Who We Help

WITH CLARITY OF VISION

  • Succesful senior executives and strategists navigate strategic competition.
  • Effective managers balance competing priorities to optimize portfolios and projects.
  • Driven founders and entrepreneurs ruthlessly triage uncertainty and validate options.
  • Wise investors recognise opportunities in fragmented, frontier and exhausted markets.
  • Established professionals and independents hold their own without institutional backing.
  • Award-winning creatives balance inspiration and intuition to breathe life into innovation.

SENIOR EXECUTIVES & STRATEGISTS

Senior leaders want sophisticated analysis they can trust to guide them through strategic competition, destabilizing frictions, potential threats to business performance, and emerging opportunities.

  • Market Intelligence & Competitive Analysis - Deep-dive research into industry trends, competitor strategies, and market positioning opportunities

  • Risk Assessment & Scenario Planning - Comprehensive threat analysis and strategic contingency planning based on multiple data sources

  • Strategic Due Diligence - Thorough investigation and validation of potential partnerships, acquisitions, and market entry opportunities

  • Executive Briefings & Decision Support - Distilled intelligence reports tailored for board presentations and high-stakes strategic decisions

PORTFOLIO & PROJECT MANAGERS

Effective managers rely on detailed field, operational and supply chain data to design and plan projects, make informed decisions about resource allocation, anticipate delivery challenges, and maintain stakeholder confidence.

  • Feasibility Studies & Requirements Analysis - Comprehensive research to validate project assumptions and define success criteria

  • Stakeholder Mapping & Analysis - Detailed intelligence on key players, decision-makers, and influence networks affecting project outcomes

  • Technology Assessment & Vendor Evaluation - Objective analysis of solutions, capabilities, and implementation risks

  • Progress Tracking & Performance Analytics - Data-driven insights for portfolio optimization and resource allocation decisions

PATRONS, FOUNDERS & ENTREPRENEURS

Founders and entrepreneurs demand reliable information to validate business concepts, identify target markets, and make critical decisions about products, processes and market entry strategies.

  • Market Opportunity Assessment - Comprehensive analysis of target markets, customer segments, and revenue potential

  • Customer Discovery & Validation - Systematic research into user needs, preferences, and willingness to pay for proposed solutions

  • Competitive Landscape Analysis - Detailed intelligence on competitors, market positioning, and differentiation opportunities

  • Investment Readiness Research - Due diligence preparation and validation of business assumptions for funding discussions

INSTITUTIONAL & PRIVATE INVESTORS

Investors count on independent review and specialist insight to minimize financial risks, safeguard stakeholder interests, screen management claims and company performance, identify hidden agendas and liabilities, and identify value creation opportunities.

  • Investment Due Diligence - Thorough investigation of target companies, management teams, and market positions

  • Sector Analysis & Trend Research - Deep-dive analysis of industry dynamics, regulatory changes, and emerging market opportunities

  • ESG & Sustainability Assessment - Comprehensive evaluation of environmental, social, and governance factors affecting long-term value

  • Portfolio Risk Analysis - Independent research on portfolio companies and market conditions affecting investment performance

SOLO PROFESSIONALS & PRACTITIONERS

For independent operators, cost-effective access to high-quality information and analysis, without requiring significant infrastructure investment or full-time research staff, is a vital differentiator.

  • Client Research & Preparation - Background analysis and intelligence gathering to support client engagement and proposal development

  • Industry Knowledge & Trends - Ongoing research support to maintain expertise and thought leadership in specialized domains

  • Competitive Intelligence - Market analysis and competitor research to identify positioning opportunities and service gaps

  • Proposal Support & Validation - Research and analysis to strengthen client proposals and validate recommended strategies

CREATIVES, DESIGNERS & DEVELOPERS

Creative professionals need access to rich streams of curated information and effective soundboarding to fuel inspiration, validate creative decisions, support design concepts, and ensure projects meet aesthetic and functional requirements.

  • User Research & Audience Analysis - Comprehensive investigation of target audiences, user behaviors, and design preferences

  • Cultural Context & Trend Analysis - Deep research into cultural movements, aesthetic trends, and emerging design paradigms

  • Technology Assessment & Platform Research - Analysis of development platforms, tools, and technical constraints affecting creative implementation

  • Brand Intelligence & Positioning Research - Strategic analysis of brand context, competitor approaches, and differentiation opportunities

THE COMMON THREAD

In The History of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenian general and historian Thucydides famously recounts Pericles' funeral oration, alluding in his own way to the links between insight and action:

"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it."

Evidence on the importance of informed judgment developed in everything from You.Gov polls to Gartner and McKinsey studies and the latest reports on AI project failures, is unequivocal:

  • Business success is intimately linked to well-informed judgment and foresight.

  • Intelligence-led and evidence-based ventures are more likely to succeed.

  • Decisions made in the dark are almost guaranteed to waste time and money.

Testimonials

  • "Mike's ability to bridge the worlds of academic research, intelligence analysis, and legal operations made him an invaluable strategic advisor. He brings to the table a combination of hands-on experience, intellectual rigour, and astute operational judgment. An exceptional consultant."

    — Executive Director, Private Foundation —

  • "For any office dealing with public assets, international regulation, and strategic exposure, managing geopolitical risk and operational resilience is high stakes business. We brought Mike in to help us think through the problem. He reviewed our plans and made recommendations that helped us avoid expensive mistakes and identified cost-effective options. I can’t recommend him and his team highly enough."

    — General Counsel, Global Top 10 Sovereign Wealth Fund —

  • "What impressed me most was Mike's understanding that good intelligence isn't just about gathering information - it's about delivering practical insights that drive results. The strategic intelligence he provided directly contributed to our winning new business."

    — Group Managing Director / former UK Special Forces —

  • "I don't know anyone outside of engineering and developer circles who researches AI as much as these guys do. Everyone in my entourage uses AI as a user. Mike takes it up a notch, as an inspector, for quality assurance, as a researcher, psychologist, and anthropologist. Next level."

    — Managing Director, Digital Transformation Firm —

  • Engagement Priorities

    We prioritise enquiries from organisations, offices, and individuals - and start-ups, scale-ups, and enterprises - interested in our services, sponsoring our research, or discussing framework or consortium support.

    How To Get in Touch
    Contact options for new client engagement, commissioning our work, or requesting technical assistance are displayed prominently throughout the website. You can also schedule a call here.

    Client Onboarding
    Read more on this page to find out what to expect, starting with our free, no-commitment approach to initial discovery calls, our service model and pricing options, project execution, and continuity assurance.

    Establishing Contact
    Use our booking form. For business development, email Dan Davies at dan@craigheadkellas.com, or call +44 (0)207 100 9280 (UK) / +971 (0)4 439 6305 (UAE).

  • Corporate Paperwork

    Service Delivery

    We operate through retainer agreements - recurring service bundles scaled for light to heavy usage, for as long as they’re needed.

    For non-recurring, complex requirements of defined scope and duration, we organise on a project-basis and work to predictable, fixed fee budgets.

    We offer productise services for clients who require specific documented outputs but not retained services or more complex project engagements.

  • Fees & Pricing

    Our services are priced transparently and competitively, and we organize the work we do for you for maximum cost-effectiveness and predictability.

    We apply a combination of day rates and fixed fees, and work to predictable budgets. For ad hoc work, occasional advisory, or unpredictable tasks of shorter duration we apply hourly charges.

    Additional premiums apply for assignments of elevated urgency, sensitivity, difficulty or complexity.