in London and with a satellite presence in the UAE, the firm transforms strategic potential into measurable financial reality by driving 12–20% profit margin growth, unlocking cash flow, and engineering up to a 200% MOIC uplift in preparation for exit.

https://www.renaissance-advisory.london/

Mark Palmer, Focussed on boutique consultancies & their growth journey

Mark Palmer spent the first nine years of his career with Valeo, the French multinational automotive group, working across France, the UK, and the USA. His roles spanned manufacturing sites in Texas, Le Mans, and Birmingham, culminating in his appointment as Management Development Director based in Paris.

In 2001, Mark joined boutique management consulting start-up OEE, becoming Managing Director a few years later. Working with his leadership team, he grew the business from $2m to $45m in revenue. In 2018, he led a successful trade sale to Webhelp, subsequently overseeing the integration, rebranding, and international expansion of the consulting business across France, Germany, and the APAC region. He exited the business at the end of 2023.

Mark represented the SME consulting community on the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) Board for six years, contributing to the development and voice of the sector.

Since leaving full-time executive roles, Mark now supports boutique consulting firms on their growth journeys, providing practical, experience-led advice on strategy, leadership, and business development.

He is Chair of the Dean’s Advisory Board for the School of Business at the University of Leicester, delivers guest lectures at Warwick Business School, and co-hosts bi-annual masterclasses in London with Professor Joe O’Mahoney (Cardiff Business School), sharing best-practice approaches to business development in professional services.

Andriy Panasenko

Mark Palmer

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This event is brought to you by: BCS Consultancy specialist group

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Image credit: photo by Dongki Koh on Unsplash

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, Ground Floor, London, United Kingdom

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