For businesses that have outgrown tactical marketing but aren’t ready for a full-time CMO.
Book a 30-minute callHow I work →
Brighton · London · UK-wide and internationally
I bring senior marketing leadership and commercial clarity to SMEs and startups, helping them make better decisions and grow with confidence.
In numbers //
- 20+
- Years of senior marketing experience
- 1
- Business exit, as marketing lead
- 9
- Sectors with hands-on experience
- 12
- Services across strategy and delivery
Contents
[01]
Who I help //
I work with SMEs and startups: businesses past the point where founder-led marketing is enough, and short of the point where a full-time CMO makes sense. The specifics differ enormously. The underlying problem rarely does. And when the next step is investment, Dave Mitchell and I get businesses ready to raise.
- 01
SMEs & small businesses
Big-brand marketing thinking, at your size of business.
I spent twenty years running marketing at lastminute.com and Monster.com. I now bring that thinking to SMEs, because the strategic questions are identical, the budgets are not, and most small businesses are being sold tactics when what they need is a decision.
Sound familiar
- Turnover between £1m and £20m
- Marketing is one person, a junior team, or an agency nobody is managing
- You’re spending money and can’t see clearly what it’s returning
- Growth has flattened and nobody can say precisely why
- You know you need someone senior, but not five days a week
- 02
Startups
Most startups have a product. Fewer have a proposition.
Pre-launch and early-stage marketing for startups: pressure-testing the proposition against real market conditions, defining who this is genuinely for, and building the commercial narrative that investors and first customers will actually commit to. I’ve been through a business sale from both sides (as a co-founder and as the marketing lead), so I know what the far end of this looks like.
Sound familiar
- Pre-revenue or early revenue, with a proposition still forming
- Preparing to raise, and the marketing story has to hold up
- Bootstrapping, so the tech stack and the product build have to stay lean
- The brand and communications haven’t caught up with what you’re building
- Traction isn’t what the plan assumed and nobody can explain it
- 03
Raising a round
Getting a business ready to raise, and ready to launch.
Fundraising advisory with twice-exited founder Dave Mitchell, plus the positioning and go-to-market investors will test.
Sound familiar
- Raising in the next three to nine months and the deck is still the founder’s first draft
- Just closed a round and now have to deploy it, with no commercial or marketing lead in the building
- Founder-led sales has hit its ceiling and nobody can say what comes next
- Several revenue lines on the slide and investors keep asking which one is the business
- The brand and the website say less than the product does
[02]
Clients & Experience //
Twenty years across nine sectors. Each one has its own language, its own buying psychology, its own competitive dynamics — which is why I don’t work to a single playbook.
Travel
- Holiday Autos (part of lastminute.com)Full-stack marketing, brand & comms · Campaign planning · B2B & B2C booking platform rebuild · Rebrand & channel optimisation
Recruitment
- Monster.comNational PR & creative campaigns · ‘Keep Britain Working’ · UK’s first virtual careers fair · Performance marketing & candidate attraction · B2B campaigns & events
Education
- AD Education GroupICMP: The Institute of Contemporary Music PerformanceSAE InstituteBoard-level marketing leadership in higher education · Student recruitment across undergraduate, postgraduate & international · Full-channel marketing & campaign planning · Brand, positioning & communications in competitive markets · Search strategy across SEO, paid media & PR · Growth marketing through to sale
- Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM)Director-level marketing leadership in a competitive higher-education market · Undergraduate, postgraduate & international student recruitment · Integrated campaign planning across every channel · Positioning, brand & communications built to stand out · Joined-up search across SEO, paid media & PR
- Mont Rose CollegeStrategic marketing & website audit · A blueprint covering analytics, attribution & student personas, SEO & online reputation, team & sales process · A prioritised action plan for the in-house team to follow
EdTech
- TES GlobalMarketing strategy & campaign planning · Website rebuild · Email & CRM campaigns · Branding · Sales decks & collateral
- Elevate by ICMPFounder-led EdTech start-up within ICMP · Concept, brand & online course platform · SEO & launch · Proposition to go-to-market · Taken through to a successful exit
Hospitality
- The Galley Restaurant (Mitchell Restaurants Ltd)Website rebrand & UX: built through a headless CMS via Claude Enterprise, no ongoing developer support · SEO, AEO & GEO for search and AI visibility · Content, tone-of-voice & brand guidelines · Built to grow restaurant bookings
Green Tech & Clean Energy
- GreenTech IndustriesFractional Marketing Director: commercial narrative for the UK’s first industrial-scale EV battery remanufacturing operation · Positioning for investors, partners & industrial buyers · Category creation · Grants & bids (millions secured) · Website rebrand & UX: built through a headless CMS via Claude Enterprise · Complex communications · PR & outreach strategy
Tech & SaaS
- Dragonfly AIMarketing mentorship · Go-to-market strategy · Communications · Search strategy across SEO, AEO & GEO
- AdzembleEarly-stage proposition development · Positioning & channel strategy · Idea to market
Charity
- The Ashbrook FoundationBrand, tone of voice & communications · Website designed & built through a headless CMS · Build & ongoing development run through Claude Enterprise: no developer required
Consumer & Affiliate
- Hobbify (hobbify-skills.com)Affiliate business set-up from a standing start · Market research, niche economics & brand · SEO, AEO & GEO content engine · Built & developed through Claude Enterprise: no developer required
[03]
What I do //
Every engagement is different. But they all start the same way — with a conversation about where you are and what you actually need.
Start here //
Fractional CMO
Your CMO. Part of the time. All of the thinking.
Board-level marketing leadership on a flexible, retained basis. I set the strategy, own the numbers, manage the team and the agencies, and sit in the meetings where decisions actually get made, for an agreed number of days a month rather than a permanent hire.
