Turn growth strategy into organisational performance.

We make tech, AI and media companies ready for their next stage of scale. We find the organisational constraints standing between strategy and performance, from leadership capability to AI readiness, then bring in the leadership, talent and expertise to remove them.

Start with a Scale Readiness Diagnostic See what we do

Scale is the ambition. Talent is how you deliver it.

The idea

Companies often outgrow their organisation before they outgrow their market.

In a time of increasing competition, AI disruption, shifting customer expectations and relentless pressure to deliver more, faster, strategy is rarely the only challenge.

The harder question for a CEO is whether the organisation they lead can actually deliver what has been promised. Strategy sets direction. Technology creates leverage. Capital creates opportunity. People build, lead, sell, innovate and execute.

We approach organisational challenges as business performance problems, because that is what they are.

The warning signs come before the numbers

  • Decisions slow down
  • Accountability blurs
  • Leaders become stretched
  • Critical capability gaps emerge
  • Sales performance fragments
  • Technology advances faster than adoption
  • Operating models that enabled growth begin to constrain it

The question is not whether your business can grow. It is whether your organisation and leadership capability can keep up.

Services

Three ways in. One accountable lead.

Every engagement is overseen by Jemma, scoped to a fixed fee and led in partnership with experienced professionals who are strategically matched to the project and organisation before work begins.

Diagnose

The Scale Readiness Diagnostic

Find what will constrain your growth before it shows up in the numbers. We assess your organisation against your growth plan across five connected dimensions.

  • Your growth ambition and its key assumptions
  • A readiness profile across the five dimensions
  • The top three to five organisational constraints
  • The commercial consequence of each one
  • Your 90-day priorities and recommended next step

Brief within two weeks. Optional deep dives on sales effectiveness, AI and automation, market expansion or leadership.

Scale

Fractional CPO

Senior People leadership for the stage you are in, without waiting for a full-time hire. Founder-led, and backed by a curated network of senior operators.

  • Founder-led fractional CPO and People leadership
  • Organisation design and operating model
  • Talent and capability strategy
  • International and market expansion
  • Specialist operators for targeted work

Talent here means building organisational capability. We can also support you in building your talent attraction strategy.

Transform

Leadership development

Leaders with the capability, capacity and alignment the next stage asks of them. Practical work with executive and commercial teams, matched to the topic.

  • Leadership effectiveness and executive coaching
  • CEO and executive advisory
  • Executive team alignment and accountability
  • Leading through rapid growth and transformation
  • Executive effectiveness for the next stage
  • Off-site design and delivery
  • Sales methodology build and upskilling
  • Consultative sales skills

Delivered by specialist coaches from the network, based on the topic. Licensed facilitators of Insights Discovery are also available, including the Insights Discovery sales module.

A key focus

AI readiness

AI changes what organisations can do. The question is whether leaders are changing how their organisations are built fast enough.

  • Where technology is advancing faster than adoption
  • The leadership, skills and operating model AI-enabled growth needs
  • An AI and automation deep dive within the diagnostic
  • Transformation support to turn AI ambition into performance
  • AI Fundamentals Training and Workshops

Also within our Transform work: organisation design, talent strategy, market expansion, commercial effectiveness and specialist execution support.

01

Diagnose

Find what will constrain growth.

02

Transform

Fix the highest-value constraints.

03

Scale

Add the capability to execute.

The model

Five connected dimensions of scale readiness.

Growth stalls where these five stop moving together. The diagnostic tests each one against your plan for the next 12 to 24 months.

Strategy

Is the growth ambition clear, commercially coherent and translated into organisational implications?

Every diagnostic starts with CEO, founder and executive interviews, your commercial strategy and growth plan, and your organisation, headcount and cost data.

Who we work with

Tech, AI and media companies moving from 50 to 1,000 people.

