Principal Venture Work
Beyond advice.
In the arena, aligned, alongside you.
I work as a principal partner alongside a small number of high-potential companies — contributing strategy, capital markets execution, and direct involvement at critical inflection points, with economics aligned to the outcome.
This work is distinct from my board advisory and CEO advisory engagements. In those roles, I advise. In this role, I participate directly in the outcome.
Board Advisory & NED
Governance, public markets, board oversight
CEO Advisory
Confidential leadership counsel for individual CEOs
Principal Venture Work
Direct participation alongside founders, economics aligned to the outcome
"Most advisory relationships tell you what to do.
This one is built around doing it with you."
The founding teams that build companies of genuine scale rarely fail for lack of technical competence or product quality. They fall short of what they could have been because they did not have the right experience alongside them at the pivotal moments: the first institutional raise, the capital structure decision that locked in the wrong terms, the M&A approach handled without strategic clarity, the listing that was technically completed but commercially underperformed.
These gaps sit between traditional advisory roles — legal, financial, and board-level — and are typically only addressed by someone who has built through them directly, as a principal with aligned stakes, not as a professional providing a service alongside them. That is the role this work fills. It sits alongside the other advisors a serious company will have — it does not replace them.
The operating system I bring to a principal partnership is deliberately generalist — shaped by building across eight countries, nine capital structures, stock exchange listings, and more than three decades of applied strategy. It asks the prior question before the operational questions: not how to do this well, but whether this is the right thing to be doing, by this team, in this way, at this moment. That question, applied rigorously at every inflection point, changes the quality of every decision that follows.
$810M
Strategic Exit Achieved
ArcelorMittal acquisition from $100M invested — value built, structured, and realised as a principal.
$800M+
Capital Raised
Across nine structures — seed to IPO, high-yield bonds, royalties, convertibles, offtake finance.
2 IPOs
7 Years Public Markets Performance
From private company to publicly listed, built from first principles in both. Managing and building through and with the public markets.
8 Countries
Operating Scale
Governments, JVs, institutional investors, trading counterparties — all navigated as a co-founder and CEO.
In Practice
What the engagement typically involves
Capital strategy and investor positioning
Direct involvement in structuring the raise, building the institutional narrative, and preparing the company for the conversations that determine whether capital is raised at the right terms.
IPO and listing preparation
Governance architecture, board construction, investor register strategy, and the specific readiness work that determines whether a listing lands well or merely completes.
Strategic transactions — M&A, JVs, strategic sales
Participation in key decisions on structure, process, and negotiation — including running competitive processes and managing the tension between hold and sell at the right moment.
Critical phase involvement at board and executive level
Ongoing input through the inflection points that matter most — not periodic oversight, but active engagement when execution risk is at its highest.
Network and introductions
Access to institutional investors, Nomads, specialist law firms, strategic investors, trading counterparties, and EPC partners — built over years of working alongside these parties as a co-founder and CEO, not as a broker.
What Comes With The Partnership
The capabilities below are drawn from building and leading London Mining PLC and from subsequent principal and advisory engagements across mining, natural resources, and international growth businesses. They are offered as an integrated contribution, not as separate services.
Strategy Built From Doing
Commercial strategy built from the reality of taking a company from concept through capital raise, development, and production — in markets that do not forgive strategic drift. The instinct for where value is created and where it is destroyed, developed across a decade of decisions with genuine consequences.
Capital Markets Credibility
An institutional investor network built during nine years of public company leadership — sovereign wealth funds, specialist mining funds, generalist institutions. More importantly, a direct understanding of what institutional investors actually evaluate, and what makes a register that holds under pressure rather than one that sells at the first difficulty.
IPO and Listing Architecture
The specific knowledge of what a company needs to have built before a listing — governance, investor narrative, board composition, capital structure — rather than in response to what the market discovers after one. Drawn from executing two stock exchange listings and from watching many others succeed or fail at the same threshold.
M&A and Transaction Execution
Direct experience of structuring, negotiating, and closing strategic transactions at the highest level — including a $810 million competitive sale under hostile conditions. The practical knowledge of how to run a process, how to protect the founding team's position, and how to know when to sell and when to hold.
Government and Stakeholder Navigation
Eight years of building in frontier markets — parliamentary-approved agreements, government relations across multiple ministries, community engagement at scale, international development agency partnerships. The knowledge of what genuine stakeholder alignment looks like and how it is built operationally, not from a policy document.
A Principal Network
Relationships with the advisors, investors, and counterparties that matter at each stage of a company's growth. Built over years of working alongside these parties as a co-founder and CEO. The introductions that come from this carry weight because they come from a practitioner with a track record, not from a referral arrangement.
When To Engage
Typical entry points for principal partnerships
Preparing for a first institutional raise or IPO — the founding team has strong operational depth but has not yet built a company through institutional capital markets.
Approaching a major capital structure decision — a funding round, a debt structure, a royalty arrangement, or a convertible that will define the company's strategic options for the next five years.
Entering a strategic transaction or M&A process — a potential acquisition, a JV with a major counterparty, a strategic sale process, or a hostile approach the founding team has not navigated before.
A step-change in scale or complexity — the company has proven its model and is now facing the governance, capital markets, and operational demands of a significantly larger business.
Operating in a complex international environment — frontier jurisdictions, government relations, multi-stakeholder complexity, international capital.
Execution risk now outweighs technical risk — the product, the asset, or the technology is proven. What determines the outcome from here is commercial execution.
Not a service. A genuine stake in the outcome.
Principal venture work is structured differently from an advisory engagement. The relationship is built around a shared objective — creating significant value — rather than around a fee for time or a retainer for availability.
The commercial structure reflects that: equity participation, milestone-linked consideration, or a combination — structured so that success is shared and the downside is understood by both parties. The specifics are agreed case by case, appropriate to the stage and nature of the opportunity. There is no template, because the right structure depends on the company and the contribution required.
The engagement is selective by necessity. A principal relationship requires genuine commitment of time, attention, and network. A small number of principal relationships are active at any time — chosen on the basis of the quality of the opportunity, the calibre of the founding team, and the realistic potential to build something of scale.
The role is designed to support the founding team, not to replace it. The contribution is experience, judgment, execution capability, and network — applied where those things matter most, at the moments when the decisions are hardest. The founding team remains in control of their company.
"I built London Mining from two people and a single institutional investment to a billion-dollar listed company across eight countries. What I know about the journey between those two points — every capital structure decision, every investor conversation, every government negotiation, every strategic inflection — is exactly what I bring to the founding teams I work alongside."
Graeme Hossie — Co-founder & former CEO, London Mining PLC
If you are building something with genuine scale potential — and approaching a point where execution risk will determine the outcome — it is worth a conversation. Principal partnerships begin with a direct conversation. No pitch deck required, no formal process.
Get in touch