Cut through the gumph.
Find what matters.
Get it moving.
Strategy, with something to show for it.
When a business is spinning or stuck, I find the commercial problem underneath and help get it moving again. That tends to involve fewer slides than people expect.
“He has a rare ability to look beyond the immediate challenge, identify what really matters and bring fresh perspective to complex business situations.”
Andi Catt, Executive Chair and Founder, TCB
Things: how we can work together
01
Thinking by building
Prototype-led strategy
Doing things, rather than having meetings about doing things. We work out what the real problem is, then build a rough working version of the answer. It won’t be pretty. It will be useful.
Fixed fee, fixed timescale
02
Sleeves up
Strategy, leadership and interim
Sometimes you need a strategy. Sometimes you need someone to run the thing for a while. I do both, from a short-term project to a longer stint while you find the right person. Growth, repositioning or a new market. Remote or on the ground.
Scoped to the job, from days to months
03
In the room
Board advisory
I’ve sat through a lot of board and senior exec meetings. The useful conversations usually happened in the car park afterwards. I’d rather have them in the room. Retained advisor, NED or Board Observer.
One-off or monthly, for as long as it’s useful
If none of that quite fits, do get in touch. Most of the good work I’ve done started as a slightly vague conversation.
Space to think
A retreat in Italy, without the gumph
The space I always wanted and never found. Proper conversations for founders and leaders about what comes next. Three people, three nights, on the edge of the Prosecco hills, an hour north of Venice.
Pilots in 2027. Register interest
Stuff: what I’ve been thinking about
Thoughts
Notes from the desk
Experiments with AI, the odd observation on advertising, an EV road trip to Italy that could have gone wrong but didn’t. And anything else that won’t leave my head.
The book
Stuff and Things
A haphazard collection of professional musings and life in advertising. For anyone whose brain runs like a browser with 47 tabs open.
The podcast
Stuff and Things, out loud
A short series picking up themes from the book. Watch or listen, whichever suits. It occasionally gets a bit deep. Sorry.
By email
Get the next one
New thoughts in your inbox when there’s something worth saying. Not often. No spam, no funnels.
A few things I’ve done
Agency leadership
I co-founded an agency and helped grow it to 30-odd people over ten years. It stayed profitable through several choppy market cycles, which in agency land is rarer than it should be.
Automotive
I helped an Italian car brand move upmarket, launching two flagship models across Europe. In the UK, its media budget kept shrinking, yet awareness hit a six-year high. More recently I’ve advised on another Italian brand’s electric comeback.
MedTech
I wrote the business case for a tool that showed patients their result before they signed up. Clinic conversion doubled. It’s now used around the world.
Animal health
Vets had to sit through mandatory parasite training. We turned it into a festival called Wormstock. It sold out, which surprised everyone (including us).
Lifestyle and fashion
A footwear brand was stuck being sensible. We moved it from utility to lifestyle, and the margins came up with it.
Energy
One of the world’s biggest energy companies needed its digital estate rebuilt globally. This was the early social web, and trust was in short supply. The hard part wasn’t the technology. It was getting London and Amsterdam to agree.
“Nick has been a wonderful professional partner, the best you can meet… A rare humble giant!”
Eraldo Mussa, Client Leadership Partner
Something spinning or stuck?
Tell me about it. The first conversation is just a conversation.
