About
My career has moved between hands-on engineering, running businesses and advising the people who fund them. The thread through all of it: someone needed a hard problem solved, usually where technology and money meet.
I trained as an electronic and computer engineer and started out writing real-time software for avionics. Since then I have worked across embedded systems, connected devices, Bluetooth and IoT, cloud platforms, data architecture and mobile apps. Today I use AI coding tools every day, and I have used them to lead the build of production systems that would once have needed a full development team. I am most useful when a technical decision has commercial weight, or a commercial decision needs a technical sanity check.
I have been chief operating officer of one listed technology company and chief executive of another. I have led a business through an award-winning restructure ahead of its IPO, integrated acquisitions, and put together the rescue plan and new investment that saved a business and many of its jobs after it went into administration. I have also been on the assessing side, carrying out technology audits for a major UK bank and a business investment organisation.
Alongside the technology work I have founded, grown and sold a manufacturing business, and founded, run and sold an award-winning restaurant. Green technology and e-mobility, health technology, connected products, software, manufacturing, defence, the public sector, food and retail: I have usually seen a version of a problem before, in a different industry.
I have worked as a technology adviser and consultant across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, the USA, Canada and Africa: platforms serving 18+ regulatory zones in 11 languages, national and Far East programmes as an interim CTO, advice on ecological sanitation for projects in Africa at the invitation of a UN health agency, and a manufacturing business sold to a German buyer. Most of the products I advise on are sold into several markets with different rules, and I have seen how differently the same technology decision plays out from one jurisdiction to the next.
Most recent first, and some of these overlapped. Much of my work has been under confidentiality agreements or in companies I ran, so I describe roles and outcomes rather than name organisations.
Technology strategy for a multi-product, multi-region e-mobility business: powertrain roadmap and global app infrastructure across 18+ regulatory zones and 11 languages, with extensive use of AI to speed up development and automate data analysis.
Conceived and built a bio-sensing smart wearable with machine learning, IoT, a cloud back end and caregiver connectivity. Full technical ownership from architecture to manufacturing readiness, plus investment strategy and clinical partnerships in regulated health technology. Sold the IP to a US company.
Developed a structured collaboration and innovation method to help organisations become more agile. It became the basis of Idea Mining.
Founded a business designing and making sanitation equipment for off-grid and ecological living. Created new manufacturing processes and materials, opened a new market online and through international sanitation groups, and grew to nearly £1m turnover and 20 staff across two sites. Invited by a UN health agency to advise on ecological sanitation for projects in Africa. Sold to a German company.
Spotted a gap and founded a restaurant built around food intolerances. Voted Restaurant of the Year by public vote from more than 500 venues. Sold.
A network of consultants working much like barristers’ chambers. Interim chief technology officer for two listed companies of around 150 staff each, on national and Far East projects.
Led the restructuring of a software business from services to products ahead of its IPO, winning a regional business award. Integrated four acquired software businesses, at a peak of £15m turnover and 200 staff. When the sector collapsed, the administrators asked me to find a way to save the business: I found new investment, stabilised the major client relationships and created a new route to market.
Technology audits and strategic reviews of businesses for a major UK bank before lending. Financial modelling to improve return on capital and resilience for multinational clients. Opened secure wide-area network access for defence sites worldwide. Leadership training in creativity, financial scenario planning, strategy and quality management.
Found a runaway cost problem in a service and support operation that was draining hundreds of thousands a year from the margin. Designed new processes and a client-server system giving managers real-time control of engineers, spares and equipment, and exposed the clients whose demands far exceeded what they paid. Ran the whole programme remotely over a dial-up modem, years before broadband.
Real-time software for avionics, written in assembler, where every instruction mapped almost directly to what the processor did. Then my first business, designing and making memory modules for computer boards.
An AI business-development system for independent professionals that discovers, researches, scores and drafts, and never contacts anyone without its owner approving the exact message. I wrote the constitution, requirements, architecture and a 52-package work plan; coding agents built it one package at a time under a coordinator that accepted nothing without committed evidence. Strict TypeScript, Next.js, Fastify and PostgreSQL with row-level security; more than 950 automated tests. In private build. Case study.
A dual-redundant flight tracking and noise analysis system, built unpaid as community work and used by a local authority in its oversight of a regional airport. Two independent self-healing nodes with automatic synchronisation, noise classification across 60+ aircraft types, weather correlation, night flight analysis and automated reports. I designed, built and run it end to end, which keeps my own engineering current.
I write regularly about AI in engineering, technology leadership and strategy, and I developed my own innovation method, Idea Mining, which grew out of a long record of hands-on invention across many sectors. The writing page collects it all.
Independent technical advice, AI Opportunity Workshops, due diligence, decision analysis and fractional technical leadership. See services. Based in Leeds, working with clients in the UK and internationally, on site or remotely.
If it would help, I am happy to put you in touch with people I have worked with.
I will suggest the smallest useful first step. Based in Leeds, working in the UK and internationally, on site or remote.
Not ready to talk? Try one of the free tools, or ask a question and get an answer drawn from my published writing: a quick way to see how I approach problems like yours.