How to Build a Business That Thrives Through Geopolitical Uncertainty
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures In 2019, one of my clients — a mid-market distribution company operating across three continents — had what looked like a textbook international strategy. Diversified markets, strong...
The Mentor Who Changed How I Think About Business — And What I Now Pass Forward
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Early in my career, I made a decision that, in retrospect, was almost certainly wrong. I was working on a market entry strategy for a client expanding into a new geography. I had the...
Why ESG Is No Longer Optional — It’s a Competitive Advantage
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Not long ago, I sat across the table from the CEO of a mid-sized manufacturing company in Central Europe. He was dismissive. ESG, he told me, was a passing trend — a checkbox exercise...
What Entrepreneurs Get Wrong About Capital — And How to Fix It
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Capital is the oxygen of a business. Too little and you suffocate. But here's what most entrepreneurs learn too late: the wrong kind of capital, taken at the wrong time, on the wrong...
Cross-Cultural Business Isn’t About Being Polite — It’s About Being Effective
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures There's a version of cross-cultural business training that I find mostly useless. It goes something like this: don't point the soles of your feet at someone in Thailand, always present...
Why Succession Planning Is the Most Overlooked Growth Strategy in Business
By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Most founders and business owners spend enormous energy building their companies — and almost none thinking about what happens after them. In my 25 years advising businesses across...
What 25 Years in Business Consulting Taught Me About Failure
The most valuable lessons in advisory work don't come from the wins. They come from the moments that don't go according to plan. By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners Inc. / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures I want to be honest about something that doesn't...
What Family Businesses Get Right That Public Companies Often Get Wrong
The quarterly earnings call is a powerful accountability mechanism. It's also, occasionally, a terrible way to run a business. By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners Inc. / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures My work spans both the family office world and the...
Lessons From Advising Businesses Across Three Continents
The more markets you work in, the more clearly you see what's universal and what's not. Most companies have those two categories exactly backwards. By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners Inc. / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Twenty-five years of advisory...
Why Boutique Consulting Firms Outperform the Big Four for Mid-Market Companies
Scale is an asset when scale is what you need. When it isn't, it becomes overhead — passed on to you. By Scott Gelbard, Founder — SGI Global Partners Inc. / Managing Partner — Peak Ventures Let me say at the outset: the large consulting firms employ some of the most...