Industry: Professional Services
Client: Prime Accountants Group
Services used: Bespoke people management development programme

About Prime Accountants Group 

Prime Accountants is a growing, founder-led firm of chartered accountants, business advisors, and forensic accountants based in the Midlands. Known for their personalised client relationships and forward-thinking approach, they’ve expanded rapidly through acquisitions and now operate across three locations with 84 employees. 

That growth brought complexity, and a need to build consistent, confident leadership at every level of the business. 

The challenge: Supporting managers in a fast-moving, founder-led environment 

In founder-led businesses, leaders often wear multiple hats. Busyness, pace of change, and organic growth can result in people stepping into management roles without formal preparation. At Prime, many managers had progressed due to technical excellence but hadn’t received structured leadership development. 

This led to familiar pain points: 

• Lack of confidence in performance and development conversations 

• A tendency to “do” rather than delegate 

• Silos between departments and missed commercial opportunities 

• Cultural drift as the team grew 

• Managers feeling unsure of their role and impact 

To address this, Prime’s directors were ready to invest in something that would build capability and connection across their leadership team, not just to drive performance, but to support people. 

Our solution: A bespoke leadership programme for a growing, founder-led firm 

CAPE People Development partnered with Prime to co-create a bespoke management development programme, built for their unique structure and values. 

This wasn’t off-the-shelf training. It was a carefully designed journey rooted in the reality of leading in a growing, client-focused, founder-led business. 

Key elements included: 

• Six in-person leadership development workshops linked directly to real challenges 

• “CAPE Surgeries”: live, facilitated peer coaching for shared learning 

• 1:1 coaching for tailored personal growth 

• Collaborative business improvement projects, with board-level presentations 

• Online learning resources to deepen reflection and flexibility 

• Conversation frameworks to improve feedback, challenge, and support 

In 2024, a second cohort of managers joined the programme, expanding its impact across the firm and helping embed consistent leadership behaviours at scale. 

The Results: Strategic, confident and connected leaders 

The impact of the programme has been felt across the firm, in the way managers lead, teams collaborate, and the business performs. 

From participants: 

• Greater confidence to lead conversations and give feedback 

• Feeling genuinely part of the leadership team 

• More clarity and resilience through change 

• A stronger ability to problem-solve across departments 

• Pride in contributing to firm-wide improvements 

From directors: 

• More accountability and follow-through from managers 

• Reduced leadership bottlenecks and operational pressure 

• Managers thinking beyond their teams, seeing the bigger picture 

• Tangible improvement in billing and business performance metrics

Why it matters in founder-led firms 

Growing a founder-led business comes with unique leadership pressures, and we get that. From the outside, it can look like things are fine. But inside, leaders can feel overstretched, culture can start to drift, and people managers can feel stuck. 

A tailored development programme like this one gives managers: 

✅ Clear expectations and consistent tools 
✅ Confidence to step into leadership, not just manage tasks 
✅ A support network across the business 
✅ A stronger connection to the direction and values of the firm 

And it gives founders and directors: 

✅ Headspace 
✅ Confidence in their team’s ability to lead 
✅ A more connected, strategic culture 

Looking ahead 

With two cohorts complete, Prime is embedding a shared language of leadership and performance. Their managers are growing into confident, commercially minded leaders, capable of supporting teams, shaping culture, and helping the firm thrive through growth. 

Looking to build confident, connected leaders in your founder-led business? 

Let’s talk about how CAPE can help. 
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