I'm a futurist and socio-cultural trends expert and a strategy consultant. I am the co-founder of Working the Future, which provides bespoke consultancy services to help organisations future-proof and create new strategies for attracting and retaining the key skilled human capital that will be critical for ongoing business success.

Breaking Trends™ is a global trends consultancy that has built a solid reputation for generating future-focused market and business intelligence. It provides clients with high-value management consultancy in order to help them develop new strategies for achieving game-changing innovation. Having started working for Breaking Trends™ originally in March 2005, I've recently re-joined the company.Reporting directly to the CEO, I head up a multi-disciplinary team of expert specialists and oversee all operational aspects of the company’s business. Leveraging my first-class creative and strategic thinking skills, I generate broadly-focused global trends intelligence applicable to all forms of upstream future-planning activity, helping clients to better anticipate the socio-cultural, consumer and digital change likely to impact their businesses.As the principal client contact at Breaking Trends™, I liaise directly with clients (including at ‘c-level’) in companies such as the BBC, BMW Group, BSkyB, City Football Group, E.ON, Fremantle Media, HarperCollins, Leo Burnett, McDonald’s and Virgin Atlantic. I’m fully involved in the analysis and debriefing of trends intelligence findings – and, crucially, the key implications, opportunities and consumer value propositions emanating from these – whether in closed client environments or at one of the company’s regular breakfast briefing events. I’m also in charge of the overall generation and editing of all of the company’s depth briefing reports, and I co-produce the acclaimed high-impact videos that accompany these.The company also has an incubator unit that I’m fully involved with, enabling me to leverage my trends intelligence expertise to help devise innovative ideas for next-generation content, products and services.

The Whisky Exchange is widely regarded as the world’s leading e-commerce site for high-end whisky and fine spirits, stocking over 10,000 premium products and enjoying a loyal global customer base.Working alongside the company’s founder and MD, I headed up the creative department’s internal team of 12, which consisted of key design, development and editorial personnel, and held day-to-day project delivery responsibility for the generation and roll-out of all digital content for thewhiskyexchange.com. I also headed up and led all marketing (traditional and digital) and relevant strategic activity, and I ensured that commercially sensitive projects were delivered to schedule and within budget. While with the company, I re-launched its award-winning online presence as a fully responsive website, which led to a double-digit upswing in sales, notably in those emanating from mobile devices. I also implemented key marketing, content, social media and SEO strategies in order to drive traffic to the site and encourage sustained growth.I was also responsible for the launch and rollout of two new commercially significant websites for the company, both of which were developed with the ambition of being ‘best-of-breed’ in their respective sectors – a rare whisky and fine spirits auction site, whisky.auction, and scotchwhisky.com, the most authoritative online guide to the world of Scotch whisky. I kept a very close track of relevant external developments and core trends that might have impacted future growth or have been of benefit to The Whisky Exchange. I also played a key role in brainstorming new and creative growth strategies. I also analysed key metrics and consumer data to help inform the business’s future strategic direction, as well as to optimise spend and performance, and I tracked conversion rates to help inform the need to make online enhancements and improve user experience.

Having originally started at Breaking Trends™ in March 2005, I've recently re-joined the company. Please refer to the description at the top of my profile for the most up-to-date information on my key areas of expertise and input.

The focus of my role within this boutique digital agency was on assisting clients realise their digital objectives, be they widening their customer relationships, supporting and communicating their brand identities, driving online sales, data capture, or researching target audiences.Clients and their sites:• www.mulberry.comAs account and project director for Mulberry’s online offering, I oversaw the redesign and relaunch of the luxury brand’s e-commerce site, ensuring that it integrated with the company’s existing distribution systems. I was also responsible for supporting and enhancing the client-agency relationship.• www.adidas.com (adidas Originals website, various microsites, and the adidas Press site)The account and project direction of the sports giant’s digital brand concepts involved close liaison with adidas’s eMarketing Division in Nuremberg. The technically complex brand concepts that I managed rolled out across multiple markets and languages, often integrating with specific products and promotions. I was also responsible for the generation of content and copy for these sites, which were all content management system-driven, and which required translation and localisation into 15 different languages. • www.patek.com During my six and a half years as account and project director of the prestige watch brand Patek Philippe’s website, I nurtured an extremely good working relationship with the Marketing Director at the brand’s Geneva headquarters, and was a key player in the development of the company’s online presence. I regularly dealt with the company in French about the complex technical elements of their watchmaking operations, and about how these might relate to their digital marketing objectives. Whilst at Groovytrain, I also managed digital projects for Vertu phones, Richemont International (including the Alfred Dunhill and Jaeger-LeCoultre brands), and WGSN (style and fashion trend forecasting website).

While working at the former interactive arm of the advertising agency Leagas Delaney, I managed projects for a variety of blue-chip and upscale brands’ accounts, many of which were providing digital offerings for the first time. These included: www.patek.com | www.adidas.com | www.harrods.com | www.harrodsestates.com | www.tannerkrolle.com | www.itcclassics.co.uk | www.leagasdelaney.com

As a producer in this video production company, my duties included the management of specific communication projects, as well as the day-to-day running of accounts, for: Caterpillar | Hanson | Hilton Hotels | Forte Hotels | English Heritage