Our love of food unites us.
We are trusted strategists and practitioners
With a combined experience of over 125 years, and knowledge developed across FTSE 100 Global Enterprises, through to early stage start ups and scaling businesses, we have a true blue chip pedigree with the ability to provide a safe pair of hands to collaborate at all levels.
We cover the full value chain to bring a truly unique offer by spanning the key elements any business needs to start, scale and grow to realise their ambition and vision.
Our team offer a low overhead, high value service providing the skills and know-how into key functions such as sales, marketing, customer service, product development, operations, supply chain and finance.
The Founders
Jo Wren
A knowledgeable, respected and highly productive senior commercial marketing professional - dynamic, inquisitive, considerate and well organised. Many decades of experience founded in the food and drink industry.
Specialist skillset spanning Product, Brand, Category, Shopper and Retail Marketing working within the largest retailer in the UK. Expansive sales and marketing career Including change management focusing upon structure, ways of working, enabling systems, data and strategic development into practise.
Exceptional stakeholder and solid project management abilities, collaboratively and cross functionally delivering on time and within budget.
Worked within several large well known FTSE 100 organisations right through to scaling SME’s and incubating start ups, primarily within Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) with a keen focus upon food and drinks, consumer durables, retail and healthcare. Balancing with time spent learning and volunteering within the social care and charity sectors.
David Matthews
Unmistakeable expertise gained within the food sector through managing supply chains for small entrepreneurs to blue chip corporations. Working at executive level from procurement through manufacturing to distribution, as well as managing new product development and quality.
Trusted by business leaders in different business phases from growth to turnaround and restructuring with a record of applying wide understanding and quick thinking to address commercial issues, delivering what customers and consumers need.
Delivering continuous improvement in safety, quality, service and profit.
Yuval Salomi
Successful track record of building collaborative relationships and equipping business leaders with in-depth analysis and insights to enable them to confidently make decisions about their direction. Strong leadership skills and commercial instincts combine to bring a particular focus on efficiency, profitability, system integration and an understanding of how to create value in a business.
Works closely with all stakeholders to identify the key aspects that underpin the vision of a business, translate this into a growth plan and provide support to deliver. Uses the right tech tool to build a useful forecast and effectively track performance against it, advising on various metrics, capital structure or investment needed to fund it.
A wealth of experience in tax planning to look at the bigger picture and consider wider issues. including Research and Development, VAT, Capital Gains, Inheritance Tax, Income tax and Corporation Tax.
Who we’ve worked with
Our “partners in good”
Collaborating with the right people is crucial to our business, and brings together a “good squad” to collectively get the job done across the value chain and into the right channel for you - from field to fork.
-
AssociateFood business entrepreneur and founder of one of the UK’s first online food/home delivery services for local products.
Business Development mentor and coach with sector expertise in regonal and speciality food.
Highly experienced in Strategy, Route to Market, Sales and marketing, Brand development, Product development to ‘retail ready’, Export and Import, SME Business Management.
Demonstrable experience in key food and drink sectors focusing upon UK Farm Shop and Deli, UK Distributor Network, Garden Centre and Food Hall Key Accounts, Tier 1 Multiples – Enterprise Food/The Coop, The Southern Coop, Waitrose.
Respected Business Mentor and Performance Coach with extensive track record supporting larger SMEs to start-up, grow and make the positive changes they want for themselves and for their business. 25+ years’ experience, including as Founder of a successful online local and speciality food company.
-
Associate
A career of thirty years working with Special Educational Needs & Disabilities and a love of all things local gives Andrew a passion for enabling employment and creating inclusivity. A former educator and now a wellbeing coach, he works with employers, businesses, and the public and third sector developing policy, coaching adoption and delivering change.
Working as Diversity, Inclusivity and Equality advisor, Andrew supports businesses to promote & enable inclusion within the workspace - with benefits for multiple stakeholders. There is real potential for the food industry to access and develop an engaged workforce from food production to training kitchens and restaurants.
-
Associate
Brings a breadth of commercial experience gained in food & drink businesses across sales, category and shopper marketing and revenue and marketing strategy.
Supports the successful market entry of new and challenger brands, finding the best channels and striving for sustainable growth by keeping customer and consumer front of mind.
Georgina collaborates to find successes that work for all stakeholders because everything is “better together”.
-
Associate and advisor to the boardA change management professional working at the forefront of organisational transformation. His facilitative approach links the three key elements of purpose, people and process as he believes all of these are necessary for sustainable organisational and personal change.
Following 10 years in technical and operations management positions predominantly but not exclusively within manufacturing, Jason joined the start-up team of what is now a large commercial consultancy.
With more than 20 years in business improvement and strategic coaching, he brings hands-on experience to the complexities of organisational change with a people-focussed approach that ensures sustainable systemic change.
He now focusses his experience helping organisations that are committed to building a more resilient future both for people and the planet.
-
Associate
With over 30 years global experience within the FMCG arena, operating at Board level for 20 years, in food and non food, brands and retailer brands, working at all levels from Sales Executive, Regional Sales Manager through National Accounts to Sales Director and also Managing Director.
Always striving to help businesses develop and implement sales strategies, leading to sustained profitable growth working within Multi-channel Retail and Food Service.
-
Associate
A creative and vastly experienced chef with over 28 years experience developing award winning recipes for food service including award winning restaurants and hotel groups, as well as renowned retailers -working with leading food manufacturing companies across the UK and globally.
Sanjay always has an eye upon disciplined execution to deliver profitable and sustainable growth - whilst ensuring the use of the right systems and procedures, managing costs, creating robust nutritional guidelines, sourcing the right ingredients from approved suppliers and inspiring ownership from the team he works with to bring successful products to market.
What makes Maia Growth Partners different?
We are a people business and it’s all about using the human mind to solve problems whilst keeping the whole process simplified, focused and connected. We bring the human touch to a digital world and ensure you are fit for future.
The conscious mind
Getting to know you, the team, and the business, seeking clarity around your motivations and what you need to achieve whilst engaging the people to be involved
The curious mind
Asking the right questions, challenging appropriately with purpose and respect, being the catalyst to learning faster than the world is changing around. Defining a strategy which will more than stand its ground, and the test of time.
The creative mind
Harnessing and honing the creative thinking in a world of distraction, enabling you to get to the right plan of action, and to continue the inspirational ideation for future.
The collaborative mind
Building the right network of connections to stress test thinking, review progress and fuel growth through evolution.
When it comes down to it, every business is a people business, but in today’s world we need technology to blend in with our way of working – digital is most definitely part of our future, and there are ways to definitively build this into the overall “human to human” experience.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards.
So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future.
You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”
“Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference.”