Usually, something is changing
Perhaps a business has grown faster than it can organise itself.
Or a founder has a clear ambition but no easy route to get there.
Or an integration or previous change hasn’t quite settled.
I’ve led change many, many times. I work out what’s needed and stay until it’s done.
Strategic advisory · Business transformation, AI and new technology Fractional and interim leadership · Coaching
For nine years I was at Manifesto, a £10m+ digital agency inside a listed group, first as COO and then as MD. I brought three agencies together into one division of 130 people and relaunched the brand. Then I led the business through everything the last few years threw at us: building new AI propositions, changing commercial models, and navigating work place changes after Covid.
Before that, I spent fifteen years on the other side of the table, at Save the Children UK, Cancer Research UK and NEST Pensions, running large business change and digital transformation programmes and hiring the agencies that delivered them. I know what it is like to be the client and what it takes to deliver well.
I’ve always thought of a workplace as a large house. The board is upstairs, the delivery teams are at the back, finance has the room with the good light, and everyone is sure their window shows the only view. Most of the friction I’ve seen doesn’t come from bad people or bad plans. It comes from leaders assuming everyone shares their view. Much of my work is moving between those rooms, understanding what each one can see, and helping people understand what the others are looking at.
People come to me for advice and decisions. I’m good at trade-offs, and at judging how much risk is worth taking. I care about businesses that are commercially strong and good to work in, and I’ve seen enough to know the two wholly on each other.
“Everyone is in a different room, looking out of a different window. Same building, completely different view.”
Where I’ve been
I work as a fractional and interim MD, CEO, or COO, and as an adviser, mentor, and guide.
I am also qualified as a trauma-informed, somatic breathwork facilitator after 400 hours of accredited training. This isn't a career change; it’s something I’ve added to it. It taught me to notice what sits underneath behaviour at work. A lot of what looks like resistance, perfectionism or silence is a nervous system under pressure, in one person or across a whole team. Change lands hardest on people, and how well it goes depends on how much they, and the business, can absorb at once. That’s what I pay attention to.
How I work now
Who I work with
Founders and senior leaders in agencies, not-for-profits and purpose-led businesses
Founder-led businesses
They usually call when they want to grow and something has started to creak. I look at the whole business, find the root causes or opportunities, and help them get momentum back.
Businesses in the middle of big change
The pressure to implement AI and new technology is immense; everyone agrees it’s a priority, but it’s hard to roll out well on the ground, and it’s never just about tech. I help work out whether it’s the right change and then see it through.
Groups and multi-agency businesses
They call when a strategy or change, perhaps their operating model, hasn’t delivered what the business case promised. I help work out where it has stalled and make sure it delivers what it was meant to.
Organisations with ambition and opportunity
Sometimes there’s no problem at all, just an ambition or an opportunity that won’t wait. I help map the way and get things moving.
How I can help
In the business, on the business, or alongside the people leading it
Strategic advisory
A senior outside perspective when you need to step back, see the bigger picture and make clearer choices. I work with founders, CEOs and leadership teams on strategy, growth, commercial performance, operations and culture. That might mean getting underneath one problem, shaping a plan, or being a sounding board through a demanding stretch.
Bring me in when the business is busy but unsure of the best direction, or when you have a goal such as growth, a sale or an acquisition and need to work backwards from it.
Fractional and interim leadership
Sometimes you need experienced leadership just for a while, not another permanent senior hire. I can step in as MD, CEO or COO, take real accountability, and get close enough to the work to make things happen. The aim isn’t to make myself indispensable. It’s to leave the business able to carry on without me.
Bring me in when there's a leadership gap or a demanding period ahead, or when the founder or CEO is still at the centre of everything and the business can’t grow past them.
Business transformation, AI and new technology
Technology and transformation have been part of my working life for nearly all my career. The tools keep evolving; most of the challenges underneath them don’t. I help organisations work out what AI and new technology actually mean for them, where the real opportunity is, and what has to change around it, from the operating model and governance to the people using it.
Bring me in when meaningful change needs seeing through to the end, or when a new technology is on every agenda, and nobody is quite sure yet what it means for your strategy.
Coaching and mentoring
The more senior you become, the fewer places there are to say what you really think and feel. It can be hard to see a pattern when you’re immersed in it every day. I work one-to-one with leaders taking on more responsibility, facing a difficult situation or at a turning point. This is a place to step back and turn what you see into action. I’m currently training as an accredited professional coach with Animas.
Bring me in when you’re carrying something on your own and want to talk it through with someone who has sat in the same chair as you.
About me
My career history is on LinkedIn. Here’s some of what isn’t.
As a teenager, I had a Saturday job at The Body Shop, mostly counting bath beads. Anita Roddick spent a lot of time in our shop. At a time when the picture of a woman in business was mostly shoulder pads, she gave me a different, lifelong blueprint: that a business could make money and still stand for something. I’ve never seen those two things as being in tension, and that idea has shaped where I’ve chosen to work ever since.
Going to university was my first act of rebellion.
Afterwards, I flew long-haul as cabin crew, which became my first leadership job. You plan for the unexpected, keep people safe, deal with whatever goes wrong, and keep smiling. Like leadership, it’s less glamorous than it looks.
Along the way, I had to make peace with the fact that there’s rarely a single right answer, and that uncertainty is the norm. I know what I’m good at, and I bring in people who know more than me for the rest.
I’ve always been drawn to people and the realities of leading them. With Lou Lai, my successor at Manifesto, I’ve co-hosted Leaders with Purpose, a podcast of honest conversations with people running purpose-led organisations. Guests from places like Tate, the Design Museum and Breast Cancer Now have talked about everything from leadership burnout and psychological safety to the rise of AI and what it actually takes to lead well now.
Wherever I go, whatever I do, I try to leave things better than I found them.
Early leadership training. Trolley included.
“You connect the dots before most people even realise the dots are there. No airs and graces, no arrogance. A leader who made people feel seen and safe”
— Lou Lai, MD, Manifesto“A real curiosity about people and their underlying drivers. Groups are inevitably complex, but your observational skills are second to none”
— Daniel Crowley, Founder“A rare ability to lift up to the highest level of strategy and think in outcomes and also drop down into the critical path and make sure people have what they need to deliver”
— Daryll Scott, Consultant"Many leaders talk a good talk and take on all the projects but aren’t able to deliver. Your ability to deliver is quite something to watch”
— Sarah Vick, Chair & Non-Executive DirectorLet’s talk
Usually, something is changing. If that sounds familiar, I’d love to hear about it.
No pitch, no obligation. Just a conversation about where you are and where you want to get to.