People

The people behind the platform.

When you sell to EverGrowth, these are the people you deal with. Founders and operators, backed by institutional capital.

Co-Founder · Chief Executive

Chris West

Chris grew up around a family business and has felt first hand the blood, sweat and tears it takes to build one. It shaped everything about how EverGrowth treats the owners it buys from.

After a business and economics degree at Nottingham, Chris joined the Sainsbury's graduate scheme and spent nearly a decade in senior leadership roles, running large teams and significant P&Ls. He left a successful corporate career to do the harder, more meaningful thing: acquiring and building businesses, and giving owners a succession plan they can sign with confidence.

Chris leads strategy, people and M&A for the group. If you are an owner thinking about selling, his is usually the first voice you will hear.

Co-Founder · Chief Operating Officer

Ferdie Ahmed

Ferdie has sat on the other side of the table. He built hospitality group Barrio Familia from a single site to five London venues, more than 120 staff and £7m of revenue, then sold it to a national operator. He knows exactly what it feels like to hand over something you built.

Before that he spent years in enterprise data, delivering complex programmes for blue-chip clients, and he remains an operator-investor through Clamshell Capital. The thread through all of it: strong teams, clear operating cadence and businesses that run on trust and good information.

Ferdie leads operations across the group: welcoming each new business in, building the shared services behind it and making sure every promise made at the table is kept once the deal is done.

Backing

Founder-led. Institutionally backed.

EverGrowth is run by its co-founders, with institutional backing for the group’s acquisition programme.

Equity partner

FourLeaf Capital

FourLeaf Capital is a London-based private equity firm led by Managing Partner Robyn Smith. It partners with founder-led businesses in the UK and Ireland, offering flexible capital and a collaborative approach that combines private equity and operational expertise. FourLeaf is backed by cornerstone institutional investment, but partners with Operator Investors (seasoned entrepreneurs and operators) on all its deals, in line with the firm’s ethos of entrepreneurs backing entrepreneurs.

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Debt partner

OakNorth

OakNorth is a UK bank founded by entrepreneurs. It provides senior debt to ambitious, scaling businesses in the lower mid-market, and supports our acquisition programme as the group’s debt partner.

How we behave

Three values. Applied daily.

Transparency

Open, honest communication with owners, employees and partners. Clarity about our intentions and decisions from the first conversation onwards.

Integrity

We do what we say we will. We build rather than break, and we choose long-term stability over short-term extraction, every time.

Respect

A business is people, history and legacy, not just numbers. We honour the work of the founders and teams who built the companies that join us.

Talk to a founder

Deal with the founders.

No gatekeepers. From the first call to completion, you deal directly with the co-founders of the group.

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