We work with business owners to develop and implement customised business growth plans suited to their circumstances and ambitions. We do so at scale, using our proprietary Asset of Value methodology delivered by our accredited facilitators, supported by technology.
We work with business owners directly and indirectly, through investors, professionals, organisations and governments that recognise their value and wish for them to survive and thrive.
An Asset of Value is a business that demonstrates the following attributes:
FOUNDING
Aurik emerged from the direct learnings of the founders who started, built and sold 12 businesses in 9 years. Two listed on the Stock Exchange, two failed and eight were sold through management buyouts and sales to corporate buyers.
The portfolio yielded an IRR of 44.5%. A good return. Most valuably, the last handful of businesses took 35% of the investment and half the time to build to the same value of the first few.
A deep analysis of why and how this happened led to the development of a systematic approach to building growth and value in a business in the shortest period of time.
The proprietary method, originated through this direct experience, uses 207 activities, organised into logical, implementable, measured sequences to build out a business by accelerating growth and increasing profitability in a significantly sorter time period.
This experience and insight led to the development of the Aurik method, a structured, systematic business building approach that builds a business into an Asset of Value™.
Aurik has since worked with over 2 500 businesses across 4 continents to accelerate their growth and deepen value.
We build businesses as an investment in our future.
Aurik Founders
Pavlo Phitidis
CEO
As an entrepreneur and investor, Pavlo offers over 25 years of direct experience in conceptualising and building businesses across four continents. He has developed and brought to market business assets in excess of $400m through a combination of business start-ups, turnarounds, sales and acquisitions.
Using his hands-on experience, business capabilities and relationship networks, he continues to support the growth of business owners through Aurik Investment Holdings, a venture capital business growth service that works with established business owners to build their businesses into Assets of Value. Through Aurik Pavlo has worked with over 2,000 small to medium businesses across all sectors of the economy providing him with a cross-continent and sectorial view that serves to troubleshoot growth dilemmas and valuation insights for his clients.
Pavlo is both an author and keynote speaker. His book, Sweat Scale Sell is an audaciously optimistic playbook on how any business owner can find growth in a low-growth economy and changing business environment. He speaks at local and international business conferences on business investment and growth, winning business mindsets and innovation.
Carien Engelbrecht
CEO
After a stint in corporate finance, Carien spent nine years leading and managing billion Dollar supply chains for big infrastructure projects in Africa and India. Fundamental to the projects was the establishment of extensive, reliable small-medium business suppliers. Sourcing, selecting and supporting the ability to scale the delivery of their products and services was Carien’s key area of success.
Carien joined Aurik as a co-founder in its second year of establishment and directly started, built and sold seven businesses across the technology, media, business services and food sectors. Carien leads the continuous development of the Aurik business model globally, incorporating digital, smart technology with empathetic scaling practices. This has enabled Aurik to maintain the quality and impact measures on client engagements and delivery of services across four continents. In addition, Carien troubleshoots growth problems with Aurik clients generating annual revenues in excess of $5m.
Carien holds a B.Proc in Law (WITS), a Postgraduate Diploma in Policy and Management (WITS) and a Master’s in Business Administration in Strategy and Technology from Wits Business School.
Aurik Team
Why?
Good business IS good society
We believe that business is a force for good. Businesses build people, communities, products and innovations, shaping and organising society. It is our privilege and obsession to build better businesses that hold the capacity to have a positive impact – and leave a legacy for their founders and the future.
Courage is vital to start a business.
Creativity is necessary to succeed in a competitive, noisy market.
Care is essential to build a sustainable business in service of all who rely on it: family, staff, suppliers, customers, governments and society.
It’s these qualities that we believe should be celebrated as the pinnacle of human endeavour. As the most common business type, SME owners should be celebrated as the heroes and celebrities of society.
A vibrant, growing SME sector is fundamental to the success and survival of any economy and nation.
Established SME’s are the engines of job creation and employment and often provide the fastest growth rates in tax receipts to government authorities. In addition, because of intensive competition, SME’s are constantly compelled to innovate, devising new solutions which benefit society.
Aurik’s co-founder witnessed family members initially succeed but finally fail at building a business, despite doing everything right. Each had committed 4 decades to building their respective businesses. They lived in service and sacrifice to their staff, suppliers, customers and regulatory authorities. They persistently committed and contributed to their sectors, peers and their communities. The anticipated capital exit, which had seen them invest consistently and deeply into their businesses, did not happen.
The fact that 94.6% of businesses started fail to sell means that it’s not personal, it’s endemic. And this is a problem worth solving!
WHO?
Vision
To dramatically improve the success of business owners and through that, contribute to a better, fairer world for all.
Mission
Values
Ideas, People and Action, deliver Value
- Ideas (Innovation & tenacity)
- People (Passion & purpose)
- Action (Practical & action orientated)
- Value (Quality & impact)
Ideas are an entrepreneur’s currency; execution is their wealth.
We work with and shape the ideas that enable business owners, their teams to drive, lead and engineer their business performance.
Our teams, collaborators and stakeholders to innovate, challenge and shape both dialogue and action to engineer business performance and fuel the SME growth ecosystem to the benefit of all. Being open to ideas, non-attached, but focused on their pragmatic execution, we work with our team, clients, collaborators to find truth in action.
Working with you to identify new ways, to present fresh perspectives, to question, challenge and probe your current systems and processes, we co-create the path for your business growth.
Business is about people. The courage, creativity and care it takes to build a business tests any individual to their extreme. Rejection and failure, the loneliness and isolation as well as the aggression from competition feed a consistent and growing self-doubt. In other moments, the thrill and celebration of an opportunity presented or created, acted on and won, the acknowledgement of self and skill and the nod of approval from customers feed the optimism that you and your creation are having an impact.
We have been there, and we are there. We are present, positive and offer no judgement or diminishment. We encourage, support, and focus on you, the business owner to take control, own it and craft the future through your business. We respect the courage, admire the creativity and walk the path of care with you, to triumph at the end of a life’s work.
Being entrepreneurs working with entrepreneurs, empathy is our greatest attribute. Working hard to get the best out of people is part of our DNA since we ourselves have pushed ourselves to our limits to succeed.
Entrepreneurs have a bias for action, for making things happen, for concretising ideas. Building a business requires trying, testing, iterating and finding a path that takes you and your business forward. It’s not comfortable. We say truth is found in action, you have to ‘do’ to grow and together we implement the activities required to build your Asset of Value.
We strive to create value and leave those that we engaged with in a definitively better condition, place and space. Be it the business owner, their business, our team, suppliers and collaborators, we measure our engagements against defined quality ratings that look to the experience or lived reality of the recipient.
For clients: their service experience; in business: the growth impact; for employees: their meaning and advancement; for suppliers: their stretch and collaboration; and in society: opportunity, contribution and pride.
Aurik means Trivalency, the action of combining three elements together in an alchemical process to create gold, the symbol of value. Through People, Ideas and Action, we create Value
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ASSOCIATES & ACCREDITATIONS
We are obsessed with supporting the entrepreneurial agenda, its people and its businesses. We have witnessed the ability of the entrepreneurial endeavour to solve problems, improve society, reward risk and stabilise an economy. We work with organisations that share our passion.
