A DIFFERENT FUTURE FOR
BUSINESS OWNERS STARTS HERE
SIMON AND KATHRYN HAVE EXPERIENCE.
This is the story of why The Headquarters exists and why it’s fundamentally different from every other advisory firm in Australia.
You’ve spent years building something valuable. You employ people. You turn over millions. You’ve created real wealth.
But right now, most of that wealth is trapped inside your business. You can’t access it. You can’t diversify it. You can’t use it to build the life you’ve earned.
We believe there’s a better path.
A path where successful business owners don’t stay trapped by the things they’ve built.
Where they make the transition from operator to investor.
Where they extract wealth while the business keeps running, build diversified portfolios, access deal flow they’d never see on their own, and join a community of peers making the same journey.
A path where being worth millions on paper actually translates to living like it.
That’s the transition The Headquarters helps you make.
We’re not here to help you grow revenue for the sake of it.
We’re here to help you turn what you’ve built into wealth you can actually use.
To help you go from successful operator to sophisticated investor.
To give you the strategic coordination and access that billionaires take for granted.
You’re not a Billionaire… YET.
But you’ve built serious wealth through your business.
And you deserve advisers who’ve actually done what you’re trying to do.
Built By Business Owners Who’ve
Done This Themselves
The Headquarters was founded by Simon Youlton and Kathryn Porritt.
We’re both worth millions. We built that wealth through business. We’ve both made the transition from operator to investor. And we’ve both made expensive mistakes along the way that taught us what actually works.
We built The Headquarters because we kept seeing the same pattern: Successful Australian business owners surrounded by competent advisers, but with nobody who could help them with the most important financial decisions of their lives.
Their accountant had never sold a business. Their financial planner had never structured an exit. Their business coach had never negotiated with buyers.
These business owners were navigating alone. And it was costing them millions in unrealised value.
We knew there was a better way because we’d lived it ourselves.
SIMON
YOULTON
Wealth Strategist & Exit Specialist
THE JOURNEY
Simon started his career in private banking in the UK, launched his first wealth advisory and management firm that experienced rapid growth, before moving into private equity backed businesses, has spent two decades buying, building, and selling multiple businesses in different countries across five sectors.
Not advising on deals. Actually doing them.
His first business purchase was in financial services. He thought he knew what he was doing. He’d analysed hundreds of deals professionally. But when it was his own money on the line, everything was different.
“I made every mistake possible,” Simon recalls. “Overpaid. Missed red flags. Structured the deal inefficiently. The business was good, but my execution was amateur. I learned more from that first deal than from years of investment banking.”
Over the next 15 years, Simon bought, built, and sold over 30 businesses across financial services, professional services, technology, distribution, and mining services. Each transaction taught him something new. By his 20th deal, he could walk into any business and identify what was creating value and what was destroying it within an hour.
Around 2015, other business owners started approaching him for advice. They’d heard about his track record and wanted to know: How did you know when to sell? How did you structure the deal? How did you maximise value?
Simon started advising formally. The results were dramatic. Business owners who implemented his strategies were achieving 30-50% higher valuations than industry averages.
Simon’s Credentials:
30+ businesses personally bought and sold across five sectors
100+ Australian SMEs guided through successful exits
Former investment banker and private equity executive
Board adviser to 20+ organisations
Triple Accredited MBA (AMBA, EQUIS, AACSB)
Cambridge University Pre-Seed to Exit Funding Programme
Oxford University Executive Leadership Programme
Harvard Business School Sustainable Business Strategy
Chartered Manager and Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI)
“The qualifications give you frameworks,” Simon says. “But the transactions teach you reality. You need both to be effective.”
KATHRYN
PORRITT
Growth Strategist & Market Positioning Expert
THE JOURNEY
While Simon was buying and selling businesses, Kathryn was building one from the ground up.
She founded her first 8-figure company in the early 2000s. It became one of Australia’s fastest-growing companies She built it from a one-person operation to a national presence generating significant cash flow.
“Those early years were hard,” Kathryn recalls. “Every dollar mattered. Every client mattered. You make decisions differently when your life savings are on the line.”
Around year nine, Kathryn started thinking about what came next. She had an accountant who was brilliant at tax. A financial planner who managed her super. A lawyer who could draft any document. But when she asked the fundamental question, “What is my business actually worth, and how do I extract maximum value from it?”, nobody could answer.
“I’d spent nine years building value. I had no strategy for capturing it.”
When Kathryn eventually sold, she did well. But she also knew she’d left money on the table. Probably significant money. Because she didn’t know what she didn’t know.
That experience became the foundation for her next chapter. She launched her second multi-million dollar venture. This time, she started working with other business owners, helping them see hidden value and position for premium outcomes. The results were extraordinary. Business owners who worked with Kathryn before they needed to exit were achieving significantly higher valuations than those who waited. Her proven record in positioning, growth and pricing sets her apart.
Kathryn’s unique strength lies in seeing hidden value and creating strategic positioning:
Major Achievements:
“The difference between a $5 million exit and an $8 million exit often isn’t the business,” Kathryn explains. “It’s the positioning. How you present it. What story you tell. What buyers see when they evaluate you.
