Ruth Percival had seen the highs and lows of a corporate career before becoming a first-time founder in her 50s – and hasn’t looked back.
Just two years after launching built environment consultancy Contollo Group, she’s made five acquisitions and grown the business to £37m turnover and 230 staff – and has ambitious plans to double in size.
In the latest episode of The Naked Founder podcast, Percival has spoken about how she’s found her favourite job and her regrets at not asking her investors for more money at the beginning.
“It’s my favourite (job) so far,” she said of being a founder. “I’ve absolutely loved this role. I feel like I’m thriving in it. I’m a deeply curious person and I’m stretched all the time but in a good way. It’s forced me to stretch myself.”
Percival had enjoyed a stellar 20-year career in M&A and made her name as a partner at BDO, where she regularly advised clients on exits and buy-and-build strategies.
She became the firm’s first female M&A partner and told The Naked Founder podcast about the misogyny she encountered in the wider industry while forging a career in the male-dominated world of corporate finance.
Percival has a naturally outgoing personality and said she was advised to ‘dial’ it down to avoid attracting unwanted attention from men.
“I did dial it down and it did work,” she called. “Don’t get me wrong. There are still some absolute predators out there who you can be dialled down to zero and they’re still going to think you’re fair game.
“That did work but I look at my beautiful daughters, who are full of joy and evanescence, and think can I imagine in the peak of their career telling them to ‘dial it down’ and that would be good advice?”
Percival told The Naked Founder podcast how she went to work as the chief integration officer at Fishawack Group of Companies, where she ran a team of 150.
The company had bought a string of companies and she had to integrate the businesses, but she lost her job following Fishawack’s acquisition by Bridgepoint.
Percival was 49 and described the period in her career as a ‘humbling experience’, but it became the catalyst to launch Contollo in 2024.
She praised the role of private equity investor NorthEdge – but said she wished she’d had the confidence to asked for more money at the start.
“I’m very ambitious for my business, myself and the team,” she said. “I wish I’d had the confidence to raise a bigger pot of money with NorthEdge at the beginning. We raised £12.5m in 2024. I wish we’d raised more.
“If I’d had the confidence then about the scale of the business we could build, we’d be unstoppable.”
Percival praised NorthEdge and her husband – legendary dealmaker Jonathan Boyers – for their roles in Contollo’s rapid growth.
She said: “(Having the right investor) is the difference between enjoying yourself as the leader of the business and having an absolutely miserable time and I’m fortunate that I’m enjoying this role and I’ve got an investor that I trust and I like.
“There’s a lot of reasons for that. They are really straight with me but I am really straight with them. You’ve got to give them the bad news straight away. They don’t want surprises.”
Chris Maguire and Ruth Percival on The Naked Founder podcast
Percival also praised the influence of her husband, Jonathan Boyers, who is the head of corporate finance for EMEA at Alvarez & Marsal.
“I don’t think I’d be doing this if I wasn’t married (to Jonathan Boyers) for a whole host of reasons,” she told The Naked Founder podcast. “He’s advised me and guided me. He understands building a business in the same way I do.”
Contollo Group recently took nearly 10,000 sq ft of office space in Manchester’s XYZ Building until February 2032.
Percival also discussed her strict ‘no dickheads policy’ at Contollo and plans to to double the size of the business by the end of the year during the podcast.
Last month she was included in BusinessCloud’s inaugural’s Founder 25o list, which was sponsored by RSM UK, Obi, CG and Mercia Ventures.
The Naked Founder podcast is sponsored by Financielle and produced by Dan Brown.
You can listen to the episode here
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