The long story, shortened

Thirty-odd years.
Still asking “what if?”

I’ve spent a career turning complicated technology into products, strategies and organisations that make sense. Along the way: several companies, many roadmaps, quite a few acquisitions and more workshops than is medically advisable.

30+years in technology
and still curious

01 Selected chapters

The foundations

Architecture before it was fashionable

I started in technology more than three decades ago and spent a good part of that time helping organisations connect business strategy, enterprise architecture and process change. There were models, methods and a surprising number of boxes connected by arrows.

Enterprise architectureBusiness processStrategy

The product years

From diagrams to products people buy

Product management became the natural next step. At Corso I led the business and worked on enterprise architecture and innovation management products — including asking why so many innovation tools fall off a cliff after collecting the ideas.

CorsoInnovation managementProduct leadership

The scale-up years

Strategy, growth and grown-up software

At erwin I led product strategy for data governance, enterprise architecture and collaboration products: portfolio choices, go-to-market work, customer conversations and helping capable teams turn a broad vision into repeatable delivery.

erwinData governanceGo-to-market

The Quark chapter

A familiar name with a new direction

As CEO of Quark, my job was to help a long-established software company focus on its next act: AI-driven content creation, automation and intelligence for complex, regulated organisations. Important work — but one chapter, not the whole book.

QuarkContent automationLeadership

02 Beyond the job title

Teams matter.
On and off the pitch.

I’m a former rugby player, a long-time coach and have chaired both Dunlop Rugby Football Club and the West Midlands region of Wooden Spoon, rugby’s children’s charity. I also volunteered at Rugby World Cup 2015.

Rugby has supplied a useful leadership education: prepare properly, trust the people around you and accept that the plan may need adjusting once somebody considerably larger runs directly at it.

03 And now

A new knee.
A new chapter.

A knee replacement enforced something I had not always been brilliant at: stopping.

Recovery created time to take stock and think about what came next. It reinforced the appeal of semi-retirement — enough freedom for renovation, carpentry and roofing, with enough productive itch left to build an AI-native platform and an organisation of agents around it.

This is not really a retirement story. It is a story about having the time to become a beginner again.

See what I’m building ↗

Thirty-odd years.Still asking “what if?”