Board · Strategy · Consulting
Twenty-five board seats. Eight sectors. One consistent observation.
The problem in the room is almost never the problem on the agenda. Companies do not usually fail because the strategy was wrong. They fail because nobody would say the thing that everybody knew.
Boardroom or lecture-theatre portrait — upload later
I have been the outsider in the room for thirty years. It turns out that is the job.
I started my first company at nineteen. Since then I have founded more than fifteen, been involved in the early days of twenty more, and sat on twenty-five boards across eight industry sectors. Manufacturing, hospitality, education, technology, media. Enough variety to notice that the patterns repeat, and enough scar tissue to know which ones matter.
What I bring is not a framework. Frameworks are the easy part, and you can buy those from anyone with a deck. What I bring is the combination that is genuinely difficult to hire: commercial experience that has actually lost money as well as made it, and formal training in why people behave the way they do under pressure.
That combination is why the conversations tend to go somewhere. A board that is stuck is very rarely stuck on the numbers. It is stuck on something nobody has been willing to name out loud.
I am usually the one who names it.
Three ways in.
I
Board Advisory
Non-executive · Ongoing · Retained
A seat at your table, or a voice in the ear of the person who has one. Ongoing counsel for founders and boards who need someone with no stake in the internal politics and no reason to tell you what you want to hear.
II
Strategy Consulting
Project · Fixed scope · 6–12 weeks
A defined problem, a defined engagement, a defined end. Growth stalls, market entry, succession, the difficult restructure, the acquisition that looks better on paper than it will feel in the building. We scope it properly, then we do it.
III
Corporate Workshops
Half-day · Full-day · Series
The skills gap, made practical. Communication, conflict, influence, decision-making under uncertainty. Built for leadership teams and delivered by someone who has run the companies, not just studied them.
Whether this is for you.
This works when
- You want the truth more than you want the reassurance.
- The problem is bigger than a process fix.
- There is a decision waiting on someone being honest.
- You are prepared to be disagreed with in front of your own board.
This does not work when
- You have already decided and want the decision validated.
- You need a specialist in one narrow technical field.
- The engagement exists to satisfy someone else.
- You want a deck rather than a conversation.
Fees are set per engagement and shared on the call. No packages, no tiers, no pretending every business is the same size problem.
Next step
Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes, no charge, no pitch. If I am not the right person, I will usually know someone who is.