Counsel that holds its ground

Clarity, before the decision.

Name: Ivory Summit Reach
Address: 5-30-11 Shiba, Minato Ward, Tokyo, 108-0014, JP
Telephone: +81 3-3456-0711

Strategic counsel for organisations at a turning point. Unhurried, specific, and built to last.

—

Summer light, long and still

A question left on the table

The answer takes its time

About Ivory Summit Reach

Ivory Summit Reach was founded in Tokyo in 2017 by Margaux Ellery, after eleven years in institutional consulting. The name came from a conversation about what good advice actually looks like: reaching the summit of a problem, not just circling it from a comfortable distance. The first client was a third-generation textile manufacturer in the Midlands that had been losing margin for four consecutive years. The work took nine weeks. The answer was not what anyone expected. That engagement set the tone for everything that followed.

The practice grew slowly and deliberately. For the first three years, Margaux took on no more than four engagements annually, preferring depth over volume. A turning point came in the winter of 2020, when two clients in adjacent industries faced the same structural question from different directions. Working through both simultaneously produced a kind of cross-pollination that neither engagement could have achieved alone. Since then, Ivory Summit Reach has maintained a small, stable network of associates, each brought in for specific expertise rather than kept on permanent staff.

How we work

Takes on fewer than eight engagements per year, by design
Every memo is written by Margaux Ellery personally, not delegated
First conversation is always free and always candid about fit
Has declined engagements where the brief was unclear or the timeline unrealistic
Keeps a written record of past recommendations and revisits them
Works with associates on specific expertise, never a permanent bench

Selected work

01 Generational Handover, Midlands ManufacturerA third-generation textile business with 68 employees and declining margins. The engagement ran nine weeks and identified a pricing structure that had not been reviewed in eleven years as the primary source of margin erosion. The recommendation involved a phased price correction and a reduction in the product range from 140 SKUs to 38.
02 Pre-Investment Readiness, B2B Software FounderA founder preparing for a Series A round who needed an independent view of whether the business was structurally ready. The engagement surfaced three governance gaps that would have been raised by any serious investor. All three were addressed before the round opened. The raise completed six months later.
03 Board Composition Review, Professional Services FirmA twelve-partner firm whose board had not changed composition in seven years. We mapped decision-making patterns across eighteen months of board minutes, identified two structural bottlenecks, and recommended a governance redesign that separated operational and strategic oversight. Implemented over one financial year.
04 Market Exit Assessment, Consumer Goods BrandA brand considering withdrawal from two European markets after three years of underperformance. The engagement tested whether the underperformance was structural or executional. It was executional. The recommendation was to stay, change the distribution model, and give it eighteen months. The client followed the recommendation.

〒108-0014 Tokyo, Minato Ward, Shiba, 5-30-11
+81 3-3456-0711
hello@ivorysummitreach.com
Mon-Thu 9-18, Fri 9-14. Closed the last Friday of each month.
Get in touch

News & Announcements

2026-04-10

When Does an Organisation Actually Need External Strategy Counsel?

Most leadership teams are capable of good strategic thinking. The question is not whether they can do it, but whether the conditions inside the organisation allow them to. Internal politics, proximity to the problem, and the pressure to appear decisive all work against the kind of clear-eyed analysis that significant decisions require. External counsel is not a substitute for internal thinking. It is a way of creating the conditions for it.

2026-02-18

How to Read Board Papers as a Critical Independent Director

Board papers are produced under time pressure, by people who are accountable to the board they are writing for. That structural tension shapes what appears in the document and, more importantly, what does not. Reading board papers well is a skill that takes practice, and it is one of the more underrated competencies in governance.

2025-12-05

Founder Transition: What the Planning Documents Leave Out

Succession planning documents are good at covering the structural questions: who takes over which role, what the governance looks like, how the handover is timed. They are less good at the questions that actually make transitions difficult. Those questions are personal, and they tend to surface in the middle of the process rather than at the beginning.

Common questions

Q.How do engagements typically begin?

With a free call, usually forty-five minutes to an hour. We talk through what you are facing, what you have already tried, and what a useful outcome would look like. If there is a fit, we follow up with a written scope within a week. There is no pressure and no follow-up sales call if you decide not to proceed.

Q.Do you work with organisations outside the UK?

Yes. Margaux Ellery splits time between London and Lisbon and has worked with clients in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Portugal. Most of the analytical work happens remotely. We travel for key sessions when it genuinely adds value, not as a default.

Q.What size of organisation do you typically work with?

Mostly between fifteen and three hundred people. Small enough that the leadership team is still closely involved in strategy, large enough that the decisions have real structural weight. We have occasionally worked with smaller founder-led businesses when the question was particularly well-defined.