What Do I Do?

I’m the person organisations call when transformation stalls despite everyone working harder than ever.

For over 30 years, I’ve been the strategic troubleshooter leadership teams bring in when escalations multiply and established frameworks fail. From the Bank of England to UBS, Barclays to UK Government — I’ve recovered failing programmes, coached executives through complexity, and built operating models that actually deliver.

That pattern recognition is now documented in Thriving in Turbulence — and the CIRCA-CLEAR diagnostic meta-framework at its core.

What Sets Me Apart?

I’ve been doing this longer than most. Championing iterative, adaptive ways of working since 1991 — a decade before the Agile Manifesto existed.

I built a diagnostic system, not just a consulting practice. CIRCA-CLEAR emerged from 200+ real-world interventions across banking, government, technology, retail, and professional services. It diagnoses why transformation is stalling so you apply the right intervention — not generic best practice.

I measure what matters. ThroughFlow and Human Pulse provide 2-4 weeks advance warning before traditional metrics show problems. Early intervention costs weeks. Late intervention costs quarters.

I build capability, not dependency. The goal is for teams to navigate turbulence themselves within 18-24 months, not through permanent consultant engagement.

How I Work?

Diagnostic first. Intervention matched to condition. Single-lever discipline. Measure signals. Learn. Iterate.

I don’t apply one-size-fits-all solutions because the same symptoms can indicate five different root causes requiring opposite responses. Misdiagnosis guarantees expensive failure.

Clients value my direct style, operational specificity, and ability to translate complex system dynamics into something you can test this week. I don’t just advise — I help build the pattern recognition capability that stays when I leave.

Current Focus

Thriving in Turbulence on Leapub and Amazon — the book documenting CIRCA-CLEAR (published November 2025)

Thriving in Turbulence on Substack. The newsletter provides pattern recognition for organisational turbulence. Each issue includes diagnostic patterns, leading indicators, and one micro-move you can test this week.

Book Zero (0) – I’m putting the 75,000 words that didn’t make it into Thriving in Turbulence to work. First up: a prequel, Book 0. The question isn’t whether you’re changing. It’s whether you’re changing fast enough. When an organisation’s adaptive capacity falls behind its environment’s rate of change, the gap doesn’t stay stable — it compounds. I call this adaptation debt. And much of it is self-inflicted: leadership instincts that backfire. Not malice. Well-intentioned behaviours that widen the gap while leaders believe they’re closing it. Often, the very reason teams need to navigate turbulence in the first place.

circa-clear.com — practitioner community and updated playbooks (coming early 2026)

Speaking and workshops — bringing diagnostic precision to leadership teams navigating turbulence