I’ve spent 25 years learning where good ideas break down — and how to stop that happening.

My career started in commercial footwear design on the British high street. Clarks, M&S, Next, Start-Rite — brands where the commercial pressure is real, the margins are tight, and a beautiful shoe that doesn’t sell is a failure regardless of how good it looks. That environment taught me something that no amount of strategy theory can replace: what it actually takes to get product from a sketch to a shelf, at scale, profitably.

Over two decades I worked across design, development, and senior creative roles, building fluency in the full product journey — materials, construction, supply chain, factory relationships, and the commercial decisions that determine whether a creative vision survives contact with reality. In 2021 I made a deliberate shift toward more complex and interesting work: developing luxury footwear in Italy with Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY, building commercialisation strategies for university research teams, and advising founders on the gap between their ambition and what it will actually take.

I also teach. I lead modules in luxury business and brand strategy at MA and MBA level, and supervise postgraduate dissertations across luxury brand strategy, business, and digital marketing. I don’t experience this as separate from my consulting work — it keeps me honest about the difference between how things are supposed to work and how they actually do. And it means the brands and institutions I work with get someone whose thinking is current, not just experienced.

If you’re building something — a product, a brand, a route to market — and you want a senior partner who has done it rather than just advised on it, let’s talk.