The eighteen months before a public offering are the only time a private company has the air-cover to make changes that would otherwise be impossible. Spend them well and the IPO is the easy part — spend them badly and the listing window will close on you twice before you're ready.
I. Governance — start with the audit committee
Every premium listing begins with an audit committee that meets the listing-segment rules. We start there because a) it's a hard, dated requirement and b) the work it forces (financial controls, internal audit charter, whistleblowing) cascades through the rest of the programme.
II. Financial controls — earlier than feels comfortable
ICFR-style controls (or SOX-equivalents in continental Europe) take three full reporting cycles to mature. If you have eighteen months, you should have a documented controls catalogue inside the first three.
III. The investor narrative
Public-market investors buy a discipline, not a quarter. Spend a serious workstream in months six through twelve articulating the medium-term targets you'll defend on every earnings call thereafter.
“The narrative isn't a deck — it's three sentences you'll be asked to repeat for the next five years. Get it right while you can still revise.”