Business Leader runs peer groups of ten for UK founders and CEOs at £3m plus turnover, with nine forum sessions and four one-to-one coaching sessions a year, at a published £8,495 plus VAT.
If you want more time in the room, or a smaller group without a curriculum running through it, the alternatives worth comparing are Helm, Vistage UK, EO, TAB, YPO and Hampton.
Credit where it's due on pricing
Business Leader tells you what it costs before you speak to anybody, and almost nobody else does.
Start here, because it's the most unusual thing about Business Leader and it affects how you should read every other comparison.
Business Leader publishes what it costs. £8,495 plus VAT a year, with a £495 deposit. You can sit at your desk and decide whether that's worth it without speaking to anybody.
Almost nobody else does this. YPO publishes no dues figures at all. Vistage publishes no UK pricing. Hampton publishes nothing (a January 2026 Inc. report put it at USD 15,000 a year, which is the only sourced number in circulation). TAB works on bespoke quotes only. That leaves EO, which publishes its dues in full, and Helm, which publishes £495 to join and £495 a month.
So four of the seven organisations in this comparison will only tell you the price after you've been through an application and a call. That's a normal way to sell a considered purchase and it isn't sinister. But when you're comparing, remember that you can only put a real number against three of them, and Business Leader is one.
What are you actually buying? Count the sessions
Sessions a year, hours per session and heads in the room decide what you get.
Price is the obvious comparison and it's rarely the useful one. What actually decides whether a peer group works for you is how many times a year you sit in the room, how long each session runs, and how many people you're splitting that time with.
Business Leader's published rhythm is nine forum sessions plus four one-to-one coaching sessions. Thirteen scheduled contact points a year, in a group of ten.
Here's how that lands against the others.
| Organisation | Scheduled group sessions a year | One-to-ones a year | People in the room |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Leader | 9 | 4 | 10 |
| Helm | 10 Forum meetings of 3 hours, plus one retreat | Not part of the Forum model | 6 to 8 plus a Chair |
| Vistage UK | 12 full days (Chief Executive Programme) | 12 | 12 to 18 on Vistage's published CE Programme figure |
| TAB UK | 12 board meetings | 12 | 6 to 8 |
| EO | 12 forums | Not part of the forum model | 6 to 10 |
| YPO | Typically monthly | Not part of the forum model | 8 to 12 |
| Hampton | 10 core group meetings, in person, monthly but skipping August and December | Not part of the model | 8 to 10 |
Two things fall out of that.
Business Leader has the lowest number of group sessions in the set. Nine against ten to twelve everywhere else. It's a real structural difference and worth knowing about, though it isn't automatically a weakness. Business Leader is a programme rather than an open-agenda forum, and the work between sessions is the point.
The second is airtime. In a group of ten, a three-hour session gives everyone eighteen minutes if you split it evenly. In a group of six, the same three hours gives everyone thirty. Vistage runs full days so the total minutes are higher, but with twelve to eighteen in the room the share per person drops again. This is arithmetic rather than opinion, and it's the thing most people don't check before they sign.
This is arithmetic rather than opinion, and it's the thing most people don't check before they sign.
Is the programme structure a plus or a constraint?
A curriculum gives you a defined path, and it costs you the open agenda.
Business Leader is built on Richard Harpin's "9 Steps to a Billion" framework. Members do CliftonStrengths and produce a written growth plan. There's a defined path through the year.
"A programme deals with it when the programme gets there."
On open agendas
That's genuinely valuable if you want structure. Plenty of founders join a peer group, sit through six months of other people's problems, and realise nothing has changed in their own business because nothing was ever written down or checked. A curriculum fixes that.
It's a constraint if your problems don't fit the curriculum. Open-agenda forums, which is what Helm, EO, YPO and Hampton all run, start with whatever is actually on fire that month. If you're mid-way through a botched acquisition or a co-founder falling out, an open agenda deals with it in week one. A programme deals with it when the programme gets there.
