About James
I started working for myself in 1984. Since then, I have founded, scaled and exited businesses across international trade, digital technology, ecommerce, consultancy and professional services. I have raised investment, led teams through rapid growth, made costly mistakes and learned what it really takes to build a business that creates freedom rather than dependency.
I work with CEOs across the UK, Europe and North America, online and in person. Geography is not a constraint.
I have spent the last 15 years coaching and working alongside CEOs. The challenges you are facing are not theoretical. I have faced most of them myself.
The Businesses That Built Me
Every business taught me something different. Beyond the businesses themselves, I have spent the last 15 years working alongside CEOs, which has given me a different kind of education: the ability to spot similar patterns emerging across very different organisations, and to challenge those patterns before they become the problem the CEO didn’t see coming.
Every lesson and every experience from those 40 years, not just the six businesses, shapes how I work with CEOs today.
“The lessons I share today weren’t learned in classrooms. They were earned through building businesses.”
Premium Corporate Gifts, Branded Merchandise & International Import/Export
A large-scale business working with blue-chip organisations across the UK and Europe, managing complex international supply chains, fulfilment operations and demanding client expectations across a fast-changing global marketplace. And this was before the internet existed. Building and running international trade without the tools we take for granted today taught me that clarity of communication and commercial discipline are everything when the margin for error is thin and the stakes are real.
As the business grew, I learned that sustainable growth is rarely about working harder. It is about creating systems, building capable teams and ensuring quality does not rely on the founder’s constant involvement. This was my first experience of genuine complexity at scale, and the moment I realised I needed to get out of my own way.
LESSON LEARNED
A business that depends on you isn’t a business. It’s a bottleneck. The business grew when I stopped trying to control every part of it and trusted the right people to run the parts I wasn’t best placed to run.
Digital Learning & Communications, Pre-Internet
Long before online learning became mainstream, we were helping organisations turn knowledge into scalable learning systems. The challenge wasn’t information, it was consistency. One of our biggest clients was the RNLI, who were working to take paper-based safety training for their lifeboat crews and move it onto CD-ROMs that could be used across every station in the country. The paper-based system had a fundamental flaw: nobody really knew who had been trained in what, or when. The new system changed that.
This work turned out to be more personally significant than I could have anticipated. Years later, I fell overboard while sailing one November, and had to draw on exactly the survival techniques we had built into those RNLI training modules to stay alive. That is not a lesson I recommend learning the hard way.
LESSON LEARNED
Experience only becomes valuable when it can be transferred and repeated. Good systems and well-trained people save lives, in business, and sometimes literally. The work you put into training and process rarely feels urgent until the moment it becomes essential.
Ecommerce Retail & Private Equity
BeCheeky became the UK’s second-largest multi-brand lingerie and swimwear retailer on Amazon within two years. We raised £3 million in investment and experienced the reality of scaling under investor scrutiny, competitive pressure and constant cashflow demands.
Growth came fast. So did the complexity. We had the headcount to support the growth we were expecting. What we did not yet have were the systems and processes to match that scale, and that became the problem. As James Clear writes: you fall to the level of your systems, not rise to the level of your goals. Then 2008 arrived and sales dropped dramatically, almost overnight. With a significant personal investment in the business and competing pressures from all sides, the pressure was enormous.
LESSON LEARNED
Growth doesn’t solve problems. It exposes them. Know your numbers, and know what the numbers are telling you. I had assumed that the people I put in charge of the financials would tell me what I needed to know. They didn’t, because they didn’t know what I needed to know. The CEO has to understand the story the numbers are telling, not just receive a report. And before you scale the team, scale the systems.
Ecommerce Growth Consultancy
After exiting BeCheeky, the phone started ringing. Other business owners wanted help navigating the same challenges I had just lived through. I realised I was good at spotting where growth was breaking execution, the systems, structures and leadership capacity that weren’t keeping pace, and at asking the uncomfortable questions that unlocked better thinking.
This is where I began working closely with CEOs inside real businesses. Not theory. Not generic frameworks. Real companies making real decisions with real consequences.
LESSON LEARNED
Technology doesn’t scale businesses. Leadership clarity does. And leading well is not about being the best at everything, it’s about knowing where your real value lies and directing it deliberately.
Price Comparison Technology Platform
Alerto was built to simplify complex purchasing decisions through technology, sophisticated platform, solid concept, and genuinely five years ahead of where the market was ready to go. Operating in a crowded digital market demanded disciplined decision-making, relentless focus and a willingness to simplify complexity.
The tech wasn’t the problem. The fit wasn’t right, for me. I could sell it, but I didn’t love the product itself. There is a difference between being able to do something and being the right person to do it. It’s like trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
LESSON LEARNED
Do what you love, whether that is what the business does, or what you do within the business. You cannot sustain the energy, conviction and authenticity that great leadership requires if the fit isn’t right. Self-awareness in a leader is not a soft skill. It is a commercial necessity.
“The lessons I share today weren’t learned in classrooms. They were earned through building businesses.”
What 40 Years Has Taught Me…
Growth creates isolation.
It is lonely at the top, and it gets lonelier as the business grows. The gap between the CEO and honest feedback widens. The people around them become less likely to challenge, more likely to manage. The decisions that matter most get made in a vacuum.
