Insprie
A cross-category line-up of unbranded consumer products, a face cream jar, aluminium shampoo and laundry bottles, effervescent tablets, a vitamin tin, drinks and packaged food on a charcoal surface

Insprie Labs, New Zealand, Australia and the United States, with international growth capability

Businesses rarely have twenty problems.They usually have one constraint creating twenty symptoms.

Insprie works alongside founders, leadership teams, boards and investors when consumer businesses are scaling, transforming or facing a problem that matters. We combine strategy, senior operating capability and execution to help build stronger businesses.

Take the INS/OS DiagnosticTalk to Insprie

For founders

Considering a partner, capital, or a change of gear.

Explore what we do

For investors and boards

A situation that needs operating capability, not just capital.

Read about transformation

For operators

Interested in joining or partnering with Insprie.

Start a conversation

Experience at a glance

40+
Years
Combined operating, entrepreneurial and leadership experience
US$65M+
Capital deployed
Deployed by Insprie principals since 2021
NZ$140M+
Current business revenue exposure
Annualised revenue across current operating, governance and investment interests
20+
International markets
Reached by businesses built and led by the team
4,000+
Retail doors reached
Global retail footprint reached by brands built and led by the team

Selected outcomes

The work is different in every business. The objective is not.

Stronger operations, better economics and businesses built to perform at the next stage. Client work is confidential, so what we publish is the shape of the experience rather than the names attached to it.

International growth

20+

international markets

Experience supporting consumer businesses across New Zealand, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Asia and other international markets.

Retail scale

4,000+

retail doors reached

Experience building and supporting brands across retail, distribution and direct-to-consumer channels.

Capital

US$65M+

capital deployed

Principal capital deployed into consumer and growth businesses since 2021.

Operating exposure

NZ$140M+

current revenue exposure

Current operating, investment and governance exposure across significant consumer businesses.

Transformation

Experience supporting businesses through:

  • Growth
  • Turnaround
  • Operational reset
  • International expansion
  • Leadership change
  • Acquisition and integration

The constraint

The symptoms are rarely the problem.

The visible problem is often downstream of the real constraint.

  • Demand is often the first place performance shows up and the last place it is created. Range, pricing, availability, channel economics and proposition clarity all surface as a sales number.

    Usually involves Demand · Product · Direction

Find your constraint

Different by design

Most advisers stop at the recommendation.

Insprie is designed to stay closer to the outcome.

Traditional adviser

  • Diagnoses the problem
  • Develops recommendations
  • Hands execution back to management

Investor

  • Provides capital
  • Brings governance
  • Relies primarily on management execution

Insprie

  • Helps diagnose the real constraint
  • Brings senior operating capability
  • Works alongside management
  • Executes where required
  • Provides governance and investment perspective
  • Can deploy capital where appropriate
  • Remains accountable to the outcome

Who we are

Insprie is a senior operating partner for ambitious consumer businesses. We work alongside founders, leadership teams, boards and investors on the work that decides whether a business grows, recovers or stalls.

Strategy + Talent + Execution. We bring the capability a business needs at the stage it is at, and stay involved through execution rather than handing over a document.

More involved than an adviser. More accountable than a consultant.

What we do

Eight consumer capabilities, delivered by one senior team.

Consumer businesses rarely have a single problem. We work across the disciplines that determine performance, and apply them in combination rather than in isolation.

01

Strategy & Transformation

Set the direction. Make the difficult decisions. Turn strategy into action.

02

Brand & Consumer

Build brands, products and propositions customers actively choose.

03

Growth & Performance Marketing

Turn attention, customers and marketing investment into measurable growth.

04

Operations & Supply Chain

Build the operational foundations required to scale reliably and profitably.

05

Finance & Commercial Performance

Improve visibility, cash, margins and commercial decision-making.

06

People & Leadership

Put the right leadership, structure and capability around the business.

