I help founder-led businesses get the operations and the numbers right, so the business is easier to run, and worth more, whether you ever sell it or not.

Who I am

I started out as an engineer, and I have spent my career fixing how businesses actually run: the systems, the reporting, the operations that decide whether a company feels in control or is quietly firefighting.

I have led transformation and systems programmes on large, complex projects, taken distressed businesses back to profit, and structured deals worth millions. These days I do that as a fractional COO for founder-led SMEs, the businesses where the owner is carrying too much of it in their own head.

What that means for you is simple. I have run the systems and carried the P&L myself. I am not handing you a report from the outside. I have done the work.

My background is a BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of the West of Scotland, a Saltire Fellowship at Babson College through Entrepreneurial Scotland, and membership of the Institute of Directors.

What I actually do

Most owners do not have a strategy problem. They have an operations problem wearing a strategy costume. The business is working, but it depends on you, the numbers are hard to trust, and there is never quite enough visibility to feel calm about cash.

I get underneath that:

• I read the real numbers, not just the profit line: the balance sheet, a proper cashflow forecast, and how long the cash actually lasts.
• I fix the operating model, so the business runs on systems and rhythm instead of on you remembering everything.
• I bring commercial management into how the job actually runs, day to day, so the margin you priced is the margin you keep, not the one that quietly leaks between winning the work and banking it.
• I reduce how much the business depends on you being in it, so you get your time back and the business becomes more valuable at the same time.
• Once those foundations hold, I bring in your AI apprentice: trained step by step like a new hire until it is doing real work, while your people keep the decisions.
• I read the market around you, one sector at a time, from the public record, so you know where the money is moving and which companies are worth your time.

The work that makes a business easier to sell is the same work that makes it better to own. You do not have to be selling to feel the benefit.

What that has looked like

• A business that looked profitable on every report but was quietly in serious trouble underneath, six figures of tax owed and no real view of cash. We got the numbers telling the truth, built a forecast the owner could rely on, and moved it from firefighting to knowing, months ahead, what was coming in and going out.
• A business bought out of distress, taken from a loss to roughly £100k profit in about five months, with real cash in the bank. Read the case
• After an acquisition, hundreds of written procedures still named the old systems. Treated as a new hire, an AI apprentice found every one and who owned it in a few days of work, where checking them by hand would have taken around fifty days of senior time, roughly £25k. Read the case
• The first sector read: 411 companies found across seven Scottish areas, the 22 leaders profiled one by one, every claim sourced. What it found

Why work with me

I am an operator, not a passenger. I have built and run businesses, including my own, so I know what it feels like to carry one. I speak plainly, I do not hide behind jargon, and I leave you with something that runs without me. If you want to know whether we would work well together, the easiest first step is below.

Where to start

• Ratio Check. A free, quick read on where your business stands.
• A 15-minute call. How it works → Tell me what is heavy about running the business, and you leave with one thing worth checking.