Services
Internal clarity creates external courage.
I serve on boards and partner with CEOs navigating transformation, succession, and scale.
After 20 years leading billion-pound P&Ls across 9 sectors, I bring independent oversight and strategic challenge grounded in operational reality. I’ve made the decisions most executives hope they never have to make – and I understand the weight.
What differentiates me: Everyone’s selling speed. I bring strategic restraint.
I write and speak on the patterns that destroy strategic execution – The Leadership Echo, The Strategic Lie of ‘Yes’, The Integrity Tax, The Art of the 80% Decision. These frameworks help boards see what proximity blinds them to.
Four ways to work with me:
Main Services
01.
Executive Advisory
Partnership for High-Stakes Transformations
I work with a select number of CEOs as a confidential strategic partner during critical moments: transformation, PE exits, succession planning, or navigating board dynamics.
This is peer-to-peer strategic partnership for leaders who need an honest broker with no agenda beyond their success.
When CEOs engage me:
Facing board pressure during transformation • Navigating first-time CEO challenges. Managing PE relationships during growth or exit phases. Preparing for succession or leadership transition. Eliminating strategic friction between stated goals and operational reality
My approach:
I help you see what proximity blinds you to. The work is collaborative, even when stakes are existential.
I serve as your strategic partner, helping you identify where urgency is creating blindness, where complexity is masking lack of courage, where the noise is drowning out the signal, and where the real strategic leverage lies.
This is valuable during:
Transitions where clarity and authenticity are essential . High-stakes decisions requiring 80% confidence, not 100% certainty. Moments when you need to cut through the noise, not be consumed by it
I don’t tell you what to do. I help you determine what’s right for your context, your values, and your vision. My goal is to reconnect you to your own strategic clarity, not create dependency.
02.
NED and Board Advisory
Board Oversight & Strategic Challenge
I serve as a Non-Executive Director bringing independent oversight, strategic challenge, and governance discipline to boards navigating transformation, succession, or scale.
What I bring to the boardroom:
20 years senior executive experience across FTSE, ASX, and PE-backed businesses • Operational leadership across retail, digital transformation, B2B/merchanting, professional services, and large-scale property management • Pattern recognition from leading transformations, turnarounds, and high-growth environments • Ability to ask the questions that need to be asked – without political agenda • Strategic challenge grounded in operational reality, not theory
Board experience:
Current Non-Executive Director & Audit Committee Chair • Former C-suite leader across multiple boards • Governance expertise in PE-backed, listed, and high-growth environments
Areas of focus:
Digital transformation and AI navigation • Commercial transformation and international expansion • PE-backed scale-ups and exits • Succession planning and multi-country leadership • Strategic restraint in high-velocity environments • Culture and integrity as governance mandates
How boards engage me:
Boards value me for what I bring to the room: the ability to create high-trust spaces where difficult questions get asked, where strategic blind spots surface, and where governance becomes genuine, not performance.
I provide rigorous oversight on transformation initiatives, M&A integration, and commercial sustainability. What keeps me in the room is the capacity to cut through noise and ask the questions that need to be asked.
Currently accepting board appointments.
03.
Speaking and Thought Leadership
Keynotes on Strategic Restraint & Leadership
I speak to executive audiences and boards on the contrarian case for strategic restraint. Drawing from 20 years in the C-suite, I challenge the “velocity culture” and make the case that the fastest leaders are the ones who’ve mastered stillness.
Topics:
The Leadership Echo: Why Your Team Doesn’t Follow Your Strategy
How your unconscious actions create the true organizational culture – and what your team is actually hearing versus what you think you’re saying.
The Strategic Lie of ‘Yes’: Finding Speed Through Restraint
Why complexity masquerades as strategy, and how the courage to say no is the ultimate competitive advantage.
The Art of the 80% Decision: Moving With Confidence, Not Certainty
How to overcome analysis paralysis and make high-stakes decisions quickly when perfect information will never exist.
