Workplace repair experts you can trust to tell you the truth about what is going on in your organisation, and repair what we find.

Maybe you landed here because something serious has happened inside your organisation: an investigation, a governance failure, a leadership departure. Perhaps because nothing has happened at all, but the pressure simply won’t let up. Either way: what do you do next?

Sometimes there is an event to point at. Sometimes there is a regulator who has not gone away, a membership that has stopped taking your word for it, a chief executive succession that divided the board and was never spoken of again.

What pressure leaves behind is internal damage: the conditions between the people who govern together stop holding. Candour goes first, then scrutiny, then the willingness to own a decision collectively. None of it appears in the papers, and it does not lift on its own, because nothing in the ordinary running of an institution is built to repair it.

Repair is a discipline. We work in special situations only: after an investigation, an inquiry, or a critical review has concluded; through regulatory enforcement; after a contentious departure or a disputed succession; and where sustained pressure has worn the institution down without a single event to point at. We enter when the lawyers have finished, typically three to eight months on.

"A board does not fall apart in one fell swoop. Small rebellions chip away at the commitments made until there is little left to salvage."

Leah Brown FRSA, The Fixer

What we do

Every institution states what it expects of itself: in its charter, its strategy, its standards, the terms it holds its members to. Integrity is fidelity to those commitments. It is not a virtue, and it is not a judgement on anyone’s character; it is the question of whether an institution’s conduct and its word are the same thing.

Under sustained pressure, they separate. That separation is the internal damage we repair. We work across three connected areas. You do not move through them in a fixed order; you start wherever the need is greatest.

ADVISE Confidential counsel for the chair, the chief executive, and the board on what has actually happened inside the institution and what it will take to put right. Legally informed, and delivered by people who have sat on both sides of the table.

ASSESS  Evidence, before you commit to a course of action. Our proprietary instruments, including Board ORI®, establish what the board expected of itself, how it behaved through the period in question, and how it behaves now; each reported on its own, never combined into a score that hides what you need to see. 

REPAIR  A structured restorative process, facilitated with the people involved rather than imposed on them, legally informed and trauma-informed, following the WayFinders® Method. It meets you where you are at. 

Who we work with

Chairs, chief executives, senior independent directors, and executive committees of regulated bodies, member and profession-led organisations, mutuals, housing associations, financial services firms, sporting bodies, and publicly funded institutions.

We also work alongside the crisis communications firms, law firms, and governance advisers whose client has finished the inquiry and still cannot get the board working. We do not repeat that work. We pick up what it does not touch: which decisions have stalled, which relationships have not recovered, and whether the people at the top still trust one another enough to govern.

How engagements work

Every engagement starts with a confidential conversation, so we understand what actually happened before we scope anything. From there, work is matched to the seniority and scale of the situation, drawing on a panel of senior repair practitioners, each of whom are accredited mediators.

Engagements are project-based or retained, and priced individually once we understand what is involved; no two situations are alike. They represent a serious investment, typically five figures. Advisory work can begin within days. Repair starts with us and ends with you.

Boards do not fail because their directors lack integrity. They fail because the room provides inadequate space for your unease to find out whether it is shared by anyone else."

Leah Brown FRSA, The Fixer

Trusted by the rooms that matter

We do not publish a client list. We do not name the institutions we work with, in pitches, on this website, or anywhere else, and we only use case studies with express permission.

The chairs and chief executives who call us do so because what they say goes no further, and that holds after the engagement ends as firmly as during it.

What we do publish is our thinking. Every Friday, in The Fixer, we examine what happens when organisations under pressure treat internal damage after a disruptive event as something insignificant that will right itself. Each edition includes an essay, a watchlist, and a dilemma. Sometimes uncomfortable, always useful.

Read by 6,500+ chairs, chief executives, non-executives, lawyers, communications leaders, and charity leaders.

Founder

Our work is led by Leah Brown FRSA

Leah Brown FRSA is a qualified solicitor, former M&A lawyer, and accredited mediator who has spent her career at the intersection of high-stakes deals, disputes, and damage to integrity they leave behind.

She founded The WayFinders Group®️in 2023 after discovering that organisations consistently need more than legal advice or crisis management: they need repair.

She spent three years on the faculty of the Society of Mediators, became a guest lecturer in conflict resolution, a TrustBuilder practitioner and a TEDx speaker while perfecting WayFinders®️ restorative methodology. She authored the white paper From harm to healing: rebuilding trust in Britain’s publicly funded institutions in 2025. The Organisational Repair Index®️ followed in 2026 and our flagship instrument, the Board ORI®️was developed with Sarah Boulton FRSA.

Leah leads the business and brings in the right combination of practitioners for each engagement, drawing on a multidisciplinary team spanning legal, organisational development, psychology, mediation and restorative practice, HR advisory and risk.

"The WayFinders Group demonstrated unwavering commitment to a successful outcome [in our Board mediation], investing the necessary time to get it right. Their ability to synthesise diverse viewpoints was remarkable, with no time wasted on irrelevances. Their highly articulate approach kept our complex governance challenge moving forward."

"Responsive to brief, 100% focus on moving things forward, tireless pursuit of solutions. The WayFinders team turned our Trustees' minds to look at problems from entirely different perspectives, which ultimately led to a breakthrough in our governance approach."

"Engagement with Leah was excellent. She listens to status and challenges, tests options for resolution in a considered way, and demonstrates exceptional interpersonal skills. Her restorative approach helped us address institutional challenges we'd been avoiding for years."