The Portfolio | Zed Vakil

( Passion × Purpose )×( eXpertise × eXchange )×( Ownership × Offer )
= (P×O)²

The Portfolio Equation

Multiplied, not added.

Six terms, in three pairs. They multiply rather than add, which is the whole point: one weak term drags the product down, however strong the others are. It is the same argument my Scorecard makes to a founder about their seven foundations, turned on myself.

Passion × PurposeWhy I do it

Being in the room when it is hard. Backing a founder nobody else has backed yet. I collect nice people. Some become clients and all become friends.

eXpertise × eXchangeWhat I know, and who I know

Thirty years across founder, operator, director and investor, and a network that is a revenue term rather than a goodwill one. My last two clients came out of the Forums.

Ownership × OfferWhat I control, and what you can buy

My own vehicle since 2001, my own method and IP, and the right to choose which seat I take. Then the part most portfolio people leave empty: something with a price on it.

The Portfolio Equation © PXO Exchange, worked out with my business partner Mike Richardson.

Level one

Five seats, one hub.

Each of these is a business in its own right, with its own buyers and its own rhythm. The useful question is never how many seats you hold. It is how much of what you do in one of them is worth anything in the others.

Growth partner

Fractional and interim commercial director, CEO and COO. Hands on, inside the business, owning the outcome.

Boards and NED

Non-executive director, board adviser, and the independent voice that holds the executive to account.

PXO and Peer Forums

The movement for portfolio professionals, co-founded with Mike Richardson, and the confidential rooms inside it.

Masterclasses and lecturing

Consultant-quality growth thinking made accessible, affordable and digestible, live and virtual.

Writing and podcasts

Straight Thinking, the Portfolio Life book, and the PXO Exchange Podcast with Mike.

Level two, and the X

What travels.

A list of what you are good at tells you nothing on its own. What matters is how many of your seats each capability earns its place in. Mine, scored honestly. The dot means it sells there. The tag is the term of the Equation doing the heavy lifting.

G Growth partnerB Boards & NEDP PXO & Peer ForumsM Masterclasses & lecturingW Writing & podcasts

The wheelhouse	G	B	P	M	W	X
Growth Foundations diagnosisBusiness Growth Foundations Framework©Offer						5
Value proposition and positioningeXpertise						4
Mentoring, coaching and forum facilitationREF certifiedPassion						4
Board governance and investor readinesseXchange						3
Product-market fit and validationeXpertise						3
Go to market and the commercial engineRelationship Engine©Offer						2
Sales function build and leadershipeXpertise						2
Commercial turnaround and interim commandOwnership						2

What the grid says

One capability scores five out of five. The Growth Foundations diagnosis is the only thing I own that earns its place in every seat I sit in. It is the consulting engagement, the board conversation, the forum session, the masterclass and the article. That is the kernel, and everything else in the portfolio hangs off it.

My best-paid work travels worst. Turnaround and interim command pays the most and earns in two seats out of five, while eating the most time. That is not an argument against doing it. It is an argument against building a portfolio on it.

And the weak one. Go to market is the foundation I would mark lowest in my own business today. The work has always arrived through my network and the companies I already sit in, which is a good problem right up to the point where you want it to be predictable. I am fixing it in public this quarter rather than quietly. If that sounds familiar, it is the same conversation I have with founders most weeks.

Co-founded with Mike Richardson

It is not if you will have a portfolio career. Only when.

PXO Exchange is the movement, the language and the method for portfolio professionals. Mike and I built it because it took me eight years on my own to learn what is written down there in an afternoon. The Manifesto sets out the thinking. The X Check tells you which stage you are at. The Dispatch keeps you posted.

Read the Manifesto Take the X Check The Dispatch The Podcast

Portfolio Peer Forums

As a certified Forum Leader for REF Global I run confidential peer advisory in two settings: with corporate executives here in the UK, and in virtual Portfolio Peer Forums built for portfolio and fractional professionals.

Every leader deserves a personal advisory board. A trusted, confidential room that helps them think clearly about the professional, the personal and the commercial at once. You bring the challenge you cannot take anywhere else. The forum brings perspective, challenge and accountability.

The forum is the room. PXO is the movement around it.

Request an invitation

What it is all for

The dividend.

I wrote these down years before any of the rest of it was drawn. They have not needed changing. Seven outcomes, which is a pleasing rhyme with seven foundations. The inputs multiply, the kernel converts, and this is what is supposed to come out of the other end.

ConfidenceProsperityFinancial independenceServant leadershipCommunityKnowledge sharingMaking a difference

One professional. Many seats.