In 2018, two people with overlapping frustrations decided to do something about it. Fiona Caldwell had spent twelve years as a finance director in Scottish manufacturing and kept hiring consultants who understood spreadsheets but not shop floors. David Osei had run operations for a mid-size logistics company and watched three separate strategy projects fail because nobody stuck around to help the staff adjust.
They met at a supply-chain conference in Glasgow, spent an evening comparing war stories and agreed on one thing: consulting should be measured by what changes after the consultants leave, not by the weight of the final report.
So they set up Protrust Business with a simple rule. Every engagement has a defined outcome that the client agrees is worth paying for. If we cannot define that outcome in the first two meetings, we tell the client to save their money. That honesty has cost us a handful of projects over the years, but it has also meant that our repeat-engagement rate sits at roughly 70 per cent.
Today the team has grown to nine people. We still work mostly with companies that have between 10 and 250 employees, because that is the size where a small, focused intervention can make a disproportionate difference. A 300-person firm with a broken inventory process can lose tens of thousands of pounds a year without anyone noticing until cash gets tight. We notice.
These are not slogans on a wall. They are the criteria we use when deciding whether to take on a project, how to staff it and when to push back on a client.
We do not bill for meetings, slide decks or status calls. We bill for reaching the agreed outcome. If a project needs 40 hours instead of the estimated 60, the client pays for 40. That keeps us focused on finishing, not on looking busy.
Every recommendation we make has to survive contact with the people who will carry it out. That is why we spend time on the warehouse floor, in the accounts office and at the dispatch desk before we write anything down. If the staff helped shape the solution, they will use it after we leave.
We are good at operations, finance and growth strategy for small and mid-size businesses. We are not brand designers, software developers or HR lawyers. When a client needs something outside our skill set, we say so and refer them to someone who can actually help.
Before any work begins, we provide a fixed-fee quote or a capped day rate with a written scope. No surprise invoices. If the scope changes mid-project, we discuss the cost implication before proceeding, not after.
Nine consultants, each with at least eight years of hands-on experience in the sectors we serve.
Co-founder, financial consulting
Twelve years as a finance director in Scottish manufacturing before starting Protrust. Fiona leads our cash-flow modelling and budgeting engagements. She holds an ACCA qualification and an MBA from the University of Strathclyde.
Co-founder, operations consulting
David ran operations for a 120-vehicle logistics company before co-founding Protrust. He specialises in process mapping, warehouse layout and dispatch optimisation. His projects have reduced order-fulfilment times by an average of 22 per cent across seven clients.
Senior consultant, growth strategy
Priya joined in 2020 after five years at a Big Four firm, where she focused on market-entry analysis for mid-cap clients. At Protrust she leads our growth strategy engagements, from competitor research through to 90-day execution plans.
The rest of our team includes two junior consultants, a data analyst, a project coordinator and a part-time office manager. Everyone works from our base in Scotland, though we travel to client sites across the UK as needed.
We started tracking these figures in 2019 and update them every quarter.
Completed consulting engagements since 2018, ranging from two-week process audits to six-month transformation programmes.
Repeat-engagement rate. Seven out of ten clients come back for a second or third project within 18 months of the first.
Estimated annual savings identified for clients through process improvements, renegotiated supplier contracts and reduced waste.
These figures are based on data reported by our clients. Individual results vary depending on sector, company size and the specific issues addressed. We do not guarantee any particular financial outcome.
The first conversation is free and takes about 30 minutes. We will ask you what is going wrong, what you have already tried and what a good outcome looks like. If we can help, we will tell you how and what it costs. If we cannot, we will say so.
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