Tier 03 · Operating Partner · By application

When the decision belongs to a board, partners, or family.

Principal-to-principal work for boards, ownership groups, founding teams, and leadership teams navigating M&A, succession, restructure, capital event, exit preparation, cross-border move, or ownership transition. Two to six months, scoped to the transition. The longer read of the engagement is at /operating-partner.

What the application does Stan reviews the situation, the parties, and the timing. Within forty-eight hours: a fit assessment and either a quote or a redirect to a better-fit surface. No payment is taken at this stage. The shape of the engagement decides the fee, not the other way around.

Want to see what the work has produced? Five outcomes from operators, in their own words →

Where Tier 03 fits

Three operators. Same shape of month.

The ownership group at the transition.

M&A, succession, restructure, exit prep. The terms outpace anyone on the cap table. The decision belongs to more than one of you.

The board carrying a split call.

Direction, control, or veto rights are in dispute. The board cannot align without a structural read of who decides what.

The founders at the split point.

A cofounder dispute, a generational handoff, an ownership restructure. The decision belongs to people who cannot read it from inside the relationship.

The pattern is not that the principals cannot decide. The pattern is that the contradiction between them has not been named in writing yet.

Tier 03 is the multi-party engagement. Principal interviews one at a time. Decision-rights mapped. Contradiction read back to each principal in writing. A live session where the call closes. A transition memo at close.

What it costs to keep them open

Transitions stay open longer than you think.

The wrong control structure costs years of compounded friction and the multiple at sale.

The wrong succession path costs a generation of family or operator alignment.

The family business priced at eight million when it should have been twelve is the rest of your life.

Tier 03 quotes are scoped to the transition. The shape of the engagement decides the fee.

Stan Tscherenkow

Private business advisory.

Every application lands with Stan directly. Reply within 48 hours.

How engagements start

01
You apply A short application. Stan reads every one personally.
02
Direct reply within 48 hours Yes with a time. No with a reason. Or a redirect.
03
First conversation Sixty to ninety minutes. Tier confirmed or reassigned. Scope and fee in writing.
04
Secure payment A direct link. Paid before the work starts.
05
The work begins Engagement begins: scoped to the transition, principal-to-principal, transition memo at close.

The quote request.

Tier 03 is principal-to-principal work for an ownership group, a board, a founding team, or a leadership team navigating a transition you cannot run from the inside. The decision belongs to more than one person. The conversation belongs to all of you. Stan reviews the situation, the parties, and the timing before any quote lands. The shape of the engagement decides the fee, not the other way around. The questions below are how Stan reads the principals before they read themselves.

Five fields. Most applications take eight to ten minutes. Stan reads every one personally.

Name and role

Email and phone

Phone is required at Tier 03 for the call.

The transition

The decision sitting on all of you right now

Concrete is more useful than polished. Confidentiality is structural.

Timeline

If acute, write that in the field above. Stan reads acute applications the same day.

Personal reply within forty-eight hours with a fit assessment and either a quote or a redirect. No payment is taken at this stage. Engagement begins after a signed engagement letter and confirmed payment. Refund and termination terms are set in the engagement letter; baseline policy in the terms.

When the decision belongs to a board, partners, or family.

Three operators. Same shape of month.

Transitions stay open longer than you think.

The quote request.

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