I began my career in 1996 in the finance department of Tramp Group Ltd, a bunker trading company (it sold fuel to ships), where I trained as an accountant. I qualified ACCA in 2002 and, after the company’s acquisition in 2004, moved into Financial Controller roles in the motor racing industry and then at Touch Clarity, a tech startup. This was my first exposure to the startup world. It was an environment that resonated with my entrepreneurial, proactive nature. Working alongside talented and innovative tech teams proved inspiring, and when Touch Clarity was acquired by Omniture (now part of Adobe) in 2007, I knew this was the kind of energy I wanted to build my career around.

After a very short stint in another startup (I left due to questionable founder integrity), I returned to the oil sector as CFO and board director, helping grow the company to $2.5bn turnover over 4 years. The role provided invaluable experience, but the constraints of a listed company eventually reignited my desire to work in more agile, entrepreneurial settings. In 2012, I immersed myself in London’s tech scene, attending meetups such as Silicon Drinkabout, where I met my future co-founders of 3beards. Over four years, we ran hundreds of startup and innovation focused events in London and internationally, working with major brands such as Lloyds Bank, Hasbro, Yahoo and Unilever, and hosting notable figures such as Eric Ries and Guy Kawasaki. We also launched a job board, Unicorn Hunt, which was later acquired by Tiny. During this time, I also joined Code Club as a NED. Code Club is a charity that runs after school clubs teaching children how to code.

In 2015, I briefly served as Head of Entrepreneur Relations at Tech City UK (now Tech Nation) and then I shifted into a portfolio career continuing to advise, mentor, judge and facilitate connections within the startup ecosystem. In 2017, I launched Touchpaper.org, a not-for-profit research project helping startups and corporates collaborate more effectively, with founding partners including Google, Capgemini and Nesta. I also helped Code Club navigate rapid expansion and subsequently merge with the RaspberryPi Foundation. Around the same time, I joined The Bot Platform as COO and director, helping with fundraising and a pivot the business from a marketing tool toward internal company communications. In 2020, I joined the board of Replan and took up a part time CFO position, I also expanded my advisory work, and joined Tenterden Counselling Service (TCS) as Chair. TCS is a mental health charity which I guided to treble in size during the three years I was there.

Today, I combine board roles, executive coaching and strategic advisory work, applying three decades of experience across startups, scaleups, corporates and not-for-profits.