Helping big brands build their cultural competitive advantage
Helping big brands
build their cultural
competitive advantage
We’re living in a time of radical transformation where brands and business leaders need to innovate across the board just to survive, let alone thrive. Yet, most organisations haven’t challenged the system that decides what gets made, diluted or terminated.
I call this The Corporate Algorithm - inherited internal processes built for the 20th century, designed to reward predictability, efficiency and familiarity. And in Q1 of the 21st century these rigid processes started combining with data-and-AI filtered decision making narrowing judgement and perspective upstream even further.
The result is that brands are becoming increasingly formulaic and homogeneity is standard.
The Corporate Algorithm is also driving widespread burnout and exhaustion by forcing leaders and teams to operate in both permacrisis and in a state of risk-averse efficiency, while in this multi-reality Culture-Led Era they’re expected to navigate and serve, has fundamentally changed.
Staying static is a growth, relevance, resilience and organisational risk.
In Q2 of the 21st century, geopolitics is once again reshaping people and therefore culture(s), economies and markets, technology is once again transforming how and where we live and work, often faster than organisations can adapt; and information travels instantly across media and platforms shaped by power, algorithms and agendas.
We’re living in a time of radical transformation where brands and business leaders need to innovate across the board just to survive, let alone thrive. Yet, most organisations haven’t challenged the system that decides what gets made, diluted or terminated.
I call this The Corporate Algorithm - inherited internal processes built for the 20th century, designed to reward predictability, efficiency and familiarity. And in Q1 of the 21st century these rigid processes started combining with data-and-AI filtered decision making narrowing judgement and perspective upstream even further.
The result is that brands are becoming increasingly formulaic and homogeneity is standard.
The Corporate Algorithm is also driving widespread burnout and exhaustion by forcing leaders and teams to operate in both permacrisis and in a state of risk-averse efficiency, while in this multi-reality Culture-Led Era they’re expected to navigate and serve, has fundamentally changed.
Staying static is a growth, relevance, resilience and organisational risk.
In Q2 of the 21st century, geopolitics is once again reshaping people and therefore culture(s), economies and markets, technology is once again transforming how and where we live and work, often faster than organisations can adapt; and information travels instantly across media and platforms shaped by power, algorithms and agendas.
We’re living in a time of radical transformation where brands and business leaders need to innovate across the board just to survive, let alone thrive. Yet, most organisations haven’t challenged the system that decides what gets made, diluted or terminated.
I call this The Corporate Algorithm - inherited internal processes built for the 20th century, designed to reward predictability, efficiency and familiarity. And in Q1 of the 21st century these rigid processes started combining with data-and-AI filtered decision making narrowing judgement and perspective upstream even further.
The result is that brands are becoming increasingly formulaic and homogeneity is standard.
The Corporate Algorithm is also driving widespread burnout and exhaustion by forcing leaders and teams to operate in both permacrisis and in a state of risk-averse efficiency, while in this multi-reality Culture-Led Era they’re expected to navigate and serve, has fundamentally changed.
Staying static is a growth, relevance, resilience and organisational risk.
In Q2 of the 21st century, geopolitics is once again reshaping people and therefore culture(s), economies and markets, technology is once again transforming how and where we live and work, often faster than organisations can adapt; and information travels instantly across media and platforms shaped by power, algorithms and agendas.
Successful organisations and brands win from earlier and upstream clarity and decision making driven by culturally informed leaders using adaptive resilient business ecosystems with diverse high performing teams. This ensures true resonance with audiences (internal & external) and, ultimately, sustainable and long term business growth.
I support Leadership (C-Suite, founders, VPs and transformation leaders) and Brand Teams (Marketing, Growth, Innovation, Product, Insight, and Creative) upstream to unlock relevance as a business growth engine and innovation catalyst by cascading Cultural Agility through the business. This is the ability to understand multiple global and local cultural contexts, operate within them and make better business decisions as a result.
As an ongoing embedded Senior Strategic Advisor I provide an outsider-insider perspective to enhance your unique cultural edge by identifying your specific business-critical challenges as they arise. In crucial decision making meetings, I say the things others won’t, delivering cultural truth, commercial sharpness, and 30 years of hard-won experience.
Through The Reset, I work with the two critical engines that drive modern organisations: Leadership and Brand. Each Reset starts with a tailored, structured offsite intervention, designed to rewire how leaders think and how teams accelerate together. But it's on the return when reality hits, as an embedded strategic advisor, I continue to support this clarity becoming the capability that can drive both brand output and business outcomes.
