Rethinking how we work, live and give
A social enterprise built for mission-led organisations — charities, social enterprises, and impact-first businesses. Senior expertise, when and how you need it: fractional consulting that uses smart technology to deliver more, for less.
A social enterprise,
for social enterprises
We work with the organisations doing the work that matters — and we work the way they need us to.
Alana Ventures is a social enterprise based in Bristol. We bring senior, strategic experience to charities, social enterprises, and impact-first organisations — the kind doing meaningful work and deserving of senior support that fits the way they actually operate.
The business is built on three connected pillars: fractional consultancy for mission-led organisations, ethical investment in ventures that share our values, and direct charitable activity. Together they let us do good work, fund good work, and back good work.
Our consulting model is fractional — sized to what the work actually needs. We make smart use of existing and emerging technology so senior thinking lands faster and stays affordable, without losing the human judgement that mission-led work depends on.
Gemma Hyde
Gemma is the Founder of Alana Ventures. With over 20 years of experience spanning consulting, technology, financial services, healthcare, central government, aerospace, and engineering, Gemma has built a career defined by one consistent thread: the ability to understand complex organisations quickly, deeply, and with precision.
That experience has been earned at the sharp end of corporate, private, and public sector delivery — leading digital transformations, advising executives on strategy, and standing up AI-led ways of working in some of the largest and most demanding organisations in the country.
Alana Ventures is the deliberate next chapter. After two decades of applying senior expertise inside organisations that were often well-resourced, Gemma is choosing to apply it where it is needed most — alongside the charities, social enterprises, and mission-led organisations doing the work and the projects that genuinely matter.
Where expertise meets purpose
The premium consulting model has historically been out of reach for the social-impact sector. Multi-month discoveries, six-figure engagements, and rigid delivery models work for FTSE clients — they do not work for a charity trying to extend its reach, a social enterprise scaling its model, or an impact-first business trying to stay close to its mission while growing.
Alana Ventures exists to close that gap. The same calibre of thinking, the same depth of expertise, delivered through a fractional model that flexes to the organisation in front of it — and underpinned by smart technology that makes it commercially viable to bring senior expertise to the sector at the prices and pace it needs.
The thread, made explicit
The skills Gemma has built across two decades — reading complex organisations quickly, naming what others miss, and shaping clear paths through ambiguity — are the same skills that mission-led organisations now need most. The sectors have changed. The work has not.
What is different is the angle. Alana Ventures is not corporate consultancy repackaged for the third sector. It is a business designed from the start around the realities of mission-led work: tighter budgets, leaner teams, and a need for senior expertise that arrives quickly, lands cleanly, and leaves capability behind.
The Three Pillars
Everything we do flows through three interconnected pillars — fractional consultancy, ethical investment, and community impact.
Fractional Consultancy
Senior, strategic experience embedded into mission-led organisations on terms that match the work — sized to what the need actually is, priced for the sector, and delivered with smart use of technology so it lands faster.
Ethical Investments
Strategic investments in UK and global businesses that generate equitable returns while creating genuine social value. We invest in people and ideas that align with our mission to build a more human economy.
Charitable Enterprise
Revenue generated by Alana Ventures directly funds the community projects that need it most — from local Bristol initiatives to broader social impact work. Business as a vehicle for change, not just profit.
How we work
Fractional, senior, and built around the realities of mission-led work.
Most charities and social enterprises do not need a full-time strategy director or a six-figure consultancy engagement. They need senior expertise they can call on when it matters — to shape a plan, navigate a transition, fix what is stuck, or quietly lift the quality of decision-making at the top of the organisation.
That is what we do. We embed as much or as little as the work demands, and we step back the moment we have left the capability behind. No long discoveries. No bloated decks. No retainer creep.
The intelligent application of AI sits underneath every engagement. It is how a single senior operator can do the work that previously took a team — and how a charity or social enterprise can access that quality of thinking at a price that respects where the money should really be going.
Fractional engagement
A day a week, a focused project, or interim leadership — sized to the question, not to a fixed package.
Senior, every time
You work directly with the senior operator. No team of juniors learning on your time — just the person doing the thinking.
Sector-appropriate pricing
Priced for charities, social enterprises, and impact-first organisations — not for FTSE budgets.
Powered by smart technology
The intelligent application of AI compresses what used to take weeks into days — so depth and speed come together rather than trading off.
Capability left behind
The work is not done to the organisation, it is done with it. When we step back, the team is stronger than when we arrived.
Let's have a conversation
Whether you lead a charity, run a social enterprise, sit on the board of a mission-led organisation, or are an investor looking for ethical opportunities — we'd love to hear from you.
gemma@alanaventures.co.uk