Specialist programmeStrategy + search + onboarding

Hand the revenue function over, properly.

The First Revenue Leader Programme is a single combined engagement that takes a founder-led commercial function, designs the operating model around it, finds the right first leader and walks both sides through the handover for ninety days.

For
Founder-led or MD-led businesses doing roughly £2m to £25m revenue making their first true commercial leadership hire.
Length
12 to 14 weeks end-to-end, plus a 90-day onboarding tail
Run by
Rachel Lunn personally, end-to-end.
Talk to RachelSee the programme ↓Investment →

The brief

If three or more of these are true, this programme is for you.

  • Every meaningful deal still routes through the founder, MD or owner.
  • The forecast lives in the founder's head, not in a system.
  • Sales hires have been made before but none have stuck or built a function around them.
  • The board, an investor or a partner is asking who actually owns revenue, and the honest answer is nobody.
  • Growth has plateaued at the ceiling of what one person can personally close.
  • There is a real fear that hiring the wrong leader will set the business back twelve to eighteen months.

The hard part of the first commercial leader hire is not finding a candidate. It is making the business ready to be handed to one. This programme treats both as a single piece of work.

Why a programme, not just a hire

The first revenue leader fails for predictable reasons. This programme is built around them.

The role was never properly sized

Founders often hire one level too senior or one level too junior. The diagnostic phase fixes this before the search is briefed.

The operating model was not in place

Even the right leader cannot succeed without a defined function to step into. The operating-model brief is built before market launch.

The handover never actually happened

The founder remained in every deal. Embedded onboarding holds both sides accountable to the decision-rights map.

The programme

Four phases. One operator. One outcome.

Each phase has a defined start, a defined end, named artefacts and a written go/no-go before the next phase begins.

  1. 01

    Weeks 1 to 2

    Discovery and diagnostic

    Map the truth of the commercial function today, against the truth of where the business is heading.

    What happens

    • Two scoping sessions with the founder or MD (90 minutes each).
    • One half-day on-site with the existing commercial team and exec.
    • Pipeline, CRM and forecast review against the last twelve months.
    • Customer and pricing review against ICP.
    • Written diagnostic note (15 to 25 pages) covering structure, capacity, process, pipeline, comp and tooling.

    Artefact

    Commercial diagnostic (PDF), reviewed live with the founder.

  2. 02

    Weeks 2 to 4

    Operating model and role design

    Decide what shape of leader the business actually needs, and what the role looks like on day 1, day 90 and day 365.

    What happens

    • Target operating model for the commercial function, 18 months out.
    • Sized role recommendation: Head of Sales, Sales Director, CRO or CCO, with the rationale.
    • Written role scorecard, success criteria and 30-60-90 expectation.
    • Decision-rights map between founder and incoming leader (what they own, what stays with you, what is shared).
    • Compensation envelope: base, OTE, equity if applicable, benchmarked against the North-of-England market.

    Artefact

    Operating model brief + role scorecard + decision-rights map (signed off before search).

  3. 03

    Weeks 4 to 12

    Retained search (ALIGN)

    Find, qualify and land the right leader using Evara's full retained ALIGN methodology, run personally by Rachel.

    What happens

    • Market map of 80 to 150 candidates from inside the relevant operator pool.
    • Two-stage commercial screen on every progressing candidate.
    • Considered shortlist of three to five with risk-and-fit notes.
    • Founder-led panel design and interviewer coaching.
    • Reference triangulation on top two.
    • Offer construction, counter-offer planning, resignation support.

    Artefact

    Signed offer + agreed start date + reference pack.

  4. 04

    Day 0 to Day 90

    Embedded onboarding

    Make the handover from founder to leader actually happen, not just on paper. This is where most first-leader hires die — and where this programme spends real time.

    What happens

    • Day-zero kickoff with founder and new leader, anchored on the decision-rights map.
    • Weekly 1-1 with the new leader for the first six weeks (45 minutes).
    • Bi-weekly 1-1 with the founder for the first six weeks (30 minutes).
    • Co-authored 30-60-90 plan, signed off by both sides.
    • Light-touch comp redesign for the existing team if needed.
    • Structured day 30, day 60 and day 90 reviews.

    Artefact

    Signed 30-60-90 plan, three written milestone reviews.

What you receive in writing

The deliverables, end-to-end.

Commercial diagnostic (15 to 25 pages)
Target operating model brief, 18 months out
Sized role recommendation with rationale
Role scorecard and 30-60-90 expectation
Founder/leader decision-rights map
Compensation envelope, benchmarked
Market map of 80 to 150 candidates
Considered shortlist with risk-and-fit notes
Panel design and interviewer coaching
Reference triangulation pack on top two
Signed offer, counter-offer plan and resignation support
Co-authored, signed 30-60-90 plan
Three written milestone reviews (day 30, 60, 90)
Closing handover note to the founder

Investment

One programme. Three line items. One sixty-day shared-risk window.

