At Growth Hub, we build embedded operational capability for financial services firms.

We remove the operational drag that sits around deals and internal workflows, so operators can focus on high value work.

That includes:

Deal Operations
CRM hygiene, pipeline maintenance, targeting, and deal tracking. Owned, predictable, and run properly.

Research & Intelligence
Structured, factual research that supports decisions without interpretation or noise.

Business Operations Support
Internal operational workflows. Admin, registers, HR and TA operations, vendor data, policy tracking.

Everything is designed upfront, documented through SOPs, QA’d, and rolled out on a clear 30 / 60 / 90 day plan. This behaves like an internal function, not an outsourced task list.

What we do not do is deliberate.
No advice. No insight. No lead generation. No ad hoc support.

We run defined workflows end to end, and we do them well.

Build leverage. Reduce operational drag.

Dan Vanrenen

If you have come across Growth Hub through my posts or conversations, this is the clearest way to understand what we actually do:

We work exclusively with financial services firms.

Growth Hub installs embedded operational capabilities that remove operational drag from deal teams and operators, so they can focus on high value work.

We do this through three clearly defined capabilities.

1. Deal Operations
- CRM hygiene
- pipeline maintenance
- targeting and account lists
- deal trackers and coverage workflows

2. Research & Intelligence
- structured, factual company and sector research
- market and competitor mapping
- transaction data and news monitoring
  (always factual, never interpretive)

3. Business Operations Support
- internal operational workflows and registers
- HR, TA, and people operations admin
- policy, compliance, and vendor data management
- onboarding and offboarding workflows
- document control and internal trackers

Most teams start with Deal Operations.
Once execution is clean, they add Research & Intelligence.
When internal admin drag becomes obvious, they add Business Operations Support.

Everything runs on SOPs, QA, and a clear 30 / 60 / 90 day rollout, so this behaves like a real internal capability, not a collection of tasks.

For clarity, what we do not do:
- lead generation or outreach
- insight, analysis, or advice
- ad hoc “help with whatever” work
- providing individuals rather than a capability

If you are in financial services and spending too much time managing operational noise instead of doing the work that actually moves the needle, this is probably relevant.

Founder & CEO of Growth Hub | Embedded operational capability for financial services firms

Why most teams feel busy but not effective:

If everyone is busy, but nothing feels stable,
you don’t have a capacity problem.

You have an ownership problem.

When no one clearly owns:
- CRM hygiene
- deal tracking
- research inputs
- internal admin

Work floats.
Quality drifts.
People redo the same tasks.
And senior operators end up back in the weeds.

This isn’t a performance issue.
It’s an operating model issue.

The difference between help and leverage:

Help feels good in the moment.
Leverage holds up over time.

Help is:
- someone jumping in
- context living in their head
- progress tied to availability

Leverage is:
- defined workflows
- repeatable outputs
- work that runs without supervision

If your progress depends on who’s online, you’re getting help.
Not leverage.

Why most “research support” creates more noise, not clarity:

Most teams don’t have a research problem.
They have a decision bottleneck.

What usually happens:
- research is ad hoc
- context lives in inboxes
- facts are mixed with opinions
- people redraw the same work every time

The issue isn’t depth.
It’s structure.

Good research support is:
- factual
- repeatable
- clearly scoped
- delivered in the same format, every time

Clarity beats cleverness.
Especially under time pressure.

Most teams come to us saying they want better data.

What they usually need is:
- clearer ownership
- fewer judgment calls
- repeatable workflows
- someone whose job it is to keep things moving

Tools do not create that.
Capabilities do.

This is usually where teams start with us.

When we talk about Deal Operations, this is what we mean.

Not strategy.
Not outreach.
Not analysis.

Just clean execution.

1. CRM hygiene that actually stays clean
2. pipelines updated as a habit, not a scramble
3. targeting lists that are usable, not theoretical
4. trackers that reflect reality

Run properly, this removes hours of low value work from deal teams every week.

Most teams feel the impact within the first 30 days.

Why saying no is part of good operations:

Good operators say no more than they say yes.

Not because they’re difficult.
Because they protect quality.

If everything is in scope:
- nothing is owned properly
- standards slip
- trust erodes

Clear boundaries aren’t restrictive.
They’re how you scale without chaos.

A simple test for deal teams:

If you stopped updating your CRM for two weeks:
- would anyone notice?
- would anything break?
- would decisions change?

If the answer is no, the system is not embedded.
It is optional.

Optional systems always lose to urgent work.

The hidden cost of “we’ll fix it later”
Most operational issues don’t come from big mistakes.

They come from small deferrals.

“We’ll clean that up later.”
“We’ll document it once this deal is done.”
“We’ll tighten the process when things slow down.”

They never do.

Deferred ops work doesn’t disappear.
It compounds.

And by the time it becomes visible, it’s no longer a quick fix.

Why scaling execution feels harder than scaling revenue:

Revenue scales in jumps.
Execution scales in layers.

Most firms focus on the first and ignore the second.

New deals come in.
New clients, regions, strategies.
But the underlying workflows stay the same.

Eventually the same processes are doing twice the work, under more pressure, with more edge cases.

