The company
UUNA is an award-winning, B Corp-certified, people-led change management consultancy founded by Charlotte Talmage in 2023. The business helps organisations successfully implement major technology and business transformations, running large-scale programmes, supporting ERP turnarounds, and building internal change capability across some of the world's most recognised organisations.
Clients have included Oxford University Press, Hays, Cognizant, WSP, City of London, Arup, American Physical Society, Unite Students, Heidelberg Materials, and Scientific Games. From day one, UUNA was built around the belief that change lands better when people are at the centre of it.
The challenge
Charlotte Talmage founded UUNA in 2023 and came to The Grafter in the same year with a business doing £1.2m in revenue. The foundations were already strong. They had a clear mission, a talented network of associates, and early client wins demonstrating real market demand. What the business needed was the infrastructure to grow at the pace Charlotte had in mind.
Cash flow was one constraint. Without invoice financing in place, growth was throttled by the gap between winning work and getting paid for it. The strategy hadn't yet been formalised in a way that would attract the right partners and clients at scale. And the messaging, while values-led, hadn't been sharpened to cut through in a competitive market.
Charlotte knew the business had more in it. The question was how to build it quickly and deliberately enough to realise that potential.
Engagement with The Grafter
While working with The Grafter, the engagement covered the full spectrum of what UUNA needed to scale:
- Invoice discount finance: Put in place to unlock cash flow and give the business the working capital to grow without being constrained by payment cycles
- Strategy build: Developed a clear growth strategy to take UUNA from £1.2m toward the scale required for a meaningful exit
- Partner introductions: Brought in Rainmaker and Herd as growth partners, and introduced Cognizant, who went on to become one of UUNA's key clients
- Messaging redesign: Sharpened UUNA's positioning and communications to better reflect the quality and specificity of what the business actually delivered
- ISO prep: Began preparation for ISO certification to strengthen credibility and exit readiness
- Coaching: Ongoing founder coaching with Charlotte throughout the engagement
- Community: Through The Grafter's network, Charlotte connected with a capability partner who helped UUNA expand into the US market, a relationship that drove significant new business, including work with WSP, one of UUNA's anchor clients
Exit outcome
Cooper Parry, the UK's largest accountancy B Corp, acquired UUNA as part of its PE-backed rollup strategy, following its partnership with New York-based private equity firm Lee Equity Partners in 2025. The UUNA acquisition was Cooper Parry's ninth deal under that partnership.
The fit went beyond financials. Cooper Parry and UUNA share a B Corp certification, a people-first culture, and a shared belief in using business as a force for good. For Charlotte, the acquisition wasn't a step away from what she'd built, it was a larger platform to do more of it.
Charlotte remains CEO of UUNA within the Cooper Parry Group, leading the firm's change and transformation capability as it builds toward IPO.
Charlotte Talmage came to The Grafter in 2023 with a £1.2m consultancy and a clear sense of what she wanted to build. Three years later, UUNA sold for eight figures as part of a PE rollup heading toward IPO. If you're building with the same kind of focus and intention, it's worth having a conversation with our team.
I always wanted to build a business my kids would be proud of. And joining Cooper Parry is an extension of that.
