I Want a Mission, Not a Job

Jobs just aren't for the likes of me anymore.

𝗜 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗮 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗷𝗼𝗯.

In 2014 I secured the best role of my career — Chief Technology Evangelist — from a simple blog post I wrote about the company. In less than a week I was offered the position.

It was the culmination of several years of writing about emerging technologies and engaging with vendors as an independent industry analyst whilst I was holding down a full-time career in digital transformation.

It allowed me to not only craft stories about the company and its products but gave me access to clients to hear theirs. It truly brought out the best talents I have.

Their stories brought new insights into product development that no survey could achieve, all by just injecting a human in the loop who wanted to listen rather than sell.

From this circular technique — influencing the market, listening to clients, advising the product strategy, re-aligning product marketing, informing the sales strategy — I created a company-wide initiative to engage the pre-sales and sales force regionally in building up their evangelism capabilities.

I did this again in another organisation, augmenting this with the creation of a Customer Advisory Board, a dedicated forum of client executives that had unprecedented access to the SLT and product strategy.

‘𝗞𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗥𝘂𝗰𝗸𝘂𝘀’ — 𝗦𝗲𝘁𝗵 𝗚𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗻

Now, I spit fire, I take no prisoners, I am a thorn in the side of the tech industry, and don’t ever call me a ‘thought leader’. After years in the kitchen, I know how bad the chefs are, their ingredients aren’t that fresh. I spend my time reporting, writing, and analysing the trends again with a more critical eye than I started with only this time with more insight, experience, and a much thicker skin.

I like to talk about emerging futures from an agnostic perspective without the hype. One of my biggest strengths is looking for the convergence of multiple trends and how they impact business and society, my brain is wired to hunt for the abstract. I use a mix of storytelling and forecasting to shine a light on the art of the possible ahead and the impacts they bring.

I’m a voracious reader of science fiction, a prolific writer of articles with a zero BS conversational style, and a conference speaker with a silky Scottish accent.

It’s my goal to continue being a pain in the ass; to poke the bear, wake the dead, and rattle the cage by not only showing what and who is behind the curtain but also helping understand what the possibilities could be.

I am a voice of reason, a hard dose of reality, a counsellor, a philosopher, a mentor, a provocateur, an unstructured genius*, an agent of chaos.

Interested? Get in touch.
Just don’t tell the folks in PR…

𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗶𝘁:

• LinkedIn: 80,000 Followers

• Twitter X: 26,000 Followers

• Medium: 4,400 Subscribers

• 10+ years keynote speaking

• 3 cats

• 2 podcast series, and two indie movies produced

• 2 failed startups

• 1 book published by Bloomsbury

• 1 TEDx in front of 2,000 people

*got called that, not my words