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US market advisory · Listed in the UK Department for Business and Trade Export Support Directory

You are already in the US. The question is whether you are in the right rooms.

AXEL is an operating partner for UK and European companies in the American market — already here and under-realised, entering for the first time, or returning after a difficult start. Operators, not consultants.

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We don’t write the report and leave. We’re in the room until the work is won.

Operators, not consultants. AXEL works alongside your team through execution — to the signed customers, pilots and partnerships that were the point all along. AXEL is the UK practice of Traksjon: ten partners, more than 300 companies from 14 countries over 25 years.

The instinct in a new market is to do more, everywhere. The companies that win in America do the opposite: they go deep before they go wide, and they win one customer completely before they chase the next ten.

Three situations

Three situations. One of them is almost yours.

i — Already in the US

You’re already here — and there’s more to reach

Revenue is reasonable, nothing is visibly wrong, and no one inside would call the US operation a problem. And yet companies like yours are reaching customers and channels you haven’t. The difference isn’t their product. It’s that they operate with someone who knows where the deeper opportunities run.

ii — First entry

Entering for the first time

Companies clearly good enough to succeed still spend eighteen months making avoidable mistakes — on positioning, pricing, structure, and the pace at which Americans decide. We work with you before those mistakes cost you a year and your credibility.

iii — Second entry

Returning after a difficult first attempt

A first attempt that stalled is information, not a verdict. In most cases we see, the approach was wrong, not the product — the wrong channel, the wrong region, the wrong assumptions about how decisions get made here.

The people

The people who ran the UK’s commercial network in America now work for you directly.

Three of AXEL’s partners served as Regional Directors for the UK Department for Business and Trade in the United States. They spent years building the government’s commercial network across America — the state and city relationships, the buyer landscapes, the introductions that move deals. That network is now on your side of the table.

Thomas Riebs

Managing Partner · Los Angeles

Founder of Traksjon. California attorney; former Vice President, Bank of the West – BNP Paribas. Twenty-five years guiding international companies to US revenue.

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Carlo Cavagna

Partner · Los Angeles

Former Regional Director, UK Department for Business and Trade in the United States.

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Leah Mayo

Partner · Houston

Former Regional Director, UK Department for Business and Trade in the United States.

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Kirsten Chambers-Taylor

Partner · Boston

Former Regional Director, UK Department for Business and Trade in the United States.

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What we believe

What we believe.

Unrelenting Curiosity

Context is king.

We understand your specific situation before we prescribe anything. The generic answer is almost always the wrong one.

Systems Thinking

Crack the code, not the empire.

We map how the whole system actually works, rather than trying to conquer all of it at once.

Constructive Contrarians

Precision over polish.

We tell you what’s true, not what’s comfortable — and we would rather be exact than smooth.

Operators Not Consultants

Revenue is the verdict.

We are measured by what happens in the market, not by the report we leave behind.

Curated Belonging

Perspective matters.

We bring together a deliberately diverse set of people, because the best answers come from more than one vantage point.

300+companies guided into the US
14countries of origin
25+years operating across the Atlantic
10partners, in the rooms that matter

Across the Traksjon partnership

How can we help?

Every engagement starts with your ambition, not our services. Tell us where you want to win in the US, and we’ll tell you honestly whether — and how — we can help you get there.

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