About me
I've spent twenty-five years in the visitor economy, in hands-on operational and leadership roles.
Early in my career, working for a large scale international tour operator, I started as a resort representative, that led to a number of more senior roles, including managing a multi country area and teams of over 30 widely dispersed staff, serving 1,000 customer arrivals per week. In the UK, I also managed a group sales team of 35 people working toward a £50m annual turnover target, and having been deeply involved in the overseas operations, I was also part of teams that recruited more than 1,200 seasonal overseas staff. I spent several years living and working across Europe, followed by a decade focused exclusively on the Nordic region.
Building a business
In 2011, I created my own startup travel business, merging it three years later with an established operator. Over the next five years, as co-owner, we grew that business by more than 300%, from a small team to ten people and a £2m turnover. I was responsible for, and had involvement in every part of the business, from product development and procurement, to sales and marketing, HR, operations, service delivery, finance and compliance, including steering it through the challenges of the pandemic.
Heritage operations
More recently, I took on the operational turnaround of a much-loved heritage site that was struggling to overcome the impact of the pandemic and in need of modernisation. I developed a clear plan to reach its goals, and took on responsibility for all aspects of the organisation, including customer service, marketing, events, budgets, volunteer management, health and safety and maintenance. With a loyal team and strong local support, income and footfall grew by 40% in two years, well above pre-pandemic levels.
That range, large-scale commercial operations, building something from nothing, running a successful luxury operator, and hands-on charity turnaround, is what the recommendations draw on. It's also meant working with a genuinely wide range of customers: package holiday travellers, bespoke and luxury clients including high-net-worth travellers with complex requirements and exacting expectations, and heritage visitors of every kind. I've had to make each of those relationships work, with different constraints, different teams, and different expectations to meet.
Across a startup, a small business, and a charity heritage site, the question was almost always how to do more with the same, or less. Almost never was the answer simply to spend more. That's the lens I bring to every review.
That background, alongside my own study in topics including project management, AI and its practical use cases, nature connection, rewilding and finance, shapes how I think about places and organisations that depend on the landscape, experiences, connections or history for their success, and why heritage and visitor-economy businesses are where I've chosen to focus.
These places and experiences bring real value to the people who visit them, whether that's education, time outdoors, or connecting with like-minded people. I'm driven to help organisations keep delivering that, while building a viable path forward for the people who own, run and work in them, preserving and celebrating what makes them special for many generations to come.
I'm based in North Yorkshire, having relocated from the Midlands. If you'd like to talk through your current situation and where you're interested in support and guidance before committing to anything, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Let's talk about your organisation.