30 years of experience working to establish, grow and exit businesses.
We specialise in the needs of entrepreneurs and family business owners.
About Us
Chris Hancock (Managing Director)
Chris Hancock is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales with 30 years of experience in business development, restructuring and corporate finance.
He has built a career out of his ability to work with challenging people and situations including senior executives and entrepreneurs in countries as diverse as Croatia and Iceland. He is quick to understand businesses and situations but has particular experience and expertise in restructuring and all aspects of M&A and corporate finance in sectors of Media, FMCG, Oil and Gas, Hotels and Investment Funds.
Chris brings to any situation strategic thinking, a can-do mindset, a wealth of transactional and operational experience as well as knowledge of best practices.
He read classics at Oxford University and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen before entering investment banking. He joined JP Morgan in 1999, moving to work exclusively with privately held businesses in 2002. He established his own consultancy practice, Cleaver Consulting Ltd in 2009 and co-founded an FCA regulated corporate finance and investment management boutique in 2012.
Chris is also Chairman of Wine Intelligence, a leading market research consultancy to the global wine industry and Senior NED (Chair of Audit and Remuneration Committees) of Inspecs Plc.
Chris is also a self-supporting priest in the Church of England, keen gardener and sailor.
Kate Hancock (Director)
Kate graduated from the London School of Economics with a degree in Mathematical Sciences in 1992 and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen in 1995 where she worked predominantly in their Media and Hotel and Leisure divisions as both a Senior Auditor and Business Consultant.
Kate co-founded Cleaver Consulting with Chris in 2009. Throughout her career, Kate has provided business, accounting and operational support to a variety of SMEs, most notably supporting the start up and acting as FD and Company Secretary for an Interior design company. Kate has experience of numerous accounting packages including Quickbooks and Xero.
Kate also holds a postgraduate teaching qualification (PGCE) in secondary Mathematics and, until recently, alongside the consultancy business, Kate held the position of Housemistress and Head of Core Curriculum, Sixth Form at Epsom College, Surrey.
Transactional Experience
Our expertise includes Capital Markets, M&A, Restructuring and Business Strategy.
Chris Hancock led the team in conducting the first ever consolidation and audit of INA, the State Oil Company of Croatia in the midst of the Serbo-Croat war.
Chris Hancock worked in the TMT team of JP Morgan in London where he focussed on the origination of Investment Banking services to media companies in Europe. His work resulted in the successful IPO of Polish television company TVN and the formation of business publisher, Springer.
Chris Hancock also manages Corporate Finance and is responsible for fundraising and investor relations for a global premium bottled water company and has raised a total of $140m since inception.
In 2017, Chris was appointed Non-executive Director (Chair of Audit and Remuneration Committees) for Inspecs Group PLC, a leading designer and manufacturer of spectacle frames, after assisting in the financing of acquisition of manufacturing operations in China and Vietnam.
Other notable achievements include:
Led the restructuring of aggregate $65m of personal and corporate debt of an individual caught up in the 2008 financial crash
Helped set up and achieve FCA authorisation for Farm Street LLP, as a regulated investment and corporate finance advisor in the UK.
