The Grafter 100 · Thursday 19 November 2026
Maximising the value of your business
A panel of exited healthcare and professional services founders
Thursday 19 November 2026
4:00pm to 7:30pm GMT
Embankment, London
Venue details on registration
Registration
To join the event, register below. Venue details follow by email.
This event has taken place
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About the event
Sixty minutes with founders who have sold in healthcare and professional services, thirty minutes of your questions and drinks either side. Built for founders who have never met The Grafter.
Walk away knowing
How a buyer calculates your number
The four things that cap value, and which are yours
What runs without you, and what doesn't
How sales scales past the founder
Who is buying in your sector, and what for
Why twelve to twenty-four months out is the moment
Agenda
Three and a half hours, one panel.
Arrival and networking
Doors open.
The panel
What moves value before a sale, in both sectors. Then thirty minutes of your questions.
Drinks and networking
An hour with the panel and the room. Close 7:30pm.
New to The Grafter?
Founders who have sold, working with founders who will.
Founder-led advisory for founder-led companies, £1m to £30m revenue, through growth, raising and exit.
Grow. Raise. Exit.
One path, three stages. Join at any of them.
Exiteers, not consultants
Everyone advising you has built and sold their own.
Fixed fees. No equity.
No success fee, no stake. Paid for the work, plus a community of 138+ founders.
What the panel is built around
Four problems. Almost every founder-led business.
200 conversations, 86 founders mentored. The same four keep coming up.
No clear exit strategy
You started to work on your own terms. An exit needs to know what you have, what you want and where it is going.
A valuation that feels personal
To you it is years of graft. To a buyer it is a calculation of their return. Few founders can put a defensible number on today, let alone forecast tomorrow.
Inefficient operations
What just about worked at the start still just about works. It eats profit now and drags the multiple later.
Actual versus aspirational revenue
Nobody sells it like you. There is still only one of you. Sales has to scale without the founder on every call.
In your sector
Same problems. Different pressures.
Selling into a system that buys three months a year.
The NHS buying cycle
Big purchases land in three or four months. Lumpy revenue reads as risk unless you can explain the mix.
Shrinking budgets
Justifying value gets harder every year. Prove outcomes, not activity.
Alternative revenue
Private, international, product. How to de-risk a single-payer story.
Who buys
Strategics, PE platforms and partners already in your supply chain.
Timing
Go to market when the numbers show your strongest quarters.
Built on relationships and a client list that trusts you personally.
Client concentration
One client carrying the P&L moves money into an earn-out. First thing a buyer prices, slowest to fix.
Retainers versus projects
Retained revenue is valued as recurring. Projects are valued as work you have to win again.
The founder is the relationship
If the big accounts still call you first, expect a longer earn-out and a longer stay.
Contracts and margin
Change-of-control clauses, utilisation by client, profit normalised for owner pay.
Who buys
Consolidators, PE platforms and adjacent firms buying a capability. Specialists sell.
On the stage
Exited founders and the people who do deals.
Founders who have sold in both sectors, with M&A and corporate finance alongside.
Rachel Murphy
Host · CEO & Founder, The Grafter
Difrent · Eight figure exitLeft money on the table on her first exit. Built Difrent, a digital delivery business across the NHS, with an exit mindset from day one and sold it for eight figures.
Charlotte Talmage
Founder & CEO, UUNA
7 figure exitA people-led change management consultancy she started in 2023. Cooper Parry acquired it in June '26 as part of its Cooper Parry Digital division. UUNA had built a network of more than 50 associates delivering large-scale transformation programmes, ERP turnarounds and internal change capability. Clients included Oxford University Press, Hays, Cognizant, WSP, Arup, Unite Students and City of London.
Neil Osmond
Co-founder & CEO, Earthware
Exited 2022Built a digital healthcare agency that partnered with healthcare companies to deliver creative innovative solutions for mainly healthcare professionals and patients. Earthware grew to 30+ people when it sold to Prime Global in 2022, a PE-backed medical communications group. Earthware had multiple offers before choosing Prime Global, after being encouraged to go to market earlier than originally planned.
Vijay Mistry
Partner & Co-founder, VIPA Digital
Exited to JLL a few weeks agoBuilt a leading independent data centre consultancy from 2018, delivering 168 projects across 31 countries. Vijay has over 30 years experience working across data centres, digital infrastructure and technology. Leading the advisory across the full infrastructure lifecycle, particularly investors, developers and operators on some of the opportunities and challenges shaping the sector. Exited to JLL, just a few weeks ago. The ink is barely dry, so expect a very fresh perspective.
In the room
The people usually across the table from a founder. Several will be at the drinks.
FAQ
Questions, answered.
Who's it for?
Founder-led healthcare and professional services businesses, £3m to £30m revenue, thinking about an exit in the next one to three years.
Not selling for years. Still worth coming?
Yes. Everything that moves a valuation makes the business better to run now.
Can I bring my co-founder or FD?
Yes. Register each person.
One evening. Two sectors. One number worth knowing.
Thursday 19 November, 4pm, Embankment. Venue details follow on registration.
Be in the room next time.
See what's coming up next from The Grafter.