About

I am a Board Adviser and Fractional CMO. I operate at board altitude and execute at CMO level, which means I see both the cause and the effect, and work on the right one first.

I work with senior leaders whose businesses are under real commercial pressure, across sectors and ownership structures. I am most useful where at least one leader is willing to look honestly at where the misalignment starts, which is usually at the top.

Where I’ve done it

Thirty years across technology, consumer and complex services businesses.

Most recently Chief Marketing Officer and main-board director of a PE-backed business, where I built the commercial operating system that let it scale under investor scrutiny. When net new business was not delivering, I stepped past the marketing remit and built the engine to drive it, then fixed conversion when the pipeline I created was not being closed.

Before that, managing director of a 200-person creative business through its acquisition by THG, holding revenue, talent and client relationships together inside one of the most demanding operating environments in the market. Anyone who knows THG knows what that takes.

Earlier, an in-house entrepreneur at Coca-Cola launching new brands, a decade advising global names including O2, Diageo, Dell and Microsoft, and a business of my own built and exited.

The pattern is consistent. I am brought in to find the biggest problems and build the solutions. I go in as adviser to the CEO. I stay to fix what is not working.

The person

I started my career by threatening to turn up to the interview in a Batman costume. I got the interview, and the job. I have spent the thirty years since learning when that instinct is an asset and when it is a liability.

Scottish by birth, London for most of my life. I live some of my time on a houseboat in the countryside, close to water, weather and the kind of walking that clears the head. I have two grown-up daughters. They are the responsibility I take most seriously.

Cooking is how I unwind. I train hard.

Writing

Alongside the advisory work I write about leadership under pressure. Not theory. Lived experience. Writing

Let’s talk

If your business is under real commercial pressure and you are ready to look at where it starts, we should speak. Get in touch