After school and university, and the usual variety of jobs of one sort and another (including teaching beginners to water-ski one summer!), I moved to London in 1984, and worked in retail, print production, distribution, facilities, operations and IT.
The operations and IT bit was the real lesson – I discovered that two parts of a business that really ought to be inter-dependent spent very little time trying to understand each other.
After I had been Operations head honcho for a bit over a decade at a greeting card and stationery business, it was sold. I took the opportunity to go off on my own and put what was by then a decent 25 years of experience into practice helping a range of other businesses.
It’s now over 35 years of experience, and I have probably learned as much, if not more, in the last dozen years as I did in the first two-and-a-half decades!
I learn new things every day, and one of the great privileges of doing what I do is getting to see behind the scenes of a huge variety of businesses – all totally different, but all facing many of the same challenges.
So I get technology, and I get business metrics, processes and systems. I now specialise in sourcing or building those systems for my clients, and in developing management information systems to give them crystal clarity about what is happening in their business. Hence the name of the business!
Out of the Office
I was a primary school governor at our village school for six years. Then I was a Parish Councillor for eight years, and the Chair for seven. I am currently enjoying being committee-free!
I have a large vinyl record collection, and have been known to play some of it on various radio stations.
I live in a Hertfordshire village with my wife and, intermittently, a couple of students.