Where it started
I didn’t start out with a black book of contacts. I had no network and no safety net.
What I had was a degree in printed textiles, a love of creativity that nobody seemed to know what to do with, and a determination to prove everyone wrong.
I started my first web design business in 2010, in a recession, with no clients, no contacts and no guarantee it would work. WordPress was just starting to change what was possible for small businesses. For the first time, a business didn’t need a big agency budget to have a professional presence online. I loved that. The idea that technology could level the playing field and that it could give someone with ambition and ability the same tools as someone with connections and capital.
That’s what drove me then. It still drives me now.
What I've built
In 2012 that business became Squibble, a B2B web design and brand agency based in Birmingham. Over the next decade we worked with businesses ranging from ambitious SMEs to household names. Capita. Marks & Spencer. AutoTrader. Not because I knew the right people. Because we did good work and the work spoke for itself.
But somewhere along the way I noticed something. The website was never really the problem. The thinking behind it was. The strategy. The alignment. The clarity on what the business was actually trying to say and who it was trying to reach.
So I stopped being the person who built the website and started being the person who figured out what it needed to say first. For the last ten years that’s been my real work, before any design or build begins.
The board
In 2019 I joined TechWM, the independent body at the heart of the West Midlands tech ecosystem, as Marketing Director. Within a short time I was nominated Chair.
I spent five years in that role. Taking the organisation from operational to strategic. Making difficult decisions about direction, leadership, and structure. Building the right team. Holding the line when investors and stakeholders needed confidence. And eventually transitioning the organisation to its next stage of growth before stepping back.
Most advisors have run a business or sat on a board. Not many have done both. That experience, of being accountable at that level, of knowing what it feels like to be in that room shapes everything about how I work.
I know what boards actually ask. I know what investors actually need to see. And I know that the answer to most of those questions starts long before the board meeting. It’s in the alignment, the strategy, and the story the business is telling.
How I work
People often think I’m quiet until I speak.
I walk into a room, I listen, I ask a question and then I sit back and let people answer it. Most of the time the answer is already in the room. It just needs someone to draw it out.
I’m quick to see the whole picture and zoom in on where the focus should be. I don’t need a lot of explanation to spot what’s actually going on. And I’m not afraid to say it calmly, directly, without making anyone feel like they’ve failed.
I’ve been told I’m a safe pair of hands. That people trust me not to embarrass them in front of the board. That they don’t know how I do it.
What I do is look for the thread. The thing that connects every department, every customer, every decision. The story that runs through the whole business. Once you can see that thread, everything else becomes clearer.
Now
I started in a recession with a WordPress website and a determination to figure it out. I’m doing the same thing again now, just with better tools and sixteen years of knowing what actually matters.
AI is doing what WordPress did in 2008. It’s lowering the barrier. Giving businesses access to tools and systems that used to be out of reach. But most of the MDs I speak to don’t know where to start. They know they have to do something. They just don’t know what.
That’s exactly what I do. I help them figure it out.
Not by telling them what to do. By helping them find the answer that was already there.
Beyond the work
I’m not a corporate person. I never have been. I think that’s what disarms the ego in the room because people expect one thing and get something else entirely.
Outside of work I surf. Not well but I absolutely love it. There’s a feeling when you stand up and ride a wave that’s as close to complete freedom. I chase that feeling in North Devon, and anywhere else in the world that has a good break.
I co-founded the Midlands Marketing Awards because I believe in celebrating the talent that too often goes unrecognised. I chair, I speak, I mentor. Not because it builds my profile, but because watching someone achieve something they didn’t think they could is one of the best feelings there is.
I know that feeling well. I’ve been that person.
Let's have a conversation.
If you’re not sure whether this is relevant to your situation, book a call anyway. Twenty minutes. No pitch. I’ll tell you honestly whether I think I can help and if I can’t, I’ll point you towards someone who can.
