Co-Founder and Director at Craft Buddy Ltd, a designer and manufacturer of popular brands in the Arts, Crafts and Toy industries, including Crystal Art, Forever Flowerz, Craft Buddy Puzzles, ColourMe 3D, Paint by Numb3rs and more. A young and rapidly growing company, our USP is a distinct focus on mass market trends and innovation, and bringing this to market quickly in the form of an attractive and coherent retail offering. With a strong international slant, Craft Buddy Ltd supply a large number of leading retailers and wholesalers in over 35 countries worldwide, including toy chains, hobby chains, department stores, TV shopping channels, independent stores and online retailers in the UK, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Australasia. We also sell to consumers direct via our own fast-growing DTC platform and marketplaces. Our growing licensed product portfolio includes products made in collaboration with Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Warner Bros, Peter Rabbit, Paddington Bear, Smurfs, Thomas Kinkade, Anne Stokes and others.

Established in 2000, Great Leisure Furniture, based in Ningbo, China, are specialists in the manufacture of garden furniture. With annual revenue of $100m USD and 2500 employees, we are the manufacturer of choice for a number of major garden furniture brands, garden centres and mass market retailers, including Walmart, Home Depot, B&Q, Asda, etc. I am employed as European Sales Director, based in London (UK).

Maxeda DIY is the market-leading home improvement retailer in the Benelux, with over 340 DIY superstores in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg including Praxis, Formido, Brico and Brico Plan-It. It is owned by private equity group KKR. Role description:> Managed a small team of 4 based in Amsterdam and Hong Kong with the objective of growing and enriching Maxeda’s own-label Garden and Seasonal assortment across the 4 retail brands in 3 countries (circa 340 stores). Previously held the same role managing the own-label Indoor Furniture, Lighting & Home Furnishings assortment> To identify and execute own-label growth opportunities and cost reduction opportunities through Far East sourcing and volume bundling > Managed full Private Label development process, from supplier selection to negotiation, packaging development, quality control and delivery monitoring aspects > Gained rich sourcing experience and contacts across five countries in the Far East (China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) > Bought & sourced 10 unique assortment categories (including Christmas, Garden, Lighting, Indoor Furniture, Window Decoration) and over 90 suppliers in Europe and the Far East

Accenture is the world's largest consulting firm as measured by revenues, and is a Fortune Global 500 technology, consulting and outsourcing firm.> Initially worked internally in the Business Development team supporting a senior contract negotiator > Major assignment was a strategy project exploring the potential for Accenture to enter the arena of Islamic Banking. I initiated a feasibility study and liaised with various professionals to develop internal expertise> Third role was in Technology Division of Barclays Bank HQ in Canary Wharf. Remit was to overhaul technology status reporting within Barclays; I designed and implement dashboards which reported on Barclay’s global IT performance across numerous variables