My Career

As an engineer by background, I helped build the internet and banking infrastructures we now take for granted. Today, I’m a product-focused generalist whose curiosity drives me to ask questions — of customers, of ideas and of myself. This breadth of experience has taught me how to ask better quality questions, to challenge with good intent.

In today’s ever-changing tech landscape, I bridge the gap between technology and business. My strength lies in connecting teams and customers, enabling those around me to excel. Every team I’ve led has improved their performance. Throughout my career, I’ve focused on technology as a solution to human problems. Whilst tech multiplies our capabilities, it’s the human purpose behind it that motivates me.

Experience

Since Feb 2025: Marketing Manager for The FreeBSD Foundation. In essence, a product marketing role. Set the marketing strategy for 2025, including key metrics.

Since 2018: Product Strategy Adviser. Bringing together my wide experience with a keen interest in Behavioural Science, has led to working with a number of startup founders needing help finding product/market fit. Over the last couple of years, I’ve also informally acted as an adviser on a number of portfolio companies for a VC acquaintance.

Since 2022: An accidental conversation with a small, local, business has led to me running marketing for them. I’ve directed, filmed and edited over 30 short films, to date, for a YouTube channel that has become the major funnel for the business. My work has turned a young brand into a nationally recognised leader in its field, and even extended reach to international customers.

Jan 2022 -> Nov 2022: Product Marketing Manager for env0. Invited by the VP Marketing — a former colleague from my Red Hat time — to establish the Product Marketing function. Spent time understanding our customers’ problems and developing the bridge between the business and engineering.

Aug 2020 -> Apr 2021: Product Manager for video meetings company Whereby AS. Reporting to the CEO, I was hired to organise and develop a nascent B2B product, which I successfully grew from sub $1mil to $3.5mil ARR in six months. Formed an all-remote product team and quickly got design, engineering and UX working together. Improved sales processes and customer onboarding by introducing automation and simplifying. Hired my successor. Mentored a designer to become a Product Manager.

Oct 2014 -> Jul 2020: Senior Principal Product Manager, Ansible, Inc. First employee hired outside of the US, before our acquisition by Red Hat. Reported to the SVP Sales and Marketing. Originally hired as Director of Business Development, establishing and growing the EMEA business to $1.5mil ARR in one year.

The reality was, as the sole person in Europe, I did everything — technical consultancy, speaking at events, pre-sales and account management. This is the joyous, and at times exhausting, life in a startup company of 25 people. I became a trusted adviser to our executive team, influencing product development and marketing.

Post acquisition, my experience translated to the most senior level of Product Manager. Instrumental in closing a $16m deal with a top tier global bank. Continued to MC our annual conferences in London. Sought out and developed staff throughout the larger corporate entity to help deliver across Europe.

2002 -> 2014: Technical Consultant. I engineered large-scale infrastructure projects for investment banks, designing and building automated solutions. Worked at Credit Suisse, Nomura, RBS and Barclays Capital. Projects included enabling over 50% of BarCap’s staff to work remotely during the London Olympics, building a high frequency trading platform at RBS, and running the infrastructure of a trading platform at CSFB. A lot of my technical background can be found on this blog, and also on GitHub.

Ran a team of 10 Unix specialists on an infrastructure security project for Nortel Networks in Lisbon, Portugal. Inherited the role, when on the first day, my natural tendency to want things organised caught the eye of a senior manager. Turned a multi-hour manual task into a split-second automation. Ran what would now be called a ‘stand up’ — a daily meeting (seated; this was a team of adults), at the end of the day, to make sure everyone could start the following day with no blockers. This was supposed to be a two week project. I was there for three months in the end.

Designed and built fully automated Linux infrastructures for Blue Square Gaming, AOL Broadband and the Satellite Applications Catapult. All greenfield, with autonomy to deliver to relatively simple briefs. I chose technologies with existing staff skills in mind, and built everything so that I was redundant from the moment it was finished.

2001 -> 2002: Security Consultant, CISSP certified, for International Network Services (INS) and BT spinoff, Internet Designers Limited.

Feb 1996 -> 2001: LAN Infrastructure Manager, EMEA for UUNET (née Pipex). In 2000 I built a team from nothing to establish connectivity for all new European business units, serving over 3,000 employees. Initially, I inherited the project with no staff, and had to deliver two office installations by borrowing one pair of hands to help me. The previous year, these installations were done with four technical staff and a project manager. This was an early lesson in how to build alliances and garner the help of people you don’t manage. Ran a team of highly technical systems administrators in 1999. I was part of a team of three sent to Jordan in 1998 to build the foundations of the internet in the middle east. Started in 1996 as an Internet Installations Engineer, connecting businesses to the internet and working on projects including the building of BBC News, CNN.com and Nasdaq.com.

1994-1996: Technical Consultant, ADP Dealer Services. Implementing Ford Motor Company’s new Dealer Management System across dealers in the UK. Often involved learning old and new tech on the job, as PCs and Unix servers had to integrate with older mainframe environments.