That’s when execution starts to creak.

Because what got you this far is now becoming a bottleneck.

Here’s a useful question for any growing firm:

“What work do we keep rediscovering how to do?”

If the answer includes:
- how we prep for deals
- how we track progress
- how we gather information
- how we hand things over

That’s not complexity.
That’s missing structure.

Good operations don’t remove work.
They remove rediscovery.

Most deal teams do not have a CRM problem.

They have an ownership problem.

No one owns:
- hygiene
- consistency
- follow-through
- keeping it current

So the CRM slowly decays.
Pipeline confidence drops.
People stop trusting the data.

And eventually everyone works around it instead.

That is not a tool issue.
It is an operational gap.

Why most ops fixes don’t stick:

A lot of operational “fixes” fail for one simple reason.

They’re treated as projects.

A clean-up.
A one-off redesign.
A burst of attention.

Then everyone goes back to normal work.

Operations don’t fail from neglect.
They fail from ambiguity.

A quick line we draw early with clients.

We do not “help out” with deals.

We install a Deal Operations capability that:
- owns defined workflows
- runs on SOPs
- is QA checked
- has a clear 30 / 60 / 90 day maturity path

That structure is what makes the work reliable.

Flexibility feels helpful.
Structure is what actually scales.

The misunderstanding that kills most ops conversations...

The biggest misunderstanding we see is this:

“We need help with workflows.”

What they usually mean is:
“We want someone flexible who can just pick things up.”

Which sounds reasonable.
But it’s also where quality dies.

Good operations are not flexible.
They are designed.

Clear ownership.
Clear scope.
Clear outputs.
Clear 30/60/90 expectations.

If you can’t explain what should exist after 90 days,
you don’t have a workflow.

You have good intentions.

The quiet test of a healthy ops function

Here’s a simple test:
If someone is away for two weeks,
what breaks?

If the answer is:
“we’d struggle”
“they hold a lot of context”
“we’d need to wait for them”

That’s not a people issue.
That’s a design issue.

Strong operations survive holidays,
promotions,
and exits.

That’s the bar.

Most leadership teams think scale breaks because things get “more complex.”
That’s rarely true.

Scale breaks because decisions get further away from execution.

The moment design, ownership, and reality stop sitting together, drag appears.
Meetings increase.
Exceptions multiply.
People start compensating instead of fixing.

That’s not complexity.
That’s distance.

Good operating models minimise distance.
Bad ones hire around it.

Identity human

www.identityhuman.com
Mindset, performance, resilience.

Founder

Sampson Armand Limited

Experts in individual and organizational development. We energise organisations through leaders and team cohesion using bespoke, blended, online and in person methods.
Sampson Armand are leadership, who bring opportunities to business through an organisation's most valuable asset, its people. We understand strategy and the human dynamics of working environments and offer unique professional development consultation, coaching, mentoring and training programmes to suit any size organisation. We work with national and local organisations from the private sectors. 

Our specialisms include:
Strategy
Board Facilitation
Leadership and team development
Succession planning
Cultural and organisational transformation
Profiling for talent development, retention and recruitment
Hardiness and resilience development
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Sampson Armand have the know-how to develop plans, cohesion, facilitate mentoring and optimise motivation. We understand the impact of different leadership styles and social identity in every facet of management and leadership in order to generate the best for a business and the individuals within it. Simply put, we have the knowledge to enable an organisation to turn it's problems into opportunities!

Director

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Exeter Chiefs

Ex professional player

I work with business leaders, MD's and CEOs to ensure there is no leadership vacuum created. Working to create a high performing, peak mind in the person that carries most of the responsibilty, I bring my passion and experience into your world. You have the hard skills, I will help you with the rest.

Feel free to get in touch if you can see the value I can bring to yourself individually, or as an organisation.

I have a Degree in Psychology and Organisational Psychology from the University of Cape Town. While studying I pursued a career in rugby, once my degree was complete, I was able to fully dedicate my time to achieving a high level in sport. I played for Stormers, Exeter Chiefs and England. Spending a total of around 12 years in top flight rugby, getting to combine my passion for mindset, psychology and people, with a team environment that dealt with high performance, pressure, team culture, leadership and the importance of structures. Experiencing many years at the top of English rugby, as well as having to experience the downs that accompany it, I have picked up many vital skills and insight which allow me to do what I do today, leadership development. 

Whilst playing rugby, I started to consider post career options and I started an e-commerce business driven by purpose, called GAS-The Gaming Athlete. This was and still is, a journey riddled with failures and learns, all of which I would never change, as they give me valuable insights into making my current day product that much more insightful. The perils of marketing, lack of strategy, brand exposure and dealing with people within your team, allowed me to ensure I am constantly learning.

I now do leadership development, high-performance coaching, facilitation, speaking and high-performing teams focus using a blend of profiling, Mental toughness and a rich history of elite level team knowledge. Based off of a rich history of experience and some impressive people, I am now tasked to take the business forward in my own way, combining a sound structure with a performance mindset, Sampson Armand is allowing me to connect, collaborate, learn and contribute to the future of business, and most importantly, leadership.

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