My Journey To Here

I joined BT three months before privatisation as a fresh-faced 19-year old who had messed up academically and was in desperate need of structure. Starting out as a telecom officer in Southampton handling customer complaints, I loved the office environment, with the predictable hours and reliable work. There was plenty of personal and professional development opportunities, which I lapped up. Other memories include leading our response to a massive surge in billing complaints, using a PC for the first time and also going on strike for three weeks.

BT: 1984 – 1999
I joined BT three months before privatisation as a fresh-faced 19-year old who had messed up academically and was in desperate need of structure. Starting out as a telecom officer in Southampton handling customer complaints, I loved the office environment with the predictable hours and reliable work. There was plenty of personal and professional development opportunities, which I lapped up. Other memories include leading our response to a massive surge in billing complaints, using a PC for the first time and also going on strike for three weeks.

After four years I was promoted to a position as manager of the complaints team in Reading and I continued to thrive and grow. My first team consisted of four people, but this grew to 26 in my three years as I took responsibility for high level complaints and operator service support. During my time there I was given lots of personal development, including a three-month expedition to Southern Chile as part of Operation Raleigh. I also had my first experience of change management, being part of a cross-functional team working on a new organisational structure.

In 1991 I was promoted for a fourth time and moved to London, where I joined the marketing team and was accountable for the company’s customer service strategy. I then moved into the consumer products area and was senior product manager for our fax machine portfolio and satellite dishes. One more promotion beckoned when I was asked to become product group manager for our ISDN and ADSL portfolio, at a time when we were just starting to dream of something called ‘broadband’.

I left BT in 1999 because I wanted to try something different and realised that every year I stayed it was feeling harder to escape!

Create Waves: 1999-2013
I set up my own company without really knowing what I was going to do. A small telecoms consultancy had guaranteed me a little work for a few months devising marketing strategy and this provided a bridge between the certainty of the past and whatever would follow. After a few months I was asked to run a project to move a customer service team for a mobile phone company, at the start of the boom in that sector. For the next few years I was fully engaged in a series of change projects as the industry grew exponentially. It was during this time that I first came across coaching as a service and realised it was something I could do. With hindsight I can see I was also learning how to be a facilitator of teams.

This period was a time of massive learning and development for me. My professional identity changed completely from telecoms guy to professional consultant. I managed to get the academic chip off my shoulder by getting two degrees – a radical BA in Drama, Community Theatre and Media and an MA in Psychological Coaching. I also learned mindfulness meditation and became a co-founder of a social enterprise (later a charity) teaching people how to develop their practice.

Most of my work was in the telecoms sector through this period although I branched out into other industries as time went on. I became an associate of Relume, a boutique consultancy specialising in senior leadership coaching and facilitation.

Relume: 2013-2021
I became a partner of Relume at a time when they were expanding and in need of additional manpower. Although I expected it to be only a short-term role I soon fell in love with the work, my colleagues and life as part of a team.

My work continued to develop as my clients became more senior in role and leaders of larger, more complex organisations. I learned how to work with Challenger Spirit, a philosophy for leading organisations that Relume had researched that formed the basis of their practice. As a small, agile company we were constantly inventing and creating in service of clients’ needs. It was an inspiring place to learn and grow. Although we were all home based I got to travel the world and, as well as working with individuals and teams, I got to lead some big set piece events and create some really inventive, unconventional pieces of work.

During this period we developed our digital capacity as the world changed, and this was of course accelerated by the Covid pandemic. However, even before then I was coaching people from around the world on-line and we were developing a digital capability already when the pandemic turned it from being a potential new service to an essential core component of our business.

Still Waters: 2021-
My time at Relume had developed and honed my professional skills, preparing me for a second round of running my own company. Building on my experience with Create Waves, Still Waters is allowing me to both deepen my work and broaden my area of focus. I am choosing to integrate three seemingly disparate aspects of my life into one venture. I don’t really know how it will evolve, although all three of my previous jobs have taught me that if I go with the flow and energy of it, the future will probably not be as I expect it.