About
I spend most of my time trying to understand how new things get built, and helping people build them.
I've spent my career moving between technology, entrepreneurship, economics and policy: sometimes studying how innovation happens, sometimes advising people trying to make it happen, and for more than a decade doing it myself.
I co-founded 10to8, an appointment and scheduling software company, in 2011. I ran it as CEO and later Chair, building a team of 40+ people and a product used by tens of thousands of organisations and millions of people each month. We won the Queen's Award for Enterprise for International Trade in 2022, and I led the company through its sale in 2023.
That experience left me with considerably more questions about building companies than I had when I started.
What I used to do
Before becoming a founder, I was rather more academic about all of this.
I studied Engineering Economics and Management at Oxford, followed by Economics at Cambridge, before starting a PhD at Imperial College Business School examining entrepreneurship, economic growth and public policy.
I didn't finish the PhD. Starting a company proved considerably more distracting.
Before and during that period I worked on innovation and economic policy with organisations including Ofcom and what was then the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, looking at how innovation can be encouraged across various domains including spectrum regulation, open data, economic regulation and entrepreneurship policy.
I've continued dipping back into that world ever since, including work on COVID-19 testing policy, innovation regulation and the use of AI in public services.
What I’m up to
I split my time between building, investing, advising and writing.
Through Cleevely & Partners, I work with founders and technology businesses on the awkward bits of company-building: strategy, scaling, boards, financing, M&A and the occasional unpleasant and abrupt contact between a company and reality (‘oh shit’ moments).
I'm a member of Cambridge Angels and very occasionally invest in early-stage technology businesses, with particular interests in software, fintech, biotech and AI/ML. I also sit on and advise a small number of company boards.
The common thread is that I like working with brilliant people trying to do things that haven't quite been done before.