- Strategic direction and commercial accountability
- Team and agency management
- Hands-on delivery, not advice alone
- Days per month agreed upfront, scaling down when you need less
And also //
- 01
Marketing Strategy Positioning, audience, channels, and a roadmap connected to revenue.
- 02
Marketing Audit An honest view of what’s working, what isn’t, and what to fix.
- 03
Team Building & Mentoring Build the marketing function your business actually needs.
- 04
AI Marketing & Adoption Use AI where it genuinely helps, safely, and built into how your team works.
- 05
Brand & Positioning Define what you stand for, who you’re for, and why you’re the right choice.
- 06
Start-up Marketing Advisory Stress-test your proposition before you take it to market.
- 07
Bid Writing Bid writing, grant applications and award entries that win: millions secured.
- 08
Creative & Brand Production Concepts, campaigns and brand assets, designed and produced end to end.
- 09
PPC & Paid Media PPC and paid media accountable to pipeline, not clicks: planned, run, optimised.
- 10
SEO Consultant, AEO & GEO An SEO consultant for search engines and the AI that increasingly answers instead of them.
- 11
Video & AI Production Video from concept to cut, including AI-generated motion from static imagery.
[04]
The alternatives //
You have four options, and I’d rather you chose between them clearly than took my word for it.
| A fractional CMO | A full-time CMO | An agency retainer | Carry on as you are | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seniority in the room | CMO-level, from week one | CMO-level, once you’ve hired | Senior at the pitch, account manager after | Whoever has capacity |
| Time to value | Weeks | Three to six months to hire, then ramp | Weeks, but only inside the channel you bought | — |
| Scope | Strategy and delivery | Everything, permanently | The channels on the contract | Whatever fits around the day job |
| Commitment | Days per month, agreed upfront | Permanent, with notice | Typically six to twelve months | None |
| Who owns the number | Me | Them | Channel metrics only | Nobody |
| Cost shape | Variable, scales down when you need less | Fixed, plus employment costs | Fixed monthly, plus media spend | Opportunity cost |
[05]
How I work //
Strategy and delivery, from one place.
I’m a full-stack marketer, which is rarer than it sounds. Most marketing help is either strategy you’re left to execute, or execution with no strategy behind it. I’m both: I find what’s broken, build the plan, and do it with you.
- 01
It starts with a conversation
- An honest discussion about where you are, what you’re trying to do, and whether I’m the right person to help.
- 02
I find what’s really going on
- The brief is rarely the real problem.
- Before any plan, I get to the root of it: the positioning, the data, and the gaps quietly holding growth back.
- 03
I build the plan and do it with you
- Strategy and hands-on delivery from one person.
- Clear scope, clear fees, and no gap between the thinking and the doing.
- 04
I leave you stronger
- The goal is never dependency.
- It’s a team, a system, or a strategy that keeps working long after I’ve gone.
[06]
Where I work //
20 years of marketing. All of it counts.
The businesses I work with are typically at an inflection point: past the stage where tactical execution is enough, not yet ready for a full-time senior hire, and looking for someone who can get up to speed quickly and start making things move. That’s where I work best.
[07]
About //
Marketing at the highest level.
I’ve spent more than two decades at the senior end of marketing (as CMO, Marketing Director and Board Director, and in advisory roles) in businesses that were either defining their category or fighting hard to stay at the top of it. That list includes lastminute.com, its Holiday Autos brand, and Monster.com. The common thread was figuring out how to connect what a business does to the people who need it, and making that connection work commercially.
More recently I’ve chosen to work directly with founders and leadership teams as a fractional CMO and strategic advisor. The businesses I work with are typically at an inflection point: past the stage where tactical execution is enough, not yet ready for a full-time senior hire, and looking for someone who can get up to speed quickly and start making things move. That’s where I work best.
I co-founded an EdTech venture that was acquired within the multi-million-pound education-group sale I led marketing for. That means I understand what commercial growth readiness for a sale actually looks like from the inside: what investors and acquirers look for, what due diligence surfaces, and how to build the marketing foundations (strategy, data, brand, positioning) that hold up under scrutiny. For founders building toward an exit, that experience matters.
[08]
Work //
What the work actually changed.
£4m → £11m
revenue, then a multi-million pound sale
A long-term role owning brand, positioning, acquisition and retention, through to acquisition, and the marketing lead on the sale itself. The kind of growth that survives a buyer’s diligence is rarely the kind that happens in a quarter.
+21%
bookings year on year, in the year’s worst month
Rebrand, SEO and a new website for an independent restaurant, with commission-free booking switched on straight from Google Search and Maps. It arrested a year-long decline: the quietest month became the first to grow, in a sector where a bad season is hard to recover from.
£3m+
in grant funding and competitive bids secured
For a green-technology business, alongside the brand, positioning and website: the work of turning genuinely complex technical messaging into something a market, an investor and an assessor could all understand and act on.
Insights //
What investors actually read: a conversation with Dave Mitchell
Dave Mitchell has led three funding rounds and sat on both sides of the table. A conversation about decks, models, and why raises really fail.
4 min read
This site was built with AI. The thinking wasn’t.
I build websites with Claude, draft in it daily, and shipped this site with it. Here is the line between what the tools do and what you would be hiring.
3 min read
8.8%: what ChatGPT referrals did for a restaurant
Thirty-four visitors, three bookings, and the best conversion rate of any channel on the site. One number from a Devon restaurant’s analytics, unpacked.
2 min read
[09]
Contact //
Strategy with vision. Impact that lasts.
Ready when you are.
Tell me where you are and what you’re trying to do, and we’ll work out together whether I’m the right person to help. No commitment, no pressure.
Brighton · London · UK-wide and internationally · LinkedIn