Brand Strategy for a Private Equity Firm Caught Between Its Past and Its Ambitions
Client:
Phoenix Equity Partners
Field:
Private Equity + Growth Capital
Service:
Brand Transformation
The Challenge
S01
Phoenix Equity Partners had been backing medium-sized UK businesses long enough to have a reputation, and long enough for that reputation to have aged. They wanted the pioneering position back.
But the firm couldn’t agree on what it was. Part of the partnership wanted to protect the approach that had built the place. Another part wanted a modern refresh that matched where the strategy was actually heading. Both sides thought they were arguing about brand.
A firm that can’t describe itself internally cannot describe itself to a founder deciding whose money to take.
The Approach
S02
The split was the brief. Any positioning that picked a side would lose half the partnership, and a brand half the partners don’t believe in doesn’t survive contact with a pitch.
So I went looking for the position that made both sides right. American private equity markets itself loudly — confidence, scale, momentum. British private equity markets itself quietly — discretion, longevity, trust. Phoenix was being asked to choose, and the interesting ground was between the two: bold enough to be noticed by ambitious founders, sober enough to be believed by them.
I started with the audits. Existing messaging, market position, and how the firm was actually perceived by the people it wanted to attract — rather than how it assumed it was.
Then workshops, deliberately not just with the senior partners. Mid-level staff and wider stakeholders were in the room, because the people who describe a firm most often are rarely the people who signed off the description.
The positioning itself came out of founders’ stories rather than the firm’s. Choosing an investor is a social question before it’s a financial one — who will you be in the room with, and who will you become. Phoenix’s real asset was that it took that question seriously. The storytelling made it visible: actual founder journeys and actual outcomes, in place of portfolio logos and multiples.
The Insight
S03
An internal disagreement about brand is almost never about brand. It’s two groups of people describing two different futures for the firm and using positioning language to argue about it. Resolve that and the positioning more or less writes itself. Skip it and you produce a brand half the partnership quietly refuses to use.
THE
OUTCOMES
Deliverables and External Results
In-depth brand audit: existing messaging, market position, and stakeholder perception
Identity blueprint built on trust, innovation and founder support
Brand strategy workshops across senior partners, mid-level staff and wider stakeholders
Multi-stakeholder communications framework, tailored for internal and external audiences
Positioning statements bridging innovation and tradition
Brand storytelling programme built on real founder journeys and firm outcomes
Over £600 million raised in 2024 across the flagship and growth funds, in the period following the rebrand
Notable exits and continued portfolio growth
Internal alignment restored across a partnership that had been split
Internal Shifts Behind the Scenes
Stopped arguing about a visual refresh and started arguing about strategy, which was the actual disagreement
Gained a description of the firm both halves of the partnership could say out loud
Could answer why Phoenix specifically, rather than why private equity generally
Junior and mid-level staff had language for the firm that matched what the partners were using