LEADERSHIP SUPPORT
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Strategic Advisor
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The Leadership Reset
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Strategic Advisor
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The Leadership Reset
01
Strategic Advisor
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The Leadership Reset
BRAND SUPPORT
TEAM SUPPORT
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Strategic Advisor
01
Strategic Advisor
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Strategic Advisor
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The Cultural Reset
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The Cultural Reset
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The Cultural Reset
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The Cultural Reset
AN OUTSIDER APPROACH WITH INSIDER KNOW-HOW
I bring over 30 years of global, hands-on experience working across lifestyle, FMCG and sportswear, both inside major global organisations and through building and leading my own independent companies.
My career has been shaped by operating at the intersection of corporate systems, cultural reality and entrepreneurial thinking and being able to translate between them when it matters most.
After founding and running one of the earliest integrated (traditional, digital social) boutique youth agencies, Spin for a decade, I was headhunted into senior leadership roles at adidas and Diageo. In both, I was brought in as an internal change agent: to help brands navigate cultural relevance externally, while reshaping internal thinking, processes and decision-making to support that ambition. In 2017, I recognised the need for a new type of big brand partner and founded Platform13.
Leaders usually ask HOW I work? The answer isn’t a single framework or model. It’s an ability to read what’s emerging before it becomes consensus, combined with lived experience of how decisions actually get made inside complex organisations.
I bring over 30 years of global, hands-on experience working across lifestyle, FMCG and sportswear, both inside major global organisations and through building and leading my own independent companies.
My career has been shaped by operating at the intersection of corporate systems, cultural reality and entrepreneurial thinking and being able to translate between them when it matters most.
After founding and running one of the earliest integrated (traditional, digital social) boutique youth agencies, Spin for a decade, I was headhunted into senior leadership roles at adidas and Diageo. In both, I was brought in as an internal change agent: to help brands navigate cultural relevance externally, while reshaping internal thinking, processes and decision-making to support that ambition. In 2017, I recognised the need for a new type of big brand partner and founded Platform13.
Leaders usually ask HOW I work? The answer isn’t a single framework or model. It’s an ability to read what’s emerging before it becomes consensus, combined with lived experience of how decisions actually get made inside complex organisations.
Across three decades, my work has consistently balanced commercial performance, long-term brand equity and cultural resonance across markets, categories and moments , particularly in periods of change.
That perspective has led to ongoing commentary, profiles and thought leadership in global industry and trend publications such as WARC, Business of Fashion, Digiday, Adweek, Highsnobiety, The Drum and Campaign. I’ve delivered main-stage keynotes at D&AD, Apple Today, Eurobest and Hyper Island, appeared as a challenger voice at Cannes Lions and Advertising Week, and served as a judge for D&AD New Blood and multiple industry awards.
In 2025, I authored Culture-Led Brands, which delves into the 'how' by empowering executives and professionals with a deeper understanding of the 'why’. This not only speaks to the unprecedented time we are living in, but how it can be shaped better for us all.
2025 also saw the launch of my POD on Youtube, Cultural Voices, exploring the perspectives and experiences that have shaped extraordinary careers, while sharing insights and expertise across corporate, cultural, and creative spaces.
Across three decades, my work has consistently balanced commercial performance, long-term brand equity and cultural resonance across markets, categories and moments , particularly in periods of change.
That perspective has led to ongoing commentary, profiles and thought leadership in global industry and trend publications such as WARC, Business of Fashion, Digiday, Adweek, Highsnobiety, The Drum and Campaign. I’ve delivered main-stage keynotes at D&AD, Apple Today, Eurobest and Hyper Island, appeared as a challenger voice at Cannes Lions and Advertising Week, and served as a judge for D&AD New Blood and multiple industry awards.
In 2025, I authored Culture-Led Brands, which delves into the 'how' by empowering executives and professionals with a deeper understanding of the 'why’. This not only speaks to the unprecedented time we are living in, but how it can be shaped better for us all.
2025 also saw the launch of my POD on Youtube, Cultural Voices, exploring the perspectives and experiences that have shaped extraordinary careers, while sharing insights and expertise across corporate, cultural, and creative spaces.
Across three decades, my work has consistently balanced commercial performance, long-term brand equity and cultural resonance across markets, categories and moments , particularly in periods of change.
That perspective has led to ongoing commentary, profiles and thought leadership in global industry and trend publications such as WARC, Business of Fashion, Digiday, Adweek, Highsnobiety, The Drum and Campaign. I’ve delivered main-stage keynotes at D&AD, Apple Today, Eurobest and Hyper Island, appeared as a challenger voice at Cannes Lions and Advertising Week, and served as a judge for D&AD New Blood and multiple industry awards.
In 2025, I authored Culture-Led Brands, which delves into the 'how' by empowering executives and professionals with a deeper understanding of the 'why’. This not only speaks to the unprecedented time we are living in, but how it can be shaped better for us all.
2025 also saw the launch of my POD on Youtube, Cultural Voices, exploring the perspectives and experiences that have shaped extraordinary careers, while sharing insights and expertise across corporate, cultural, and creative spaces.