Chris Burke has spent 25 years in London building businesses with his own money, not advising from the sidelines. He started Brickendon, a global consulting firm that ran mission-critical programs for banks like JP Morgan, Citi and UBS, then founded HybridHero in 2018. Today he runs Aduvo, helping founder-led businesses between 5 million and 50 million in turnover fix their structure so they can grow, keep the profit and eventually exit.
On this episode of M&A Launchpad with Ben, Feras and Casey, Chris makes a blunt case: there are no bad businesses or bad markets. What breaks is the systems, the structure and the people architecture that never kept pace with growth. The founder who got the company to 5 million is usually the one blocking the road to 20, and cannot see it because they are stuck in the weeds.
He walks through the hard parts. Rethinking who owns what at every stage. Hiring A-players without throwing them into chaos. The org-chart exercise that forces you to plan the next level. And the UK exit that let him hand Brickendon to its own staff with no capital gains tax on the table.
Why does Chris say the founder becomes the bottleneck?
As a business grows, the founder stays in the weeds and keeps owning every decision. The habits and structure that worked at 5 million stop working, and because the founder is inside it, they cannot see the ceiling they are creating. Each stage needs a fresh look at structure, bottlenecks and who owns what.
How should a founder approach hiring during a growth phase?
Take your time, because a wrong hire sets you backwards without you noticing at the time. Aim for A-players, since A's want to work with A's and that keeps the culture strong. But you need enough structure in place first, as a specialist thrown into chaos will struggle just as a generalist thrown into a narrow role would.
What is the org-chart exercise?
You draw an org chart for a much larger company, say 100 people, and put your own name in every single box. Then you split the roles out, for example breaking finance into accounts receivable, accounts payable and overall, decide which jobs you dislike, and hire for those. It forces you to think at the next level. In practice it took Chris a 12-hour effort across several days.
What is an Employee Ownership Trust and why does it matter for exits?
It is a UK structure that lets a founder sell the business to its own staff with no capital gains tax, a strong incentive against the 20 percent plus rate you would face selling to private equity. The trust holds the company on behalf of all staff, with allocation based on seniority and length of service rather than performance. Chris sold Brickendon to its management team and describes this as a gentler exit than a large acquirer sitting on your shoulders for years.
What was the $13 million deal Chris describes as his most memorable moment?
It was a roughly 13 million dollar deal that tripled the consulting company's revenue. It came after six years of cash-flow scares, since big banks and governments are among the slowest payers. Landing it changed the shape of the business.