I'm currently focussed on providing strategic (and operational) advice to startups, both the bootstrapped and venture funded variety. This is either in the form of tackling specific problems (often where it starts), or more long term engagements supporting a certain phase of the business.

I really enjoy helping people view their businesses (and themselves) from a different perspective. I provide value by applying my experience through asking questions and highlighting alternative ways to think about problems. I have a huge appreciation of how psychology and mental health impacts everything we do, an often underestimated element of business. I use my experience across startups, M&A, management, finance and operational execution to help people find what works best for them and their team. There are no one size fits all answers, no short cuts and no silver bullets - we're all different with different goals and motivations, and understanding that is the first step to building something truly meaningful.

Away from business, over the last few years I have also started to experiment with spray paints, it's hard to not be thinking about work all the time, so I thought it was a good idea to have a creative release. I continue to experiment with different methods and colours as I explore my creativity. Also helping with winding down, I like to get out and cycle when I can, living in Kent there's plenty of country lanes to enjoy! I have previously ridden Paris - London (2018), Calais - Ostend (2019) and London - Southend (2021).

Current Positions:

Startup Advisor | CFO Replan | | Tech Nation Tier 1 Visa Scheme Advisory Partner

Previous Startup Positions:

Chair at Tenterden Counselling Service (voluntary role)

Mentor for the Design Museum's Entrepreneur's Hub

Mentor for the Royal Academy of Engineering LIF programme

COO The Bot Platform

Founder Touchpaper.org

Member of the Raspberry Pi Foundation | NED for Code Club (voluntary role)

Co-Founder/Director at 3beards/Unicorn Hunt (acquired 2017)

Financial Controller at Touch Clarity (acquired 2007)

TL:DR - I've worked as CFO or COO in companies ranging from $0 to $2.5bn turnover. Over the last 12 years I've focussed on startups and have a broad range of experience. I've also mentored and advised for a wide range of companies and organisations. I built up a substantial network of great startup founders and continue to support the ecosystem with monthly dinners for Series A founders (Sign up here).

The long version:

I excelled at school (academically at least), then dropped out of college. I started work in the finance department of an oil company (Tramp Group Ltd) where I trained to be an accountant. I qualified in 2002 and moved on when the company was acquired. After that I had a couple of jobs as Financial Controller, for a motor racing group and then at Touch Clarity, which was my first experience of a tech startup. This was where my startup life began. I'd always been the entrepreneurial, self starting type, but working with a great bunch of innovative tech types really inspired me. We were acquired in 2007 by Omniture (now owned by Adobe) and I left to go to another startup. However, this one was so badly run/structured, I quit after only 4 weeks and went back into oil as a CFO.

The CFO role was a great learning experience, we rapidly expanded the company (up to $2.5bn turnover) but after a few years the politics of being part of a listed company started to get to me and that entrepreneurial itch really needed to be scratched. I left in 2012 and struck out into the wilds of East London to see how the tech scene had changed since my first foray in 2006/7.

I went to a huge variety of meetups, including London Business Angels, London New Finance and of course, Silicon Drinkabout. I got to know Ben, Bryce and Mike (the organisers of Silicon Drinkabout) over the coming months and ended up founding a business with them called 3beards which ran events for the startup community, firstly in London, then globally!

I spent nearly 3 years working day to day at 3beards, we had a lot of fun and run hundreds of events all over the world, including hosting Eric Ries (twice), Guy Kawasaki and Rohan Silva as well as running hackathon events for Lloyds Bank, Hasbro, Yahoo and Unilever. Through the community connections, I also had the amazing experience of creating an installation at The Barbican in August 2013. After I left day to day operations, the team did a great job of continuing to help the startup ecosystem knit together across the world but ultimately 3beards was community first endeavour and wasn't hugely sustainable (find out about the end of 3beards here). The one part of what we created that was a lot more business shaped was Unicorn Hunt, our job board. This was acquired in 2017 by Tiny, the owners of Dribbble, MetaLab and Crew amongst others.

Over the summer of 2015 I spent a short time as Head of Entrepreneur Relations at Tech City UK (now Tech Nation), but ultimately decided a portfolio of roles and projects best suits the way I work. I continue to support the London startup community, running dinners for Series A funders and contributing my thoughts and actions wherever I can help and add value. I have previously judged for Mass Challenge, Innotribe and at Unilever's ReHack event, as well as mentoring for The Royal Academy of Engineering and The Design Museum.

In June 2017 I launched Touchpaper.org - a not for profit on a mission to make it much easier for startups and corporates to work together. I spent 18 months researching and working with the Touchpaper Founding Members (Google, Capgemini, Grant Thornton, Bristows, Nesta, Tech City UK, Multiple and Digital Catapult) and we released a free toolkit on how to make these collaborations run a little smoother than they usually do.

At this time (before the explosion of generative AI), I also started working at The Bot Platform, who specialised in bots for Facebook Messenger and Workplace by Facebook. We did a great job of pivoting the company away from marketing/promo bots and created a super-useful internal comms tool for companies.

At the end of 2019 I left The Bot Platform to start 2020 with a fresh outlook and to apply my experience across a variety of opportunities. I joined Replan as their part time CFO and also took on startup advisory positions, firstly on an ad hoc basis and then on a more permanent basis too.

In September 2020 I joined Tenterden Counselling Service (TCS) as the Chair of the board. TCS is a local counselling charity, providing affordable, open ended professional counselling services to support the mental well-being of those who live in Tenterden and the surrounding area. We made great progress trebling in size over my tenure of 3 years and I hope the charity will continue to help address the very serious need of mental health in the UK for many years to come.