Principal
Graham Corrigan
The practice was formed in April 2007, after twenty years running businesses rather than advising on them.
The practice
Before the practice there were twenty years in telecoms, construction, property and retail, in operating roles rather than advisory ones. In 1999 he led the team that launched broadband for Cable & Wireless. That matters here for one reason: owners are quicker to take an unwelcome answer from someone who has had to carry the consequences of one.
The practice was built around a simple observation: the person running a good small business has nobody sensible to talk to. Accountants report on the past. Solicitors handle events. Family have an interest. Staff cannot be told everything. Most owners make their largest decisions alone, and it shows in the results.
What the practice provides is a second person in the room who has seen it before, has no stake in the outcome beyond doing the work well, and is prepared to say the unwelcome thing early.
It has stayed independent on purpose. There is no group behind it, no product to sell and no partner needing a number by March. When something falls outside what we do — a corporate finance mandate, tax structuring, employment law — you are introduced to someone good and we stay out of the way.
The practice works within roughly two hours of BD20: Craven, Airedale and Wharfedale, Leeds, Bradford, Harrogate and York, Manchester and the North West, Lancashire, Sheffield and South Yorkshire, Teesside and County Durham.
The people
You deal with Graham. That is not the same as Graham being the whole practice.
Nobody is put in front of you instead of him, and you will not be handed to an associate once the work starts. But a practice that consists entirely of one man is a practice that stops when he does, and that is a problem worth solving before it arrives.
Karen
Practice manager
Twenty years. She holds the diary, runs the events and makes the call after you register. Most clients speak to Karen more often than they expect to.
Jack Corrigan
Solicitor
A degree in economics from Lancaster and two further degrees in law. He joined the practice in 2024 to learn how the work is done, from the inside and slowly. He does not advise clients and no client has been transferred to him. In time he will take the practice on.
Fit
The kind of business this suits
- Owner-managed, usually second generation or founder-run
- Turnover between roughly £200,000 and £15m
- Manufacturing, engineering, distribution, construction, specialist services
- Profitable already, or profitable but stuck
- An owner who wants to be told the truth rather than reassured