07

Sales, Retail & International Growth

Open new channels, customers and markets.

08

Capital, Investment & M&A

Prepare, fund, acquire and create long-term value.

Explore what we do →

The Insprie rhythm

How an engagement unfolds.

Every engagement is different. The sequence below is indicative, not prescriptive, offered so founders and boards know what to expect if a conversation progresses.

  1. 01

    First conversation

    Confidential. No obligation. We listen.

  2. 02

    Diligence

    Commercial, operational and cultural review.

  3. 03

    Participation

    Structure agreed. Capital, roles and scope defined.

  4. 04

    Operating involvement

    We work inside the business on agreed areas of execution.

  5. 05

    Exit

    A stronger, more valuable business, prepared for its next chapter.

How we work

Four ways to engage an Insprie operating partner.

The right structure depends on the situation, the pace required and how much of the work the business needs us to carry.

How we work →

01

Advisory

Senior Insprie people working alongside boards, founders and leadership teams on important strategic and commercial issues.

02

Projects

We take responsibility for defined business outcomes.

03

Embedded Leadership

Sometimes a business does not need another consultant. It needs an experienced person inside the business.

04

Investment & Partnership

For a small number of businesses where there is strong strategic alignment, Insprie may invest capital and work alongside the founders as a long-term partner.

Situations we solve

Situations we solve for consumer businesses.

Most conversations start with a specific problem rather than a service line. These are the ones we are asked about most.

All situations →

  1. 01The CEO has resigned.
  2. 02The board isn't functioning.
  3. 03A product recall has landed.
  4. 04Sales are growing but cash is disappearing.
  5. 05The business has outgrown the founder.
  6. 06International expansion isn't working.

Our work

Our work with consumer and CPG brands.

Client work is confidential. These anonymised notes describe the situation, the work and the result, and are published only where the business has cleared them.

Situation note 01

Personal care, New Zealand

Performance improvement

Margin recovered, working capital released from slow-moving stock, and the business able to hold its retail listings without discounting.

Situation note 02

Sustainable consumer products, Australasia

International expansion

A deliberate, margin-led market entry replaced an opportunistic one, with a permanent leadership team in place at handover.

Selected engagements →

INS/OS

Business performance is a system.

Direction, demand, product, delivery, economics and organisation are connected. Improving one dimension while ignoring the constraint elsewhere often makes the problem worse.

01 / Direction

Where are we going, and what matters?

What the business is trying to do, and what it has decided not to do.

Capability that carries this →

Typical symptoms

  • Everything is a priority
  • Board and management are not aligned
  • Resources are spread across too many initiatives
  • Strategy exists on paper but not in the plan

Constraints underneath

  • No agreed definition of what the business is optimising for
  • Market and channel choices never narrowed
  • Capital and attention allocated by history rather than by return
  • Decisions escalate rather than resolve

What we deploy

  • Strategy reset
  • Priority sequencing
  • Resource and capital allocation
  • Board and shareholder alignment
Take the INS/OS DiagnosticExplore INS/OS →

Intelligence

Situation Notes.

Short, practical notes on the situations we are brought into, written for founders, boards and investors rather than for search engines.

Read Intelligence →

The Insprie network

The right people, when they matter.

Rather than maintaining a large consultancy structure, we bring senior specialists into a business by situation, as short-term specialists, fractional executives, interim leaders or permanent appointments.

  • Finance
  • Performance marketing
  • Ecommerce
  • Brand
  • Supply chain
  • Manufacturing
  • Technology
  • Data
  • Sales
  • International expansion
  • Leadership
  • Regulatory
  • Legal
  • Investment
Our people
The Insprie team and network at the AmCham New Zealand awards in Auckland

AmCham New Zealand, Auckland

End to end

From formulation and brand creation through to manufacturing, retail and scale.

We work across the full value chain of a consumer business, product and formulation, brand and packaging, supply and manufacturing, channel and retail execution, and the commercial disciplines that decide whether growth is profitable.

