From 2003 to 2018 I set up and led a design consultancy called We Are Experience WAE, in London and New York. I navigated two financial downturns and BREXIT. I almost went bust twice, hired many amazing people and some truly awful ones. I ignored good advice, learnt a lot as I went but repeated many mistakes time and again.
I spent years trying to find the perfect mentor / coach to support me on my journey as I grew my business. I never found the "perfect" person, in fact most of the so called experts who put themselves forward had little or no entrepreneurial experience, had never run an SME and certainly never navigated the difficult world of M&A.
My only effective mentor was Phil Jones, who told me when I asked him to help me, and I quote, "I can't find you new staff, introduce new clients, advise on your strategy, or do much to help. Do you still want me?" I learnt it's all about finding the right person to support you.
Since 2019 I have been coaching business founders who know they need to develop their leadership skills in order to grow their businesses. Many are on a similar journey to me and have hit a roadblock for growth, have run out of enthusiasm for their baby or they want out, but their business is not in the right place to exit.
Since leaving my business 2.5 years after the sale, I have coached a range of businesses in many sectors covering creative, consulting, infrastructure, financial services, technology and more. My client's turnovers range from £1.5m to £20m and include start ups, scale ups and businesses with 25+ years of trading.
My career spans over 25 years of experience leading innovative creative and strategic teams culminating in the sale of my international service design consultancy WAE to Globant in 2016. Growing my consultancy over 13 years in the UK, UAE and US taught me a great deal, selling the business and working through a very successful earn-out over two years taught me much more.
After graduating an industrial design degree specialising in 3D animation I led a design team in London, moving on to lead the 3D UI team in 1996 for the World's first commercial interactive TV service, HomeChoice. From there I joined BUPA to set up their first UK and international websites leading BUPA's charge as a digital service insurer, where I was also part of the BUPA strategic vision team working alongside the board.Joining Arthur Andersen in 1999 to grow their digital creative agency, I was challenged to prove the business value of good customer first design. My role allowed my team to work globally and delivering work for interactive TV, banking, financial services, real estate and corporates.
In 2003 I set up We Are Experience WAE to put consumers at the heart of business strategy and design decisions, iterating our business services as we grew from accessibility to usability, UI to UX and finally service design to business change. I launched our UAE business in 2008 and expanded to New York in 2012 enabling astronomic growth and a much wider set of services to be delivered. With further global expansion in our plan, we joined forces with Globant in 2016, selling 100% of WAE to combine WAE's strategic consulting capability with Globant's creative and technology delivery teams.
Career highlights
Personal life:
Born and brought up in Birmingham, I moved to London in 1994 and now live in West London with my wife, two daughters and dog. My second love is sailing where I can be found racing out of Lymington on a Thursday evening. I am fortunate to have sailed yachts from Australia to Thailand and Rio to Antigua, with a lot of racing in the Whitsunday islands. Cycling, climbing, diving and motorsports are all good distractions for me along with a little gardening and sharpening my culinary skills with my Thermomix .
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