That’s where most business owners leave millions on the table.”
WHEN TWO PATHS CONVERGE
Simon and Kathryn met through a mutual client in Western Australia.
The client needed something that didn’t exist: someone who understood both deal execution and operational transformation. Most advisers offer one or the other. Never both.
They collaborated on that client’s business. The outcome was extraordinary. And they kept having the same conversation afterwards.
Everywhere they looked, they saw successful Australian business owners building significant wealth through their businesses, but surrounded by advisers who couldn’t help them extract maximum value from it.
“We’d both made expensive mistakes in our own journeys,” Kathryn reflects. “Simon in his early deals. Me in my exit. We’d both learned what worked, the hard way. We built The Headquarters so business owners could benefit from our experience without repeating our mistakes.”
Simon and Kathryn now work together to focus on creating extraordinary value that simply doesn’t exist anywhere but in
The Headquarters:
KATHRYN’S FOCUS:
WE ARE UNLIKE ANYONE ELSE
Your accountant has never sold a business. Your financial planner has never structured an exit. Your business coach has never negotiated with buyers.
They’re all good at what they do. But none of them has actually done what you’re trying to do.
We have.
We’ve built businesses. We’ve sold businesses. We’ve bought businesses. We’ve extracted wealth. We’ve deployed capital. We’ve made the transition from operator to investor ourselves.
And we’ve helped over 100 Australian business owners do the same.
We Work Alongside Your Existing Advisers
We don’t replace your accountant or your financial planner or your lawyer. We fill the strategic gap that exists between them.
Your accountant sees tax. Your financial planner sees super and investments. Your lawyer sees structures and contracts. We see how it all fits together. And we ask the questions none of them are asking:
What is this business actually worth? How do I unlock that wealth? What are my real options? How do I make the transition from operator to investor?
We bring the strategic oversight that coordinates all the pieces.
You Get Access To Deal Flow You’d Never See On Your Own
We don’t replace your accountant or your financial planner or your lawyer. We fill the strategic gap that exists between them.
Your accountant sees tax. Your financial planner sees super and investments. Your lawyer sees structures and contracts. We see how it all fits together. And we ask the questions none of them are asking:
What is this business actually worth? How do I unlock that wealth? What are my real options? How do I make the transition from operator to investor?
We bring the strategic oversight that coordinates all the pieces.
You Join A Community Of Business Owners Making The Same Transition
You’re not just a client. You’re part of a network of business owners who’ve built serious wealth through business and are now deploying it strategically.
Co-investment opportunities. Shared deal flow. Peer support from people who understand exactly what you’re navigating.
This is how sophisticated wealth gets built. And it’s available to you.
HOW THE HEADQUARTERS WORKS
The Headquarters operates as an integrated family office across three divisions. Each office addresses a critical stage in building and preserving wealth as a business owner.
This structure isn’t arbitrary. It reflects how wealth actually moves through a business owner’s life:
Understanding your complete wealth position (Owner's Office)
Positioning your business for maximum optionality (Business Office)
Deploying capital beyond your core business (Investment Office)
Most business owners need all three – just at different times.
THE OWNER’S OFFICE
Before we can maximise your business value, we need complete clarity on your current wealth position.
The Owner's Office reveals what your business is actually worth, identifies where capital is trapped, and uncovers entity structure inefficiencies. This is your complete wealth audit, conducted by people who've extracted wealth from their own businesses.
We look at your situation through the lens of operators who've made the transition to investor. That's completely different from traditional financial planning.
THE BUSINESS OFFICE
This is where we position your business so you have genuine options: exit for maximum value, bring in investment, transition to management, or acquire competitors.
We don't just help you grow revenue. We build the value drivers that sophisticated buyers pay premiums for. We prepare you to capture 30-50% more than you would without strategic positioning.
Whether you're exiting in 2 years or 10, the work starts now.
THE INVESTMENT OFFICE
Once you've extracted wealth from your business, you need somewhere sophisticated to deploy it.
The Investment Office gives you access to pre-vetted investment opportunities in Australian businesses. Direct investments, not managed funds. The kind of deals that institutional investors and family offices see, made available to business owners like you.
You invest alongside other business owners making the same transition. You build a portfolio that works as hard as you did building your business.
The Headquarters is built on a simple philosophy: Business owners deserve advisers who’ve actually done what they’re trying to do.
Not people who’ve read about it in textbooks. Not consultants who’ve advised on deals but never executed them. Not financial planners who understand portfolios but not businesses.
Advisers who’ve sat in the founder’s chair. Made the hard decisions. Negotiated the deals. Extracted the wealth. Deployed it successfully.
“When we’re advising on positioning for exit, we’re not theorising,” Kathryn says. “We’ve done it.”
“When I’m structuring a deal, I’m not consulting,” Simon adds. “I’m drawing on 30+ transactions where it was my money on the line.”
That changes everything.
Start with clarity on what your business is actually worth – and what strategic moves would maximise that value.
45 MINUTES • ZERO OBLIGATION • SPEAK WITH THE TEAM THAT WORKS WITH BUSINESSES LIKE YOURS EVERY DAY