FURL MESHCORE
STRUCTURED THINKING. MEASURABLE RESULTS.
WE TAKE ON FEWER CLIENTS SO WE CAN ACTUALLY FINISH THE WORK.
Furl Mesh Core is an independent management consultancy working with organisations that need structured analysis and a clear path forward, not another slide deck.
Most consulting engagements go wrong at the scoping stage, not the delivery stage. The scope document is signed quickly, often under time pressure, and the assumptions embedded in it are not examined until they become problems. This article covers the questions worth asking before any contract is agreed.
Read more →An operational review is one of the most commonly commissioned consulting engagements and one of the most variably executed. The term covers everything from a two-day workshop to a ten-week structured audit. This article describes what a rigorous operational review actually involves and what it should produce.
Read more →A facilitated board away-day is an expensive day. The room, the travel, the time of the people in it. The preparation that precedes it determines whether that investment produces decisions or produces a list of action points that nobody acts on. Most away-days underdeliver because the preparation is treated as logistics rather than as analytical work.
Read more →"Callum spent three weeks reading everything we had before he said anything. By the time he made his first recommendation, we trusted it completely. The report has been used in every senior meeting since."
"We had been through two previous consultancies who told us what we wanted to hear. Callum told us what we needed to hear. It was uncomfortable for about a fortnight and then it was exactly right."
"The board facilitation was the most productive day we have had in four years. The session design was tight, the written record was accurate, and we left with actual decisions rather than action points."
Selected client feedback. Individual experiences vary and may not be representative.
All fees are fixed and agreed in writing before work begins. The figures below are starting points. The final fee depends on the scope agreed after the initial diagnostic conversation. We do not bill by the hour.
A structured audit of how your organisation functions in practice. We interview stakeholders at every level, map the distance between stated process and real behaviour, and produce a ranked set of recommendations with implementation sequencing. Typically six to ten weeks.
For leadership teams facing a significant directional decision. We build the evidence base, stress-test the options against your actual constraints, and facilitate the decision process. Typically eight to fourteen weeks.
Designing the governance, milestones, and communication architecture of a change programme before it launches. Includes explicit design of the conditions under which the programme should be paused or stopped. Typically four to six weeks.
"Callum Ashworth spent eleven years inside large professional services firms before deciding the model was broken. He led restructuring programmes at two FTSE-listed logistics companies, ran a regional operations review for a mid-market manufacturer in the East Midlands, and watched too many good organisations pay for reports that sat unread on a shelf. In 2018 he left to build something leaner. Furl Mesh Core is the result: a consultancy that takes on a small number of engagements at a time and stays until the work is actually done. He reads widely in systems theory and is a committed fell walker."
The honest answer is that readiness is something we assess together in the first conversation. The clearest signal is whether senior leadership is willing to hear findings that contradict their current view. If the answer is yes, we can usually work together. If the answer is uncertain, that uncertainty is itself worth discussing before any contract is signed.
An Operational Review runs six to ten weeks. A Strategy Development engagement is typically eight to fourteen weeks depending on the number of options being evaluated. Change Programme Design is usually four to six weeks. We will give you a specific timeline estimate after the initial diagnostic conversation, not before.
Most of our work has been with UK-based organisations, though we have supported one engagement with a European subsidiary of a UK client. We are open to international work where the engagement structure suits remote and periodic on-site working. This is something to discuss early.