Client Story: Flourish Research
Building Enterprise Value Through Integrated Leadership, Talent, and Operating Frameworks

Business Context

Flourish Research, a private equity-backed clinical research organization, started to partner with us during an early phase of growth under NMS Capital. As the business scaled nationally through site expansion and acquisition, leadership capability, operating consistency, and succession readiness became critical to sustaining performance and building enterprise value in advance of a future transaction.

Challenge

To support growth and prepare for scale and exit, Flourish needed more than isolated vendors. As the organization expanded and new challenges emerged, they required a partner that could scale alongside the business. This required an integrated, enterprise-level approach to:

• Align strategy, structure, and leadership capability

• Build a deep and credible succession bench across site, regional, and enterprise roles

• Create consistency in decision-making and execution across a multi-site, multi-state platform

• Reduce leadership risk and dependency on external hiring as the organization scaled

• Support integration processes as new acquisitions were onboarded

• Provide strategic leadership advisory for enterprise-wide learning strategy

Our Approach

We partnered with Flourish as a long-term partner and advisor, delivering an integrated set of solutions across strategy, leadership, and talent to support both near-term execution and long-term value creation. Our work included:

• Designing role-specific success profiles and competency models aligned to Flourish’s growth strategy and operating model

• Conducting leadership assessments (Hogan, 360 feedback, behavioral interviews) to evaluate readiness, risk, and development priorities

• Building a structured talent review and succession framework to assess bench strength, calibrate readiness, and inform promotion and hiring decisions

• Launching a 9-month leadership development journey that combined coaching, mentoring, cohort-based learning, and applied action learning tied to business challenges

• Supporting employee engagement survey and post-acquisition integration surveys through engagement diagnostics, alignment workshops, and action planning

• Serving as an executive search and assessment partner for critical roles as the organization expanded

We were called upon as a partner and connected leadership and talent system that reinforced consistent expectations, language, and decision-making across the enterprise.

Value Creation & Impact

The leadership framework became a core enabler of Flourish’s growth strategy and a meaningful contributor to enterprise value. As the organization scaled, Flourish developed:

• A strong and visible leadership bench across key operational and regional roles

• Improved executive alignment and decision-making discipline

• Reduced reliance on external hiring through increased internal readiness

• Operational continuity across sites during rapid expansion

By the time Flourish was acquired by Genstar Capital, the organization had a credible succession story, scalable leadership infrastructure, and an operating framework that supported continued growth. Our integrated approach became a cornerstone of Flourish’s transformation playbook and a supporting element of the successful transaction and value realization for NMS Capital.

We support Flourish in building the leadership, talent, and operating foundation required to scale, execute, and successfully transition to the next phase of ownership, demonstrating how integrated strategy, leadership, and talent practices directly enable enterprise value creation.