Services
Four practices. One counterpart.
Advisory, family office, private capital — then AI transition, after we have established what should not be done at all.
I · Twenty-five years in the room
Advisory
Jaco has spent more than twenty-five years in retail and investment banking, private equity and the unglamorous work of making a number stand up. We sit with boards, operators and deal teams who want a counterpart, not a slide factory. Financial due diligence is a core practice — including work for some of South Africa’s largest institutions.
- Financial due diligence and transaction support, including for some of South Africa’s largest institutions
- Operating-model, credit and transformation work for owner-managed and mid-market firms
- Board and non-executive counsel
- Cross-border work: United Kingdom, South Africa, Jersey, Mauritius and Switzerland
- Defined engagements. A start, a middle, a finish.
II · When the mandate is the whole house
Family office
Some mandates are a family, not a company. We take those when the fit is right. The work is structure, reporting a principal will actually read, and the planning of capital across borders — the United Kingdom, South Africa, Jersey, Mauritius and Switzerland are rooms we already know: capital flows, trusts, and family-office architecture.
- Operating model, governance and reporting a principal can use
- Trusts and holding structures across the UK, Jersey, Mauritius and Switzerland
- Capital-flow planning between those seats and South Africa
- Coordination across advisers, banks and operating companies
- Succession and the slow work of stewardship. Taken on sparingly. Kept private.
III · Not only a cheque
Private capital
Cowbell advises. Exalt Capital, where Jaco is a director, is more than a funder. It is a private-equity house with its own startup incubator: companies founded within Exalt, as well as capital and hands-on partnership for ambitious operators. Where a business needs money, a home, or both, we do not pretend Cowbell is a fund. We walk the work across the corridor.
- A startup incubator: businesses started inside Exalt, not merely introduced to it
- Private equity, growth capital and founder-side support
- Value-unlock work ahead of capital — the business should be fundable, not merely hungry
- Origination and diligence with the discipline to decline
- See exaltcapital.co.za for how Exalt builds, backs and incubates
IV · Do not automate what you can remove
AI transition
Most professional firms have a ChatGPT tab and a strategy deck. That is not a transition. We start with the as-is: how the work actually runs. Then a Lean Six Sigma pass to establish what should not be done at all. Design from first principles. Only then does a machine get near what remains. No theatre. No forty-person programme.
- As-is assessment of processes and ways of working — as they run, not as the SOP claims
- Lean Six Sigma discipline: waste, rework, steps that exist because they always have
- First-principles redesign. Do not automate what you can remove
- AI on the remainder — one workflow made ordinary before the next is attempted
- Governance, client confidentiality, and a P&L that actually moves
The method
Assessment first. Automation last.
01
As-is
Map the processes and ways of working as they actually run — not as the handbook says they run. Time, hand-offs, exceptions, the work that lives in someone’s head.
02
What should not exist
A Lean Six Sigma pass. Waste, rework, duplicate control, steps that survive from a previous era. The question is not how to speed them up. It is whether they should be done at all.
03
First principles
Do not automate what you can remove. Rebuild the work as it should be, with the people who still have to stand behind it.
04
Then the machine
AI on what is left. One workflow at a time, until it is ordinary. Governance and confidentiality from the first pilot — not as an appendix.
Geographies
Capital flows, trusts, family-office planning.
We work cross-border in rooms we already know — not as a stamp in a passport, but because the structures, the banks and the law are familiar.
United Kingdom
The London house. Advisory, family office and the City conversation.
South Africa
Banking, private capital, operating businesses and cross-border flows.
Jersey
Trusts, holding structures, capital that needs a Channel Island seat.
Mauritius
Africa-facing structures and the movement of capital.
Switzerland
Private-client, banking and family-office planning.
For
Who we sit with
- Boards and operators who want a financial counterpart, not a slide factory.
- Families and principals whose capital moves between the UK, South Africa, Jersey, Mauritius and Switzerland.
- Founders who need capital, or a company started inside an incubator — not only a cheque.
- Service firms ready to strip waste before they buy a tool.
Not for
What we will decline
- We do not sell funds, model portfolios, or an assets-under-management story.
- AI bolted onto a process that should have been removed.
- Mandates that want a factory, a brand stamp, or a junior team.
- Work that requires an authorised firm we are not — we will say so.
If the fit is right, begin with a note.
Tell us which practice you need, or that you are not yet sure. That is a perfectly good first sentence.