Thirty years running technology inside operating businesses.

I taught myself to code in my early teens, and at 17 started working with small businesses in Barnsley. For the next seven years I worked as a professional software engineer — inside IT departments, in the public sector and in startups, across sectors from accounts to education. In 2002 I joined Watchfinder as a contractor, when the company was about six months old. I came on full time in 2004 as employee number four, and moved to Maidstone in 2006 to join the team at head office.

My responsibility there grew to cover the full estate: ecommerce and internal systems, infrastructure and networks, data and security, retail stores, suppliers, budgets and the technology team.

After the business took £6 million of investment from Piton Capital and Beringea in 2014, I grew the IT team to more than 25 people — a core development team of 16, plus operations staff running three office locations, the service centre and the retail estate. That team supported the global rollout of the Watchfinder platforms and retail propositions.

Watchfinder became the UK’s largest pre-owned watch retailer, appeared in the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 two years running after making the Ones To Watch list the year before, and was acquired by Richemont in 2018.

I now work with a small number of clients. That gives me space to understand how your business operates and to give you experienced, independent technology leadership that stays focused on delivery — close enough to challenge assumptions, support the team, and see whether the fix actually works.