For founder-led food and drink businesses that are ready to grow, but need the right person in the room to make it happen.

Always present. Always at hand.

The gap most founder-led businesses
can't close.

The UK is full of founders with genuinely good ideas, products that solve real problems and earn real traction. But competition gets fiercer, the market gets louder, margins get squeezed, and cash becomes the biggest concern.

They need senior thinking across brand, commercial, sales, and operations, all at once. Most can't afford to hire that expertise full time. And they shouldn't have to.

What is
at hand

Izzy places herself inside founder-led food and drink businesses as an embedded operator, the senior person you bring in when the business is ready to grow.

Not a consultant who hands over a report before moving on. She gets into the work and are accountable for outcomes with the teams, for the founder.

When you work with at hand, you work directly with Izzy. What comes with her is 20 years of experience and a network across brand, off and on trade, investment and team culture that she draws on when the business needs it.

Izzy was the critical support we needed - not just for her deep marketing expertise and clarity of thinking, but for us as founders. She came alongside us as a true advocate. She got in and amidst our business, became part of our team - fully - and made an impact. Our two biggest successes during that time were very much involving her.
—

Naomi Partridge
Co-Founder, Holos Kombucha

Who is this for

You are building something that genuinely matters and you know you can't do it alone.

You have the passion, the product, and the people around you. What you need is someone at hand. Someone who thinks alongside you, works with your team, and keeps a clear eye on the whole business, not just one part of it.

Not a consultant with a methodology. The person in the room who needs it to work as much as you do.

The work starts with brand, because brand is at the heart of any food and drink business. Most start with a clear vision but over time spread too thin, lose focus, drift from the consumer. And that creates unclear everything else.

After a rigorous diagnosis, the work expands into what the business actually needs, no fixed scope, no predetermined answer.

How it works

The work spans brand & commercial strategy, sales, investment and team culture. Where it starts and what it prioritises depends entirely on what the business needs most.

Every engagement follows four stages:

1/ Diagnose

Deep dive into the business and brand.

Evidence-based.

No assumptions.

2/ Plan

A clear roadmap built jointly with the founders.

Everyone owns it.

3/ Execute

Get in to the work alongside the team.

Focused on what matters,
cutting what doesn't.

4/ Learn

Reflect, adjust, and embed the thinking so the business keeps moving after the engagement ends..

Working with Isabelle was a transformative experience for our business. She challenged us to rethink long-held assumptions, sharpen our brand identity, and raise our ambitions. She brings strategic rigour with genuine positivity and a rare talent for unlocking clarity and inspiring action.
—

Joseph Landred-Smith
Co-Founder, Holos Kombucha

Why at hand was created

Izzy is the founder of at hand.

She created at hand because she kept seeing the same pattern: passionate founders, genuinely good products, hitting the same walls. Not from lack of ambition but because this market is hard, and senior support across every function is out of reach for most businesses at this stage.

Passionate about people and brands, she built her career in marketing across drinks at every scale, from the rigour of global giants like Guinness and Budweiser, to challenger brands like innocent, CanO Water, Crate Brewery, and Holos Kombucha. In smaller businesses, marketing was never just marketing. Founders pulled her in wherever the business needed her and she never said no.

Raised across cultures, she brings something specific to the room. The French in her cuts to what others avoid saying. The British in her makes sure it lands.

When founders need someone who will tell them what others won't and stay to do the work. Izzy is at hand.