Organisational Change & Capability Scaling

Constraint

Under a global corporate transaction, FIMAL's European parent was acquired by BNP Paribas. With $4.3B in local assets under management across individually managed accounts, the APAC restructure carried extremely complex and sensitive strategic and operational stakes, and two earlier attempts to lead the integration had already failed before Stuart was called in.

Intervention

Brought in as the fixer after two prior attempts had stalled, Stuart took over the restructure and led the APAC region integration program end-to-end through the M&A, resolving leadership and operating-structure issues across the newly combined organisation on multiple fronts simultaneously, not the single workstream that had failed twice before.

Constraint

Rapid hiring had roughly doubled headcount inside eighteen months, and the culture hadn't kept pace, what got rewarded in practice (speed, individual heroics) quietly contradicted what leadership said mattered (collaboration, sustainable pace). Regretted attrition was climbing fastest in the teams the business could least afford to lose, and exit conversations kept naming the same gap: what was said and what was actually lived didn't match.

Intervention

Activated a cultural reinforcement system rather than another values poster, translated the stated values into specific, observable behaviours, built them directly into how every manager ran recognition and performance conversations, and made the gap between what the organisation said it valued and what it actually rewarded visible and correctable in real time.

Constraint

Rapid growth had built a culture that looked high-performing on paper but was quietly toxic in practice, attrition in critical teams was climbing toward a quarter of the team each year, and burnout was becoming normal.

Intervention

Activated a cultural reinforcement system, redefining what actually got rewarded and recognised, applied consistently by every manager, so the stated values and the lived experience matched again.

Constraint

Change kept living in the PMO instead of the business, this wasn't the first attempt: new processes and systems had already been rolled out more than once without sticking, adoption stalling below 60% each time, with every relaunch meaning the same work redone from scratch.

Intervention

Rather than run a fourth identical rollout, installed a common leadership language and toolset owned by the leaders themselves, not the program office, fixing the ownership problem, the process problem, and the habit problem together.

Constraint

Headcount had doubled in 18 months but the leadership bench hadn't kept pace, every promotion was a gamble, strong individual performers were promoted into management with no real preparation, and the founder was the ceiling on every decision.

Intervention

Installed embedded development pathways with a defined capability standard at every level, coaching new and existing managers through the real moments of leading rather than handing them theory.

Constraint

Leaders had already been through a development program that left real insight, but it hadn't survived contact with the day job. Six months on, most had quietly reverted to old habits, and the program itself was being written off as another one that didn't work.

Intervention

Stepped in once the original program was written off, and built a sustainment system around it instead of running more training, reinforcing new habits, team rhythm, and manager follow-through together, through the moments that actually mattered.