Format:
Keynotes (45-60 minutes) or extended sessions (half-day) tailored to your audience and strategic context. I don’t lecture from slides – I share operational truth from two decades at the top that makes complexity clear and gives leaders permission to trust stillness over speed.
Audiences:
C-suite executives, board chairs, PE partners, industry leadership forums.
04.
Executive Alignment and Culture Governance
Board-Level Partnership for C-Suite Performance
When your board strategy and operational culture are misaligned – when what you say and what your organization hears are two different things – you need a peer-level partner who’s led these teams to navigate the complexity.
This isn’t a workshop. This isn’t facilitation. This is strategic partnership at the C-suite level to eliminate the friction created when executive signals contradict stated strategy.
The work:
I partner with CEOs to work directly with their C-suite or senior leadership teams – delivering the strategic alignment work that many CEOs lack the bandwidth or distance to do themselves.
Think of this as bringing a peer-level CEO into the room – someone who’s led these dynamics, understands the politics and unspoken tensions, but has no skin in the game beyond getting your team performing at the level you need.
By installing governance-level discipline around cultural signals and strategic alignment, teams bridge the gap between stated strategy and actual behaviour – eliminating The Integrity Tax and The Leadership Echo.
What makes this different:
I’ve been in the room. I’ve led these teams. I know the dynamics that destroy execution. I create the environment where people feel safe being honest about what’s not working – and energized enough to actually do something about it.
This is your strategic partner doing the work you don’t have bandwidth for – or the distance to see clearly.
Hard conversations happen, but they don’t feel heavy. Teams leave with clear commitments, shared language for maintaining alignment, and restored trust in each other’s intent.
When this work is essential:
Your board strategy isn’t translating into operational behaviour. You’re experiencing high talent attrition despite strong compensation. C-suite politics are creating friction that bleeds into the organization. Cultural signals are contradicting strategic mandates. You need to eliminate The Integrity Tax of tolerating misalignment. You need a peer-level partner to deliver the alignment work you can’t
This is governance work delivered at the C-suite level. It requires someone who understands board dynamics, executive pressure, and the operational realities that create the gap between intention and execution.
Topics I Discuss
01.
Urgency Blindness
Moving with confidence, not certainty. I help leaders overcome Analysis Paralysis and make high-stakes decisions quickly and effectively, knowing when to pause for clarity and when to move decisively.
02.
The Leadership Echo
Mastering the signals you send to your organisation. I help leaders close the gap between stated strategy and actual cultural behaviour, ensuring consistent trust and accountability across the C-suite and workforce.
03.
The Immutable Compass
Examines how leaders navigate decisions when external pressures conflict with strategic integrity – and provides the SAILS framework to ensure choices are driven by core principles, not board politics or competitor fear.
04.
The Strategic Lie of 'Yes'
Simplifying strategy through restraint. A methodology for cutting through overwhelming complexity by establishing non-negotiable strategic constraints. Focuses on the courage to say no and the Strategic Stop List required to achieve clarity and speed.
05.
The Art of the 80% Decision
Moving with confidence, not certainty. The framework for overcoming Analysis Paralysis and making high-stakes decisions quickly and effectively. Teaches leaders when to pause for clarity and when to move decisively.
06.
Scale with Soul
The ethical path to sustainable growth. How to scale a business without sacrificing human capital, integrity, or long-term culture. Focuses on balancing profitability metrics with legacy metrics to build lasting enterprise value.
07.
The Integrity Tax
The hidden cost of tolerating dysfunction. Quantifies the financial and cultural damage of keeping toxic high-performers because “the numbers are too good to lose.” Provides a framework for making the hard calls that restore trust and protect culture.
08.
The Legacy Framework
Leading beyond your tenure. A comprehensive view of how to design an organisation, choose a successor, and instil a culture that ensures purpose and performance outlive the founder or CEO. Your organisation survives you; that’s the definition of legacy.