Most leadership challenges are not strategy problems. They are clarity and decision-making problems.
Leaders become overwhelmed by options. Teams lose alignment. Complexity grows faster than capability. Decision-making slows. Performance suffers.
Complexity accumulates quietly.
What worked at £2m rarely works at £10m. What worked at £10m rarely works at £30m. The structure of the business has to outgrow its own complexity to sustain growth — and that requires deliberate leadership decisions, not just more of the same effort.
The team becomes the constraint.
At some point, every CEO discovers that the ceiling on the business is the senior leadership team, and that building the right team, with the right standards and the right clarity, is the most important and most avoided job in the building.
The role of the CEO is to build and leave a great senior leadership team, and to create clarity.
Not to have all the answers. Not to make every decision. To build the conditions in which the best decisions get made, by the right people, at the right level, with the right information. That is the work I do today.
Client Events & Networking Opportunities
Let’s be honest. Being at the top can be lonely. The weight of leadership doesn’t just sit on your shoulders, it can feel like a solitary journey. That’s why my client events aren’t your typical corporate gatherings. They’re transformative experiences designed to shatter the walls of isolation and create meaningful connections.
“Problems shared. Successes celebrated. Great company.”
Mark Norton, Composite Profiles
This lovely feedback gets to the heart of every event I curate. Imagine stepping into a room (or field or kitchen) where:
- You’re surrounded by ambitious peers who understand your challenges
- Laughter and unexpected adventures become learning experiences
- Genuine connections that transcend typical business interactions
Your Exclusive Invitation: As my client, you’re not just signing up for coaching. You’re gaining access to:
- Intimate, curated networking opportunities
- Events that blend professional development with genuine human connection
- A supportive ecosystem of like-minded business leaders
More than just networking, my events offer a community of possibilities.
Why CEOs Work With Me
I don’t coach from theory. I coach from experience. I’ve built businesses, raised investment, led teams through growth, made expensive mistakes, learned difficult lessons, and I am still learning. Every client teaches me something new, and I bring that back to everyone I work with.
My role is not to tell you what to do. Except when it is. What CEOs tell me they value is not that I have all the answers, it is that I work alongside them, not opposite them. I am the decision partner: the external voice that helps them think more clearly, challenge their own assumptions, and make better decisions under pressure.
I work in a straight-talking, plain-speaking way, an iron fist in a velvet glove, as one client put it. I will challenge what others in the room are avoiding. I will name what is actually happening, not just what is being said. And I will hold the CEO accountable, not in a punitive way, but in the way a trusted, commercially experienced external partner should.
I work with CEOs who are unable, or sometimes unwilling, to see what is clearly visible from the outside. The pattern they cannot see because they are too close to it. The senior person everyone knows is wrong for the role but nobody wants to address. The decision that is being delayed because the right answer is uncomfortable.
This is not a coaching relationship in the conventional sense. It is a CEO decision partnership. I take accountability for the quality of the thinking we do together, not just for creating a space for the CEO to talk.
One of the top business coaches and trusted advisors in the country
When it comes to the practicalities of running businesses, I’ve encountered every pitfall and made every mistake imaginable across a variety of industries from eCommerce to international wholesale distribution. As your business coach, I will help you navigate change with tried and tested techniques for accelerating business success so that you can achieve personal freedom.
LEARN FROM REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE
Discover how to avoid common pitfalls and make better business decisions based on the lessons learned during my career, which includes growing an online retailer to the second most visited site in the UK eCommerce and raising VC finance on four occasions
STRENGTHEN YOUR DECISION-MAKING
I will challenge your thinking, question your assumptions and help you develop the operating rhythm and decision-making discipline that lets your business grow without everything depending on you.
GROW WITH HONEST AND FRANK ADVICE
As your trusted coach, I will always tell you what you need to hear based on my commercial experience. Expect uncompromising honesty, a non-judgemental approach, and an unwavering commitment to unlocking your potential and helping you succeed
Professional Awards
Entrepreneur Coach of the Year 2022 Award in the Southern Enterprise Awards
Growth Coach Award 2016 & 2019 fastest growing UK practice South West
Coach of the Year 2017
Breakout Coach Award 2016 fastest growing practice in EMEA
Testimonials
What my clients say about me
Ready for a Different Conversation?
If you are leading a business and want better decisions, you make them with greater clarity, stronger control and more confidence. That is what this work is for.
But this is not right for everyone, and I mean that deliberately. The CEOs who get the most from working with me are not looking for someone to validate what they have already decided. They are willing to be challenged, including on things that are uncomfortable. And they understand that real change in how a business performs starts with how the CEO thinks and decides.
If you want a sounding board who will tell you what you want to hear, I am probably not the right person. If you want someone who will challenge your thinking, hold you accountable, and bring 40 years of hard-won commercial experience to bear on the decisions that matter most, then let’s talk.
Sessions can be online or in person. I work with CEOs across the UK, Europe and North America. Location is not a barrier.
Let’s speak – Book a call here for an informal chat. Within 10 minutes:
You’ll learn how my coaching will help you
I’ll understand what you are looking to achieve
We’ll discover if we’re a good fit & how to proceed
When I’m Not Coaching
After Tough Mudder with my family!
Skiing in Macedonia
Crossfit Competition
Trekking in Nepal
Sailing
