Operator-Led Investment Platform
Italy has 700,000 family businesses facing generational transition in the next five years. Most will sell at depressed multiples or disappear. We enter before the crisis — as operators, board members, and long-term partners. Not passive shareholders. Not financial engineers.
Learn More →What We Do
We invest in established Italian SMEs where our governance expertise, strategic insight, and operational support can drive sustainable transformation while honoring the legacy that made these companies exceptional.
Board seats with real decision rights. We attend management meetings, sit on audit committees, and drive transformation from inside the org chart — not from a slide deck.
Two decades of digital transformation at Microsoft, Deloitte, and Accenture — now applied inside the companies we own. AI, data governance, and operational systems as competitive moats.
We earn governance rights through contribution, not just capital. Before we write a check, we prove our value. This is why founders trust us with their life's work.
The same operating method is available to companies we do not own: value creation and transaction advisory, from diagnostic to executive mandate. Advisory →
“In a closed system, entropy grows. The ‘buy and flip’ model cools companies down instead of energising them. We enter as operators, not extractors — we inject governance, innovation, and patient capital. This is industrial mechanics, not philosophy.”
Chairman & Co-Founder
The Askéon Model
Three phases. Each one earns the right to the next.
Days 1–90
Before we commit capital, we commit time. We enter the company as an operator — attending management meetings, reading the real numbers, mapping the org chart against the org chart on paper.
We start from the P&L, not the org chart: profitability by business line and by order, a comparative assessment of revenues and costs, working capital and cash generation. Only then the operational and commercial review. Strategy comes last, grounded in numbers.
We assess cash, margin structure, team capability, customer concentration, and governance gaps. We identify the 3–5 levers that actually move the business. At day 90 we present a clear value creation plan to the board. If we cannot build conviction in 90 days, we walk away. If we can, we structure the deal around what we found.
Year 1–2
We take a board seat with real decision rights — and an operating role with real accountability. We do not send a representative to quarterly board meetings. We sit in the weekly commercial review. We sign off on capex above threshold. We hire and fire. We restructure the cost base if needed. We build the KPI system that tracks whether the plan is working. The founder remains at the table. Their knowledge of the business is irreplaceable. Our job is to complement it — with governance discipline, external networks, and the willingness to make decisions that are structurally difficult to make from inside.
Year 2–5
Once the operational foundation is solid, we build. New markets, new pricing architecture, digital infrastructure where none existed. We have built AI tools, data platforms, and enterprise software at scale — we bring that capability inside the companies we own, not as a consultant but as a co-owner. In parallel, we professionalise governance: independent board members, audit committee, reporting standards that make the company legible to a future acquirer or institutional investor. We do not plan for a 3-year exit. We plan for a business that could exit on its own terms, at any time, at full value.
Value Creation & Transaction Advisory
Enterprise value is EBITDA times a multiple. Most consultants work on the first term through efficiency programmes. Most M&A advisors touch the second only at transaction time, when it is too late to change it. We work on both terms — before, during and after the deal. On EBITDA: cost architecture, profitability by business line and by order, working capital, pricing. On the multiple: recurring revenue mix, corporate restructuring, governance an investor can read, reduced dependence on the founder. A multiple is not a market given. It is a judgement on risk — and risk can be engineered.
Operational improvement accounts for 47% of value creation in PE deals since 2010, up from 18% in the 1980s — with the operating partner role gaining prominence across funds (PwC, Creating Value Beyond the Deal). In AIFI’s analysis of Italian PE, roughly 86% of value derives from operational growth, not from leverage or multiple arbitrage (AIFI, Value Creation in Private Equity). The market has settled where value is created. What is missing in Italy is who does this work outside large-cap portfolios: in SMEs, where operational value creation does not happen because no one steps inside.
01
Fixed fee, 30–90 days. We read the balance sheet the way an operator does: rebuilt EBITDA, corrected net financial position, profitability by line and by order, sector benchmarks — and the 3–5 levers that actually move value, each quantified in euros of EBITDA or points of multiple. The deliverable is not a report. It is a value creation plan with numbers, timelines and ownership. The diagnostic is industrialised by proprietary technology we built on Italian SME financials.
02
Twelve to twenty-four months before a sale, we build the company the buyer will pay more for: normalised EBITDA, recurring contracts, reduced customer concentration, due-diligence-grade governance, corporate restructuring — holding structures, transformation into S.p.A. After an acquisition, the first hundred days, where declared synergies usually die: integration, cost base, unified operating model. And the single most powerful re-rating that exists, with or without a transaction: from bespoke project work to repeatable revenue.
03
We source the capital and design the operation: reserved capital increases, minority stakes, debt, club deals — and the corporate structure that holds them.
One firewall, stated openly: when we structure capital for an advisory client, Askeon is not a buyer. That is what makes the advice worth taking. The same line holds across the practice: advisory clients are not acquisition targets. If we believe a company belongs in our portfolio rather than on our client list, we say so in the first call — before any engagement.
Three engagement formats — advisory · board presence · full executive mandate
Discuss an engagement →Our Values
Our incentive is aligned with your horizon — not with our next fund closing. We do not manage to 3-year exit cycles. We stay until the company is genuinely stronger, or until the next chapter is clearly set.
Before we commit capital, we commit reputation. Our reputational risk precedes our financial risk. If we are not creating value, we see it before you do — and we act on it.
We invest only where we have operated directly. No sectors we do not know from the inside. Our selection discipline is the first act of respect toward every founder we meet.
No opaque screening process. No pre-emptive NDAs. If we are not the right partner for your company, we tell you in the first call — and we tell you why.
The Italian Opportunity
Yet many face a critical inflection point: founders approaching retirement without clear succession, underleveraged balance sheets limiting growth, and governance structures unsuited for the next chapter. They seek partners who understand their legacy—not just their balance sheet.
Leadership
Chairman & Co-Founder
Microsoft · Deloitte · Accenture · Bocconi · TEDx · HBR Advisory Council
20 years as an operator inside Microsoft, Accenture, Deloitte, and Octo Telematics — turning around businesses, scaling digital platforms to 150K+ users, and leading Microsoft's advisory transformation business at Western Europe, EMEA and Worldwide level, with 300+ senior professionals across regions. Now doing it as an owner.
Managing Partner
M&A · Corporate Finance · International Markets
M&A and corporate finance specialist with deep experience in cross-border transactions and strategic deal structuring for mid-market Italian and European companies.
Chief Financial Officer
CFO · Structured Finance · Portfolio Management
CFO and structured finance expert with a track record in capital markets, debt restructuring, and portfolio management across Italian and international markets.
Business Development Partner – Pulse
Management Consulting · Strategic Partnerships · International Markets
Senior business developer and transformation executive with extensive experience in management consulting, strategic partnerships, and complex account management across international markets — with a consistent focus on long-term value creation for mid-market companies.
We respond to all enquiries within 48 hours.