We don't start with the technology. We start with the truth about your business.
Technology is an enabler. Strategy, clarity and operating discipline are what make it stick.
Discuss your situation →Two waves are converging.
A 36-month window is opening on European mid-cap capital. Most companies will not catch up alone.
Two structural shifts are reshaping European mid-cap capital, at the same time.
In 2025, French PE funds held over 8,400 portfolio companies, with 1,232 exit operations recorded. The window is reopening, but on a market where AI generative is rewriting unit economics in services and marketplace businesses. Acquisitions made between 2018 and 2022 must rebuild their operating model, or accept a meaningful discount at exit.
More than 500,000 French company leaders will retire in the next decade. One in four CEOs is already over 60 (BPI). Transmission has just been declared a national economic priority. The wave will hand thousands of profitable but digitally immature businesses to new investors, family successors, and PE buyers.
Both populations face the same problem. They have a 36-month window to rebuild around AI, and they have neither the digital maturity nor the internal C-suite capacity to lead it alone.
Ikigai exists to do this work, with the funds, the families, and the management teams that hold the asset.
The Ikigai 4Q Method™
Every Ikigai engagement starts with the same diagnostic. Four quadrants, one shared question for the management team and the shareholders: where is the bottleneck, really?
Where is the business going?
Market positioning, competitive thesis, value creation plan, exit horizon. Without a clear answer here, every other quadrant is noise.
How does the business actually run?
Operating model, decision rhythm, governance, value chain economics. Where work actually flows, and where it gets stuck.
What enables the first two to scale?
Technology stack, data foundation, AI architecture, digital product. The leverage layer, applied where it amplifies a strategy that holds.
Who turns the plan into real outcomes?
Leadership capability, team design, culture, change readiness. The quadrant that decides whether the other three actually land.
How we engage
Two postures, depending on what you actually need: someone to lead the transformation, or someone to challenge the team that is leading it.
Lead the transformation
Someone in the room, with a budget, a team, and a deadline. Sits at Comex level. Owns the outcome, not just the recommendation. Leaves only when the work is structural enough to survive without me.
Full-time CDO, CTO, CTPO or Chief Transformation Officer. 6 to 12 months, defined mandate.
Senior leadership embedded 1 to 3 days a week. Same accountability, lighter footprint.
Operating Partner deployed by a PE fund into a portfolio company, aligned with the value creation plan.
Challenge the team that leads it
You have the team. You need clarity, challenge, frameworks. Strategic advisory alongside leadership, without operational integration. Used when the answer is in the room but no one is asking the right questions.
A focused review of strategy, operating model and tech. 4 to 6 weeks, clear deliverable.
Ongoing strategic counsel for CEOs and boards on tech, data and AI. Per-engagement or monthly.
Independent board director or advisor for PE-backed mid-caps. Selective basis.
The two postures often combine over time. A typical mandate may start with a Diagnostic, shift to Lead for 6 to 12 months, then continue as Advisory to secure the transition.
Clarity is the first deliverable.
Before any roadmap, any technology, any investment, we help you see the situation clearly.
Discuss your situation →