Steven Lipchin
Director
Steven brings Board experience from over thirty private companies, across South Africa, the US and Australia to the team at Board Approach. He specialises in helping “big little companies” on their journey toward becoming “little big companies”. He loves to work with authentic, collaborative CEOs and Boards that promote a culture of innovation, inclusiveness, flexibility, and meritocracy.
Throughout his work across continents, Steven has spent time honing his corporate experience across industries such as financial services, manufacturing, branded consumer goods, software & technology, specialist retail, business services and food & beverage. This vast experience across such a wide range of industries has provided Steven with strong networks in the capital and corporate markets in Australia, the U.S. and Europe.
Starting out as a financial analyst, Steven grew his commercial knowledge through his decades of involvement and leadership roles in all aspects of the institutional private equity industry and private company investment landscape. He founded his own private equity firm in 1991 at the age of 27 when the industry was in its nascency. Thirty years later, in 2020, Steven co-founded Collaborative Australia Private Equity (Cape) Ventures. Whilst successfully managing Cape Ventures, Steven also currently sits on multiple boards articulating and improving alignment between all stakeholders.
Great businesses can withstand market adversity and ineffective management (over the long term, most companies will, from time to time, be led by an ineffective CEO). Steven works on building resilience, adaptability and competitive advantage in the companies he works with.
Steven now sits on several successful Boards, bringing his partnership style approach to investment and his authentic company builder mindset to Boards.
See below some sample case studies from Boards chaired by one of the founders, Michael Givoni using the methodology outlined in his recently published book: Uncommon Sense
The board identified that a staged exit or sell down of the families equity was the best option to allow the business to continue to grow beyond its family business heritage. We recruited a seasoned CEO, who had a solid reputation within the investment community, to navigate the business through an inevitable transaction.
In 2015, two PE firms (Square Peg and Five V) invested in the business, and the business continues to go from strength to strength to this day.
Once the Board addressed the executive bench strength issues, we were then able to focus on business growth objectives and store rollout. By 2021, RSEA had built a network of over 70 stores and acquired a business to fast track entry into New Zealand. The business continues to go from strength to strength.
The Board set an objective of having 50% of revenue from branded products within 5 years with less reliance on contract manufacturing (at the time in 2019, branded products were less than 20%).
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