We're writing our own growth story.
Our name defines our journey as well as our client’s.
How GSA was built
Andrew Elias left a leadership career in school groups across the UK and Middle East and founded Growth Story Advisory in 2025. Heads, founders, suppliers and investors across UK independent and international education would call about a brand question, a growth question, a market question, and increasingly all three at once. Andrew’s unique combination of experience, skills, high-energy approach and connections proved to be a winning combination for his partners who were looking for that ‘something’ to help them realise their ambitions.
Growth Story Advisory is now in more demand than Andrew can meet on his own. So he’s building a bigger team and network of advisors to support more education businesses who, despite the current market uncertainty in some areas, can see the opportunities, or want to understand where they are and how to capitalise on them. GSA isn’t getting bigger for the sake of it. Just big enough to take on more partners, deliver for its existing ones, offer a wider range of services and support, and to bring in the right specialists when a brief calls for them.
The thinking behind Growth Story Advisory has not changed. The capacity has.
GSA today
GSA is a fast-growing, senior executive full-service advisory. Founder-led, with a growing team and a handpicked network of independent specialists. The work covers board-level counsel, brand and growth strategy, fractional execution, international market entry, growth-side M&A advisory, and long-term brand partnerships with selected operators and suppliers.
Education is not a market that takes well to outside advice from those who haven’t ‘got the t-shirt’. The relationships are too human, the work too intense, the decisions too consequential, the room too small. GSA is built from the inside of that room. We have the lived experience and learnings to be able to help guide our partners through the challenges and toward the opportunities every growth journey presents.
Our founder
Andrew Elias has spent over a decade inside K-12 independent and international education. Launching premium British schools in the Middle East. Running brand, recruitment and growth functions for UK and international groups. Then, increasingly, as one of the best connected global brand and business development advisors in K-12 education, whose work and services have grown into Growth Story Advisory as it is today.
His career has been growth and story together from the start, by a belief in the power of the combination rather than coincidence. A school launch is brand work and recruitment work. A group brand role is positioning and pipeline. Everything within a school or a business is communication. Brands only have real depth and the potential to grow sustainably when their team is aligned behind the vision that drives it.
Andrew works with school leaders and founders, operator groups and the investors behind them, and best-in-class education suppliers across the UK and international schools market with particular expertise across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
His public profile is, however, a means, not an end. On some occasions an aspect of a GSA partnership is to leverage Andrew’s platform to raise awareness and build an audience for partners and partners, contributing to their growth story. As we all know, LinkedIn is just a starting point for meaningful relationships, and the skill is how you then build those relationships behind the scenes into ones that are meaningful and commercially beneficial.
How we work
Start your own growth story today. Contact us to share your ambitions.
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