Creative people feel. Performance you can measure.
Marketing has split into two camps. Brand people chase the feeling and wave away the numbers. Performance people chase the numbers until the brand stops meaning anything. I have spent over a decade refusing to pick a side.
I have built and exited businesses of my own, agencies and start-ups both, and every one of them taught the same lesson: brands grow fastest when people feel something and the numbers prove it.
Now I put that to work for founders, leadership teams and boards, as a fractional CMO, non-executive director, advisor and consultant, with a full agency behind me when the work needs more hands.
My story
I have spent over a decade in marketing and advertising, almost all of it with skin in the game: not advising from the sidelines, but building, with my own name on the door and my own money on the line.
I have founded and exited two agencies, working with bp, Stoli, Distill Ventures and many more. In between came the start-ups, wherever I saw an opening: training platforms, ad networks and dining apps.
Today I run Vertical Brands, working with the likes of FACEGYM, Canagan and Decant Group, and I sit on the other side of the table too, as a fractional CMO, non-executive director, advisor and consultant to businesses at their next stage.
The grounding came from Trinity College Dublin and McGill University, first-class honours and a lot of marketing theory and brand management. Everything since has been learning when the theory holds, and when to tear it up.
Home is London. The work is wherever my clients are, and I travel a lot to be there.
Brands I have helped grow
How I work
When growth stalls, the standard move is to call an agency, and the standard agency arrives with a template. Your business gets poured into it, one size fits nobody, and the answer you actually need usually sits somewhere the template cannot reach.
So I start further back: how do your customers actually find you, choose you and talk about you? The honest answers are often counterintuitive, and that is the point. The obvious plan is the one your competitors are already running.
Then I stay close to the work, in the numbers, the creative reviews and the team meetings, until it is delivering.
Step back first
Before any plan, I look at how customers actually find you, choose you and talk about you, and where the business needs to go.
Set the direction
A clear strategy for brand, growth and channels, with the priorities and budget to back it.
Lead the work
Hands-on leadership across strategy, creative, data and operations, with your team and your partners.
Build it to last
The people, processes and measurement that keep growth compounding long after my part is done.