MAXFR brings chairmanship, governance and strategy to ambitious businesses — founders, families and investor-backed teams — pairing hands-on CEO experience with modern, AI-literate board leadership.
Between roughly £1m and £50m of revenue, the decisions get bigger — capital, key hires, acquisitions, succession, AI — while the structure for making them often stays exactly as it was on day one: the founder, a spreadsheet and instinct.
That gap is where value leaks. Deals are agreed on weak terms, strong hires fail for lack of accountability, and "strategy" becomes whatever this quarter demanded. MAXFR exists to close that gap — installing the cadence, challenge and clarity of a well-run board, sized for the business you actually are, not the PLC you aren't. It's the discipline Max Fontana-Reval has applied as a CEO by 27, and now applies as Non-Executive Chair of MW Equipment and Advisory Chair of Unsigned Research.
It starts with one structured conversation. Or, if you prefer, with five questions and a board paper.
View engagement →Independent chairmanship — agenda, cadence, accountability. Practised at MW Equipment & Unsigned Research.
View engagement →A qualified NED seat: constructive challenge with an operator's instinct, 1–2 days a month.
View engagement →Senior counsel without statutory weight — designed, recruited and chaired for you.
View engagement →8–12 weeks to make numbers, governance and story hold under diligence.
View engagement →Where AI changes your economics, how to govern it — and shipped delivery.
View engagement →A 4–6 week independent examination of how decisions really get made.
View engagement →Hands-on leadership for a defined problem — scoped, delivered, reviewed.
Run it free →Five questions. All seven engagements scored, reasoning shown — like a board paper.
Stage, board, challenge, priorities, instinct — scored against all seven engagements, with the reasoning shown. Free, no email gate, about ninety seconds.
Start the diagnostic →
Finance, marketing, technology and AI, people, sector chairs — matched to client boards under one engagement standard. Experienced operators can apply to partner.
Explore the network →Thirty to forty-five minutes, no charge, no deck. You describe the business and the decision in front of you; you'll hear honestly whether board-level support is the answer — and which kind.
Board roles are relationships before they are contracts. We meet the people who matter — co-founders, investors, family — and agree what success looks like in writing before anything is signed.
A simple letter of engagement: role, time commitment, fees, review points and an exit either side can use. Then a structured onboarding — numbers, customers, people, history.
Most engagements settle into a monthly board or advisory cycle with ad-hoc access between. Agendas are forward-looking, papers are short, and every meeting ends with owned actions.
Every engagement is reviewed against the success criteria we wrote at the start — typically at six and twelve months. If it isn't adding value, it ends. That keeps both sides honest.
Read the guide →Duties, time, value — and the difference between a NED, an advisor and a chair.
Read the guide →Honest market ranges and how to structure value for money.
Read the guide →Three structures, three jobs — how to choose by the decision ahead.
Five questions if you want structure. One email if you'd rather talk. Either way, a straight answer about what your board needs.