I help leaders and innovation teams get product, technology and people moving in the same direction when AI changes the tools faster than the way we work. A founder, CTO and Head of Product who is also a certified coach: I have built the product myself, and I know how to bring the people along with it.
“We have the AI tools. Nothing new is happening.”
“Product is our biggest cost, it is always late, and I cannot see what we get for it.”
“AI was supposed to free us up. Now my day is reviewing pull requests and writing specs.”
“There are things on this team nobody dares to say out loud.”
“Everyone is busy. Nobody is sure we are building the right thing.”
AI gives most companies powerful tools, but not the ability to build great products with them. That takes product and technology leadership of a different kind: less control, more trust, and teams who dare to talk about what is actually in the way.
Most teams work in production mode. Email and meetings feel meaningful because they resemble factory work. I help teams shift to a way of working where experimenting is safe and expected.
AI makes it easy to build more. My job is to help you build less, and the right thing. The work before you create matters more than ever, and I love cutting to the core.
When a team is stuck, has the same argument again and again, or doesn't dare touch what is really bothering it. I work with the live team while it does real work.
I care about teams that are building something new. Teams that keep asking whether this is the right thing to build, dare to say out loud what they see, and get better at working together as they go. In my experience the hard problems are rarely technical. They sit in the question nobody asks, the argument that keeps coming back, and a way of working made for delivery rather than discovery. AI makes this more urgent, not less. The tools are here, but knowing how to innovate with them is not.
I have founded seven companies over 25 years, three of them venture-backed, most recently Hemi, where I was CTO and Head of Product. I am also an ICF-certified coach and team coach. I am at my best in the room, at the whiteboard, shaping the product and the architecture while sensing what is really happening in the team and putting words to it.
Let's talkPhysiotherapy was built around clinic visits, so help often came late and was hard to reach for many patients.
Co-founded the company and led product and technology, building a hybrid service with digital triage, personalised video exercise plans and easy access to clinicians.
Acquired and rolled out as the Ascenti Reach app across all Ascenti claims. Part of Ascenti's IT Innovator of the Year win at the HealthInvestor Awards 2022.
Complex chronic pain needs many disciplines working as one team, in a regulated field where health data must be handled with great care.
As co-founder, CTO and Head of Product I built a platform for multidisciplinary pain care with security and compliance designed in, brought AI into the care workflows, and facilitated how the team worked together.
Care coordinators, clinicians and patients working from one shared picture of the treatment, backed by a large seed round.
For startups, scale-ups and organisations building new products, often with AI, who need experienced product, tech and people leadership in unknown territory.
You bring a question, I come in for it. We shape the work around what you actually need, and I am on and off for as long as it takes.
For teams that don't need a full-time CPTO, but do need someone who can lead product, technology and people through something new.
For leaders in the middle of a new reality who want to lead with both head and body.
When AI makes thinking cheap, hard work no longer puts you in the front row.
Do you have a product that needs direction, a tech team that is stuck, or an AI shift underway? Write a few lines and we'll find a time for a free intro call.
I take on a small number of teams at a time.