A precise note on the ambassadors
A well-known roster is a content layer, not the person running your room.
Business Leader has a well-known ambassador roster. Richard Harpin, Greg Jackson, Jayne-Anne Gadhia and others.
Be clear about what that is. Those people sit on the content and events side of the business. They are not the facilitators running your monthly forum, and you shouldn't join expecting a named ambassador in your group. Business Leader is transparent about this on its own site. The confusion is in how these rosters get read from the outside.
The equivalent question everywhere else is worth asking too. Who is actually in your room, week to week?
At Helm the Chair is a Helm member who is further along, usually an exited founder, often with NED experience. Stuart Miles built Pocket-lint. Stephen Sacks built Muubaa and now runs Funding Nav. Rob Hamilton was at The Instant Group. Richard Coombes, Jane Gomez and Mark Colquhoun of Solar Communications also chair. At Vistage the Chair is a paid professional facilitator with twelve to fifteen plus years of C-level experience, trained through the Chair Academy. At EO the moderator is a fellow member who has done eight hours of formal forum training. At YPO it's whichever members are running the forum. At TAB it's a franchisee who owns your territory. At Hampton it's a paid trained moderator.
Those are five different models and they produce five different rooms.
The alternatives, ranked by what you'd be trading up for
Pick the alternative by the thing you want more of.
If you want a smaller room: Helm
Forums are six to eight plus a Chair, which is the tightest fixed range here, meeting ten times a year for three hours with a retreat on top. Entry is founder or CEO of a UK business at roughly £3m plus turnover or £3m plus raised with 20 or more full-time staff, so the bar is close to Business Leader's £3m and 15 employees. Average member turnover across the 400 plus membership is £21m and over 15% have exited. Price is £495 to join then £495 a month, on one calendar month's notice rather than an annual commitment. There are 160 plus member events a year as well, two or three a week across London and the UK hubs.
If you want maximum contact time: Vistage UK or TAB
Both give you twenty-four scheduled touchpoints. Vistage does it with twelve full days plus twelve coaching sessions, at national scale, with 45,000 members globally and a history back to 1957. TAB does it with a monthly board plus a monthly one-to-one in a group of six to eight, and has the best regional coverage in the UK because its facilitators own local territories. TAB also offers a 90-day money-back guarantee. Neither publishes a price. TAB franchise recruitment material mentions around £600 a month, but that's franchise-facing material and not a member quote.
If you're below Business Leader's threshold: EO or TAB
EO takes owners, founders and majority stakeholders from USD 1m revenue, which is the lowest bar of the international players. Forums are six to ten, monthly, and run on a strict "share experiences, not advice" method. EO UK-London had 82 members as of July 2026, plus chapters in the North and Birmingham. Dues are published at roughly USD 2,630 globally plus £1,500 for London, with USD 3,500 and £1,000 one-off initiation fees. TAB publishes no revenue threshold at all.
If you want a global network: YPO
Founded 1950, over 30,000 members, 450 plus chapters. Nothing else here comes close on international reach or on family programming. The catch is the entry bar. You must be under 45 at joining, with 50 full-time employees or 15 plus alongside USD 2.75m plus in employee compensation, and USD 16m plus revenue (USD 13m for agencies, or USD 27m plus enterprise value). YPO publishes no dues figures.
If you're a tech founder in London who wants daily contact: Hampton
Founded 2023, 1,000 plus members, average member revenue USD 23m and roughly a 4% acceptance rate. Groups of eight to ten, monthly and in person, with paid trained moderators and an active Slack layer between sessions. Two limits for this reader. It screens for tech, internet "or a related space", and London is its only UK city.
Where Helm is the wrong choice
Four situations where Business Leader or somebody else is the better purchase.
If a written plan, a defined framework and someone checking your progress against it is what you're after, Business Leader is built for that and Helm isn't. Helm Forums are open-agenda. You bring the problem.
