Dylan Smulders

I’ve spent the last ten years in business development and market expansion across EMEA and the US, most of it based in London, and I’ve recently returned home to Cape Town.

I’ve helped companies enter and grow in new markets including the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, the UK and the US. A significant part of that work has been in PE-backed healthtech, supporting portfolio companies of investors, where I’ve built growth strategies, led commercial expansion including selling into the NHS and into private hospital groups here in South Africa, and helped companies prepare financial forecasts and P&L plans for investment rounds.

I mentor because the hardest parts of scaling aren’t building the product; they’re landing in an unfamiliar market and being genuinely ready for investors: reading buyers you’ve never sold to, sequencing the first commercial hires, and putting numbers and growth plans in front of a fund that stand up to scrutiny. I’ve made those mistakes and learned from them, and I’d rather founders draw on that experience than repeat them. Emerging-market founders often lack access to the networks that make international expansion possible. As someone with a foot in both worlds, that’s a gap I can help close. I believe in give-first networking communities: people opened doors for me with no agenda, and mentoring is how I pay that forward.

My focus areas: go-to-market and growth strategy for market expansion, especially emerging-market companies entering Europe, the UK and the US; B2B and B2C, SaaS and healtech; fundraising readiness, forecasts, P&L planning and commercial traction; building early SaaS / tech-focused commercial teams; and network-building across South Africa, the Netherlands, the US and the UK.

Giving back and advising are two sides of the same instinct for me. Throughout my career, people opened doors for me with no agenda, and I’ve seen firsthand, especially across emerging markets, how much of a founder’s trajectory comes down to access: to networks, to honest advice, to someone who has made the mistakes before them.

Mentoring is how I pay that forward, and it’s also how I stay close to the ground with the founders building what’s next.

The advisory ambition is a natural extension of what already happens organically. Companies I’ve worked with regularly come back to me for guidance on growth strategy, as a sounding board on planning and key decisions, or to be connected with people I know can execute well.

I’m now formalising that pattern: building a portfolio of fractional non-executive advisory roles with companies I find genuinely exciting, where I can add value consistently rather than occasionally.

My current role at Aston Holmes gives me strong access on the talent side. Hiring and workforce planning are often where scaling breaks first, but my value is broader than any one function.

I’m an orchestrator: I connect the moving parts of a growing business- strategy, commercial execution, talent, capital, and networks- and help make sure the engine runs well. Mentoring lets me do that in service of a community; advisory roles let me do it in depth, over time, with skin in the game.