Senior business advice for ambitious owners, CEOs and boards who want better performance, stronger growth and strategy that actually gets implemented.
ACTUAL works with ambitious businesses at the point where the next stage requires different thinking.
You might be a founder with one location trying to get out of the day-to-day. You might be growing a multi-site business. Or you might be a CEO looking for experienced commercial thinking around the table.
You don't need to be a big business to benefit from experienced business advice.
And when the business needs to change, the numbers are only part of the story. Successful change depends on understanding people — who can grow with the business, where capability is being held back, where the wrong fit is creating friction, and how to bring people with you.
Running a business is different from advising one.
We've sat in the CEO seat. Managed the P&L. Built teams. Grown businesses. Opened markets. Restructured operations. Worked with boards. Made difficult calls. And been accountable for the result.
Explore what we do →Change management is one of ACTUAL's core strengths.
Strategy can look perfect on paper and still fail if the people, structure and leadership aren't right. Damian brings deep experience leading businesses through growth, restructure, transformation and cultural change — with a particular ability to read people, see potential and identify when a role, structure or individual is holding the business back.
The aim isn't change for the sake of change. It's getting the right people, in the right roles, moving in the same direction.
Explore Change & People →Sometimes the biggest opportunity isn't the obvious one.
ACTUAL brings an independent commercial lens to identify gaps, untapped opportunities and patterns that can be difficult to see from inside the business — then turns those insights into a clear strategic shift and practical action.
It might be an overlooked customer, a new channel, an underperforming part of the business, untapped capability in the team or simply a better way of doing what you already do.
Spot the opportunity. Challenge the thinking. Shift the strategy. Make it happen.
Explore Strategy & Growth →If you think the business can be better, this is where we start.
A focused, senior-level review of the business designed to cut through assumptions and identify what is really driving — or limiting — performance.
Explore the Business Review →ACTUAL gives owners and leadership teams access to CEO and board-level commercial thinking when they need it — without adding another permanent executive salary.
CEO. Operator. Adviser.
Commercial experience earned inside businesses — not from the sidelines.
ACTUAL was created to make practical CEO and operator-level experience accessible to ambitious businesses without the layers of a traditional consulting firm.
More about Damian →Troy Huston
Founder, FUNCTIONS STAFF
Advisory support through the growth of a temp staffing agency to 400+ staff, major New Zealand sporting and music events, and eventual sale.
Tricky Hartley
Founder & Owner, OOO Clothing
Hands-on support from concept through sourcing, product, pricing, website, marketing, operations and go-to-market.
Matt Cameron
Business Owner · Barbershop Group
Support across strategy, people management, sales growth and change — helping Matt operate at a higher level and build a business that no longer needed him constantly in the day-to-day.
Based in Bunbury. Built for businesses across Western Australia.
ACTUAL gives businesses throughout Bunbury and the South West direct access to experienced senior business advice — while working with ambitious owners, CEOs and leadership teams in Perth and across Australia.
You don’t need to go to Perth to get senior-level business advice.
Tell us what you're working through.
You don't need a perfectly defined brief. A confidential conversation is usually the best place to start.
Prefer to write directly? hello@actualbusinessadvisory.com