Product formulation in a laboratory, a cream base weighed on a precision balance beside pigment dispersions and sample vials

Formulation and product

Product development, cost of goods and specification

Brand creation in progress, printed colour proofs, a colour chip fan, typographic specimens and blank packaging mock-ups on a studio bench

Brand and packaging

Positioning, identity, structural and graphic design

A consumer goods production line, stainless steel filling and capping machinery running aluminium bottles and glass jars

Manufacturing and supply

Sourcing, production, quality and freight

A premium retail bay with a consumer range merchandised in disciplined blocks across oak and steel shelving

Retail and channel

Range architecture, buyer strategy and execution

Categories we know

Premium unbranded haircare and skincare in aluminium bottles, a frosted glass cream jar, an amber serum dropper and a paperboard carton

Beauty and personal care

Formulation, format and pack economics

Modern unbranded household products, a cobalt aluminium laundry bottle, a charcoal dish liquid, a refillable spray cleaner, effervescent cleaning tablets in glass and a paper refill pouch

Home and cleaning

Refill models, concentrates and freight cost

Unbranded vitamins and functional wellness products, an aluminium supplement tin, a cardboard powder tube, an amber glass bottle, paper sachets and effervescent tablets in glass

Vitamins and wellness

Claims, dosing formats and regulatory fit

Unbranded food and beverage packaging, an aluminium can, a glass functional drink bottle, a paperboard carton, a paper frozen dessert tub and a snack pack

Food and beverage

Compliance, shelf life and channel fit

Repeating rows of unbranded aluminium bottles, vitamin tins and paperboard cartons receding in perspective with shipping trays behind, suggesting production volume

Built for volume, New Zealand, Australia and the United States

Capability at a glance

Depth across the disciplines that decide performance.

8
Capability areas
Strategy through to capital
4
Ways to engage
Advisory, projects, embedded leadership, investment
25+
Years of consumer operating experience
Across the leadership team
AU, US, UK
Priority export markets
Plus selected Asian markets

For founders earlier in the journey

Free tools, courses and playbooks from people who have built consumer businesses.

Business But Better is a free education hub founded by Insprie managing partner Brianne West, drawing on the experience of building and selling Ethique. Written for ambitious, mission-led consumer founders, no paywall, no sales pitch.

Explore Business But Better →

The wider Insprie group

Different businesses. Shared experience and standards.

Insprie sits alongside two specialist businesses that extend the group's capability across brand creation, business ownership and governance.

Each operates independently, with its own purpose, clients and commercial model. Together, they reflect the breadth of experience behind Insprie: building businesses, governing them and working inside them when performance, growth or change demands more.

About the Insprie group →

Incredibrands

Building the next generation of consumer brands.

Incredibrands creates and grows ethical, plastic-free consumer brands designed to achieve meaningful commercial scale. Its first live brand, Incrediballs, is rethinking drinks through plastic-free, dissolvable formats.

Incredibrands gives the wider group direct, current experience in product development, formulation, brand creation, manufacturing, supply chain, go-to-market strategy and the realities of building a consumer business from the ground up.

Explore Incredibrands ↗

Northbridge Governance

Independent judgement when governance affects value.

Northbridge Governance provides principal-led independent director and board advisory support to founder-led, investor-backed and regulated organisations navigating growth, capital, transition, scrutiny or underperformance.

Its work includes independent director and chair appointments, board effectiveness, governance reviews, pre-transaction and pre-IPO governance, board restructuring and sensitive governance interventions. It is a specialist business within the Insprie group that operates independently from Insprie's advisory and investment engagements.

Explore Northbridge Governance ↗

Start a conversation

Tell us what you are building, or what is not working.

We meet founders, leadership teams, boards, investors and advisers with ambitions in consumer. A first conversation costs nothing and commits no one.

Start a conversation