If you're under £3m turnover or under 20 staff, you won't get through Helm's membership review. EO or TAB is the honest answer at that stage and neither is a step down.
If you want one-to-one coaching bundled in, Business Leader gives you four sessions a year and Vistage gives you twelve. Helm's model doesn't include one-to-ones as part of the Forum.
And if committing to ten fixed dates a year is unrealistic for your diary, be honest about that early. Helm Forum attendance is compulsory and repeated absence can cost you your place.
Worth adding that Helm doesn't run trials, taster sessions or guest passes, and its events are members-only. The route in runs like this.
The form
A two-minute form.
The fit call
Then a 30-minute fit call.
Membership review
Then membership review and onboarding.
Forum placement
Forum placement follows within one to three months. Matching is done on business size, stage, character and objectives, with a deliberate mix of sectors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Short answers to the questions founders ask before joining.
How much does Business Leader cost?
Business Leader publishes an annual price of £8,495 plus VAT, with a £495 deposit. It is one of the few founder peer organisations in the UK that puts a headline figure on its website. Of the alternatives, Helm publishes £495 to join plus £495 a month and EO publishes its dues in full. YPO, Vistage UK, Hampton and TAB publish nothing.
How many times a year does a Business Leader group meet?
Nine forum sessions a year, plus four one-to-one coaching sessions, in a group of ten. That's the lowest number of group sessions among the main UK options. Helm runs ten three-hour Forum meetings plus a retreat, Hampton runs ten, EO runs twelve, and Vistage and TAB both run twelve group meetings plus twelve one-to-ones.
Do the Business Leader ambassadors run the peer groups?
No. Ambassadors such as Richard Harpin, Greg Jackson and Jayne-Anne Gadhia sit on the content and events side of Business Leader. They are not the facilitators who run members' forum sessions. If who chairs your room matters to you, ask each organisation directly, because the model varies from paid professional facilitators to trained peers to franchisees.
What is the main difference between Helm and Business Leader?
Group size and format. Helm Forums are six to eight members plus a Chair who is usually an exited founder, meeting ten times a year for three hours on an open agenda. Business Leader runs groups of ten through a defined programme built on "9 Steps to a Billion", with nine sessions plus four one-to-ones. Helm bills monthly, Business Leader annually.
Which UK peer group has the lowest entry requirements?
TAB (The Alternative Board) publishes no revenue threshold at all, making it the most accessible option. EO requires USD 1m plus in revenue and that you own or founded the business. Business Leader and Helm both sit around £3m, with Business Leader asking for 15 plus employees and Helm for 20 plus full-time staff.
Is an annual commitment normal for founder peer groups?
Yes, for most of them. Business Leader, EO, Vistage and YPO all work on annual dues. Helm is the exception in this set, running month to month at £495 with one full calendar month's notice. TAB doesn't publish terms but offers a 90-day money-back guarantee, which serves a similar purpose for a first-year member.
Key Takeaways
- Business Leader publishes £8,495 plus VAT a year with a £495 deposit, which almost nobody else in this set does.
- Nine forum sessions plus four one-to-one coaching sessions is thirteen scheduled contact points a year, in a group of ten.
- That is the lowest number of group sessions in the set, nine against ten to twelve everywhere else.
- In a group of ten a three-hour session gives everyone eighteen minutes. In a group of six the same three hours gives everyone thirty.
- The ambassadors sit on the content and events side and are not the facilitators running your monthly forum.
- Helm Forums are six to eight plus a Chair, ten meetings a year of three hours with a retreat, at £495 to join then £495 a month.
- Vistage UK and TAB both give you twenty-four scheduled touchpoints a year, and neither publishes a price.
- If you want a written plan and someone checking your progress against it, Business Leader is built for that and Helm isn't.
See if Helm Is the Right Room
Helm is a private club for UK founders and CEOs past £3m. Forums of six to eight, chaired by exited founders. No selling, ever.
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