StrategyTutagora · Insight
The three-year plan most owner-led businesses should actually be writing.
Why an honest, narrow plan beats an ambitious, vague one — and what to put in each section.
Read the note
Advisory · Nairobi
Counsel for the people who own what they build.
A boutique advisory firm for owner-led businesses across East Africa. Our deepest practice is schools; we also advise selectively across other owner-led businesses where the fit is right.
Nairobi · Home of the firm
Small by design
We’ve kept the firm small on purpose.
Big enough to deliver. Small enough to stay close.
0
Engagements at a time
never more. Each gets a named partner.
0 mo
Average engagement length
long enough to make change hold.
0%
Renewal to date
every engagement has continued.
0
Office
Nairobi. Engagements across the region.
Engagements across East Africa
Nairobi
Mombasa
Kisumu
Eldoret
Nakuru
Kampala
Dar es Salaam
Arusha
Nairobi
Mombasa
Kisumu
Eldoret
Nakuru
Kampala
Dar es Salaam
Arusha
The practice
Three areas, tightly defined.
We work in three areas only. Most engagements begin with a diagnostic and progress into one or more — in the order they usually need to be addressed.
Practice01
Direction
Decide what the business is for — on the record. Translate aspirations into a credible plan the team can deliver. For schools, this is the three-year academic plan; for other owner-led businesses, the equivalent strategic plan and the cadence behind it.
- —Three-year strategic plan
- —Direction & sequencing
- —Outcomes & accountability
- —Team alignment
Practice02
Operations & Systems
Build the operational spine — staffing, data, finance discipline, and the everyday processes that hold the business together. Where the work calls for it, we draw on tools we have built ourselves; recommendations remain vendor-agnostic.
- —Operations diagnostic
- —Staffing & org design
- —Systems strategy
- —Process design & SOPs
Practice03
Growth
Earn the right customers before the pitch. Positioning, the buyer journey, pricing, and customer-facing communications. For schools this is admissions; for other businesses, the equivalent decision about who you serve and how you reach them.
- —Positioning & messaging
- —Buyer journey redesign
- —Pricing & commercial model
- —Customer-facing brand
Our method
The Three-Question Method.
Every engagement starts with the same three questions. We have not yet met an owner-led business where the work didn’t resolve into one of them.
01
Direction
“What should this business be?”
We work with you on the positioning, the three-year plan, and the difficult sequencing decisions that separate a real strategy from a polished one.
02
Delivery
“How do we actually run it?”
The operational spine that lets the strategy happen — staffing, data, finance, and the unglamorous middle.
03
Demand
“Will the right customers choose us?”
Positioning, the buyer journey, pricing, and customer-facing communications. The trust earned before the pitch.
Selected engagements
Quiet, deliberate work — selected from the current book.
Three illustrative engagements from the current book. Where naming is approved we name; where confidentiality requires it, we don’t — outcomes are real either way.
Capital & OperationsKenya
Xtramiles
Lease structuring and price negotiation on a factory and machinery acquisition; commercial diligence and economic modelling of the equipment.
Scope
4 workstreams
Outcome
Deal closed
→
Strategy & EnrollmentNairobi
Owner-led primary school
Eight-week diagnostic; new three-year plan approved by board; admissions journey rebuilt.
Engagement length
9 months
Outcome
New plan in flight
→
Operations & SystemsCoast Region
Multi-campus school group
Staffing model redesign across two campuses; school MIS strategy; finance discipline restored.
Campuses
2 sites
Status
Embedded delivery
→
What we don’t do
A short list of explicit no’s.
Boutique advisory firms are defined as much by what they decline as by what they accept. These are ours, on the record.
×
We don’t recruit on retainer.
There are firms in Nairobi that do this well. We will recommend them. We will help you decide what kind of person you need first.
×
We don’t sell or build the products we recommend.
We have built tools in adjacent spaces. We will help you decide what to buy and what to do once you have it. We will not have a commercial interest in the answer.
×
We don’t write grant or fundraising applications.
We will help you decide whether external funding is right and shape the strategy a fundraiser then writes against.
×
We don’t take more than four engagements at a time.
If we are at capacity, we will tell you. Most boutique advisory firms quietly take more than they should. We will not.
×
We don’t do tax, accountancy, or audit.
That is regulated work and not what we are. We will refer you to firms we trust if you need it.
×
We don’t take engagements we wouldn’t be proud of.
If we don’t believe we can make a measurable difference for your business, we will say so. The first conversation is the first test.
Counsel for owners who refuse to coast.
A small firm built on close work — the tools we built for schools and owner-led businesses, the engagements we took on, the rooms we were allowed into.
Nairobi · Est. 2023
About Tutagora
Tutagora was founded out of close work with schools and owner-led businesses in East Africa — the tools we built for them, the engagements we took on, and the rooms we were allowed into. We started this practice because we kept watching capable owners with the right intentions and the wrong cadence: brilliant teams, real conviction, and no shared plan for how the next three years should unfold.
The work looks different across sectors. The underlying problem rarely does.
Most advisory firms inherit their assumptions. We are still close enough to question ours.
What clients say
Quiet praise from people we have earned it from.
“
They told us no to two ideas in the first hour. That is when we knew we wanted to work with them.
Board Chair
Established Primary School · Nairobi
“
The diagnostic itself was already worth more than the last consultant we paid for a year.
School Owner
Multi-Campus Group · Coast Region
Insights from the firm
Notes from the work.
GrowthTutagora · Insight
What customers are really evaluating before they sign.
The four questions in their head before they commit — and how to answer each one, whether you sell to parents, procurement teams, or boards.
Read the noteOperationsTutagora · Insight
Why “we lack data” is rarely a data problem.
Most operational systems fail on adoption, not architecture. Fix the human side first.
Read the noteA note from the founder
“Tutagora exists because we kept watching capable owners with the right intentions and the wrong cadence. The firm started in schools — where the problem is most visible and where we have spent the most time — but the underlying work crosses sectors. The firm is small on purpose, opinionated by necessity, and quiet about the work.”
Levitty· Founder, Tutagora
Begin a conversation
Thirty minutes. No slide deck.
One honest conversation.
We ask a handful of pointed questions, share what we are seeing in businesses like yours, and propose work only if we believe we should be the firm to do it.
Contact
Let’s start the conversation.
Tell us a little about the work. We’ll reply within two working days.