Case Studies
Background
Lee Thompson, Managing Director of global, tech-enabled e-commerce fulfilment business, fulfilmentcrowd, was introduced to Rowan by Barclays Bank. Having achieved £10m turnover in 2020, the company had targeted PE investment to deliver growth ambitions of £15m, and was looking to facilitate the desired exit of their original founder.
With a value creation plan in the early development stages, Lee Thompson and Lee Gregson, son of original founders David & Sylvia Gregson, were looking to appoint a senior leadership team that would bring the required situational and functional expertise to support the desired growth ambitions.
Journey
Working with the key senior stakeholders Rowan identified the required leadership structure to deliver the value creation plans. Starting with the requirement for a Non Exec Director, Rowan appointed Mike McGrath, who played a pivotal role in further defining the growth strategy.
Subsequently Rowan designed the senior leadership team comprising of a strategic CFO who would bring situational PE experience, and a COO with commercial and internationalisation experience.
Impact
Having supported in defining the clear route to achieving optimal structure and primary investment, and subsequently appointing Mike McGrath as Non Exec Director, Rowan appointed CFO Peter Hosker to drive strategy and provide PE rigour. Additionally Paul Taylor was appointed to the role of COO to drive operational efficiencies and deliver the internationalisation plans. This has led to a global warehousing footprint of 1.57 million square feet, and includes a US centre in New Jersey.
fulfilmentcrowd went on to receive £7.5m investment from PE house BGF which enabled the original founder to exit the business as desired.
Following their successful international expansion, fulfilmentcrowd where featured on The Retail Tech ‘high growth’ list in 2022 and have achieved year on year growth, despite challenging economic conditions.
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