Strategic Capital Advisory

I work with founders
at the moments that define
their business.

Capital, growth and exit decisions for consumer and service-led businesses turning over $5M–$100M.

Start a conversation The story

9 yrsas CFO

$10M → $80Mnet revenue scaled

$500M+exit to Lion, 2021

Selected clients

The gap

Most businesses I meet are brilliant at the product or the brand. Fewer have real clarity on where it's all heading.

How much to raise, and when. How to structure debt and equity so it actually works for the business, not just whoever's writing the cheque. Which growth decision to make first. And what exit is actually being built toward, rather than whichever one the business happens to end up with. That's the gap this exists to close.

The Long Game is about the outcome that still matters in five years — not the deal that closes this quarter.

The story

Nine years inside a business that scaled, sold, and kept growing.

Nine years as part of the founding leadership team at Stone & Wood and the Fermentum Group, serving as CFO through the run from $10 million to $80 million in net revenue.

In late 2021, led the sale to global brewery Lion for over $500 million — then stayed on for two years of post-acquisition integration, watching the business continue scaling to $120 million from the inside.

Experience on both sides of a major exit is rare. Most advisors have only seen one side of that table. That perspective — value creation, capital structuring, stakeholder alignment, and deal execution, lived rather than studied — is what founders get access to now.

Chris Pensabene, founder of Long Game Advisory

How I work

The plan comes first. Everything else follows from it.

01

Start with the plan

A clear financial plan that tells the real story of the business — the thing every growth and capital decision gets tested against from there on.
02

Capital, structure and operations

Capital decisions, commercial decisions, finance operations, AI-driven efficiency. What actually comes next depends on the business, not a fixed menu of services.
03

Get exit-ready long before there's a buyer

Pre due diligence work, sometimes years out, so that when a sale process does start it runs clean instead of turning up problems halfway through.

Each engagement gets the same level of attention, supported by an experienced commercial leader with the same Stone & Wood pedigree when it calls for it.

Services

Where the work actually happens.

Financial planning & decision architecture

The plan that everything else gets measured against.

Capital decision-making

Capital raising and sourcing debt, with the structure set up so the terms actually suit the business rather than just the person writing the cheque.

Commercial decision-making

Pricing, contracts and partnerships, worked through alongside the financial plan rather than in isolation.

Finance operations & efficiency

Increasingly with AI doing the heavy lifting on reporting, so the time goes into decisions instead.

Exit preparation & execution

Pre due diligence work to get the business clean well before a process starts, through to the first conversation with a buyer and a signed, settled deal.

Fractional CFO support

Embedded finance leadership on an ongoing basis, for businesses that need more than a single engagement — often running alongside a raise, a scale-up, or the lead-up to an exit.

Selected experience

Consumer and service-led businesses, national reach.

Case in point

Loco Love — engaged to build the financial plan and lead pre due diligence, closely supporting the founder through every decision, while running the sale process as advisor through to a successful exit to Light Warrior.

Sydney · Melbourne · Byron Bay · nationally Founded 2022

Get in contact for a direct conversation.

Byron Bay based, working with founders and leadership teams nationally. If the timing and the fit are right, reach out directly, referral or not.

chris@longgameadvisory.com.au

0407 319 086 Byron Bay, NSW — national reach

I work with founders at the moments that define their business.