The programme is structured so each phase is paid for as it is delivered. Strategy is paid on completion. Search runs on Evara's standard retained model. Onboarding is paid on day 90.

Phase 1 + 2

Strategy

£15,000 + VAT

  • Discovery, diagnostic, operating model, role design.
  • Fixed fee, paid 50% on commencement, 50% on sign-off of the role scorecard.
  • If the diagnostic recommends not hiring, the search retainer is not invoiced.

Phase 3

Search

£5,000 + 22% completion

  • £5,000 non-refundable retainer on commencement.
  • 22% completion fee on first-year guaranteed remuneration, invoiced day 60 of employment.
  • Indicative completion at a £110k base midpoint: £24,200.

Phase 4

Embedded onboarding

£7,500 + VAT

  • Day 0 to day 90 with founder and new leader.
  • Fixed fee, paid on completion of the day-90 review.
  • Includes weekly 1-1s, milestone reviews and the closing handover note.

Worked example

For a Sales Director hire at a £110,000 base, the indicative total programme investment is approximately £51,700 plus VAT (£15,000 strategy + £5,000 retainer + £24,200 completion + £7,500 onboarding), spread across approximately twelve months from kick-off to day 90 of employment.

Founders' programme — first three engagements

Evara is taking on its first three First Revenue Leader engagements at 20% off the fixed fees (strategy and onboarding). Indicative founder-cohort total at the worked example above: £46,200 plus VAT. In return, founders agree to a written reference and a recorded debrief at day 90, used anonymously to refine the programme.

Our commitments

What you can hold us to.

Sized to the truth, not to the fee

If the diagnostic shows the business needs a Head of Sales rather than a Sales Director, that is what is recommended. Recommendation is independent of the search fee.

60-day shared-risk window

The completion fee is invoiced day 60 of employment. If the leader leaves or is exited inside 60 days, no completion fee is charged and the search is rerun at no additional professional fee.

Founder coaching, included

Handing the function over is harder for the founder than for the new leader. The onboarding phase is built around that, not around the hire alone.

One operator, one assignment

Rachel runs this personally end-to-end. The diagnostic, the search, the panel coaching and the onboarding are not handed off.

Honestly

When this is not the right product.

  • Backfilling an existing leadership role where the operating model is already in place. That is a standard Retained Revenue Search.
  • An interim or fractional leader for a specific six-month problem. That is Fractional Revenue Leadership.
  • Building a BDR layer or hiring individual account managers. Different scope, lower investment.
  • Businesses who want to keep a recruiter at arms-length and pay only on placement. This is a programme, not a contingency search.

If one of the above describes you, the right starting point is on the engagements page.

Questions founders ask

Six questions, answered straight.

How is this different from a normal retained search?+
A retained search delivers a candidate. This programme delivers a working commercial function with a leader inside it. The diagnostic, the operating model, the decision-rights map and the embedded 90-day onboarding are not optional add-ons — they are the product. Most first-leader hires fail because the business was never set up for the leader to succeed; this programme spends as much time on the business as it does on the candidate.
Why combine strategy and search?+
Doing them separately leaves a gap. A consultant tells you what to do; you then brief a recruiter on a different page; the recruiter delivers a candidate against a half-translated brief; the leader joins into a business that has not done the operating-model work. The combined programme keeps the same operator on the work end-to-end so there is no translation loss.
What if the diagnostic surfaces that we are not ready to hire yet?+
Then the recommendation is to wait, and the strategy phase concludes with a documented readiness plan. The search retainer is not invoiced. This has happened before; the programme is designed to be honest about it.
Who runs the work?+
Rachel Lunn personally, end-to-end. Diagnostic, operating model, search, panel coaching and onboarding. There is no junior researcher behind the scenes.
How is success measured at day 90?+
Three things in writing. One: the leader is operating against the agreed scorecard. Two: the founder has demonstrably handed over the deal-by-deal work captured in the decision-rights map. Three: the forecast for the next quarter is owned, defended and signed off by the leader, not the founder.
What happens after day 90?+
The programme closes. From there the leader runs the function. Light-touch advisory or fractional support is available separately if useful.

One conversation, no pitch deck

Ready to hand the revenue function over?

Reply with two lines on where the business is and Rachel will book a 30-minute call inside one working day to talk it through.

Email Rachel

rachel@evaraconsultancy.co.uk

Talk to Evara.

Sales recruitment, GTM recruitment and revenue advisory for SMEs UK-wide. We reply within one working day.

Email Rachel Lunn