Build A Business You Can Be Proud Of.
A Peer board and one-to-one coaching for established business owners in Harrogate, Leeds, York and the surrounding area.
Straywise is a small, deliberately selective practice for established business owners.
The kind of work most owners need is straightforward in principle. Honest thinking. Someone who's been in your chair. A room or a conversation where you can put the real questions on the table, and get back the thinking you can't find anywhere else.
What it isn't is a network, a franchise, or a programme. It's a peer board and ongoing coaching, run by one person, anchored in Harrogate. I work with a small number of owners at a time, and the work serves your business and your life in equal measure.
Two Ways To Work Together
The Stray Board
A peer board for six established owners, meeting once a month in Harrogate. You bring the question you've been carrying. The other five ask the things you wouldn't ask yourself. Between Board meetings, you and I work one-to-one to keep the work moving in your own business. Every owner is heard every month, and every owner leaves with something to do before the next meeting. The Board belongs to its members, the room is confidential, and chemistry matters.
Coaching
Monthly one-to-one work for owners who want a senior advisor in their corner. Someone who's run businesses, sat in most of the chairs you've sat in, and brings that experience to bear on what's actually on your mind. Working sessions every month, a shorter catch-up between, and contact in between when you need it. In person if you're close to Harrogate, on Zoom if you're not. For owners who want the work but not the group, or who need depth on something specific over time.
Straywise is named after The Stray, the common land at the heart of Harrogate.
It also means what it sounds like. Most of us, years into running something, have strayed from what we set out to build. Straywise is about finding your bearings again.
I'm Andrew Jackson. Twenty years in business, from a mailroom to chief executive of a £300m global company. The last ten chairing peer boards and coaching owners of established businesses, mostly in Yorkshire. I do this work because these are the conversations I wish I'd had earlier in my own career.
The practice is small by design. I work with a handful of owners at a time, in person where I can, on Zoom when it makes sense. I'm not building a network and I'm not expanding beyond Yorkshire. The point of Straywise is to do this work well, with the right people, for as long as it serves the people involved.
"With Andrew's coaching, my business grew 130% and my personal wealth more than doubled. He chaired the peer board I was on before that, and his style is probing yet supportive, helping me grow as a leader through choppy waters and ultimately to a sale of the business I'd built."
David Whan, Owner, It’s Clean
“When I first met Andrew on his peer board, I was a new MD running a single business. Years later, with him coaching me one-to-one, I'm CEO of a group spanning facilities services, technology solutions and our original operation. The business changed beyond recognition over that time, and my role with it. Andrew's wisdom, honesty and willingness to push me to find the answers played a huge part in getting here."
Mara Alves, Founder & CEO, Nova Services
Rather Just Have A Conversation?
Skip the reading and have a conversation directly if you'd rather. No script, no pitch.
Not Sure If You’re Ready To Talk?
Take the Business Freedom Scorecard. Twenty-one short questions across five areas of your business, ten minutes to complete, an honest read on where you actually sit. It's free, and it'll tell you more about what you're carrying than you might expect.Take the scorecard here.