We work with tech organisations, and with tech, AI and media companies entering new markets or in a PE-backed growth phase. Most often we are called in when:

  • A founder-led scale-up is entering its next stage of growth
  • A PE-backed company is under pressure to accelerate value creation
  • A technology or AI business is scaling internationally
  • A creative or advertising organisation is professionalising without losing speed
  • A commercial organisation has inconsistent sales execution
  • A leadership team knows the strategy but cannot see why execution is slowing
How we work

Many consultancies are vague about who does the work. We are not.

A named team

Every proposal names the people who will do the work, with their background and role. You choose who you work with.

One accountable lead

Jemma leads every client relationship, attends kick-off and key milestones, and owns the quality of the result.

Clear pricing

Fixed fees with a clear scope. No day rates and no surprise charges.

Honest reporting

We report what is working and what is not, including the findings a CEO may not want to hear.

You always know who is doing the work. You choose your team, and Jemma stays accountable for the result.

24 hoursto reply to you
48 hoursto send a written summary after every meeting
2 weeksto deliver the diagnostic brief
About Jemma
Jemma Cowan, Founder and CEO of The Talent & Scale Co.

Jemma Cowan

Founder & CEO

Jemma has more than 19 years' experience across technology, advertising, media and creative industries, with some of the world's most recognised businesses, including Netflix, TikTok, Criteo and Sony Music. Her career has centred on one commercial challenge: how do you build an organisation capable of delivering ambitious growth through its people?

She has partnered with commercial leadership through periods of rapid growth across multiple markets, including leading EMEA Ads Talent strategy at Netflix and supporting TikTok's European advertising business.

Jemma works where commercial strategy meets organisation, leadership, talent and execution, across organisational design, executive effectiveness, international expansion, transformation and workforce strategy.

  • Chartered MCIPD
  • CTI Executive Coach

We don't treat growth as a people problem to fix. We treat it as a performance opportunity to build.

In their words

What colleagues say about working with Jemma.

Jemma was always a highly valuable partner to the commercial team. She has a great understanding of the commercial needs of the company, but always has the employees' best interests in mind throughout.
Country Manager, UK & Ireland Fintech
I really enjoyed partnering with Jemma. Jemma is a great listener, always available for people. She is a professional and an enthusiastic HR leader. Jemma provides support that balances very well what is the best for the people and for the company at the same time.
VP, Business Development Europe Marketing and advertising
Jemma is an extremely intelligent, thoughtful and hard working professional who has a wealth of experience and a keen gut instinct in complex situations. I greatly admired her blend of commercial pragmatism and people-centric kindness.
Lead Employment Legal Counsel, EMEA Technology and media
Jemma played a key role in building up our HR business partner function across multiple markets. I got to know Jemma as a hard working, diligent professional and a strong team player. I would welcome the opportunity to work again with Jemma in the future.
Chief People Officer Advertising technology
Speaking

Sharing perspectives on scaling organisations, leading through ambiguity and creating the conditions for exceptional work.

Jemma speaks on what changes as businesses scale, why successful organisations can start to constrain their own growth, and what leaders need to build differently for the next stage.

  1. Talent and scale: why commercial ambition outpaces organisational capability
  2. The organisation that got you here may not be the organisation that gets you there
  3. AI changes what organisations can do. Are leaders changing how organisations are built fast enough?
  4. From strategy to performance: the human system behind growth
  5. Scaling without slowing down: leadership, accountability and talent through rapid growth
Book Jemma to speak
The network

A curated network of senior operators, built for growth.

Our network spans organisational strategy and design, leadership and executive coaching, talent, sales effectiveness, AI and automation, market expansion and transformation. We assemble the right expertise around the problem, rather than forcing every problem through one discipline.

It isn't about collecting names. It's about relationships, reputation and bringing the right expertise together at the right moment. If you have built, scaled or transformed a business in technology, AI, creative or high-growth commercial organisations, and you share our belief that growth is built through people, we'd like to hear from you.

Join the Talent & Scale network

Contact

Your next growth constraint may already exist inside your organisation. Do you know where it is?

We reply within 24 hours.