What I’m doing next

After stepping away from New Icon at the end of 2025, I’ve taken a bit of time to reset, reflect, and think carefully about what I want the next chapter to look like.

I’m not looking to jump back into building another tech business for the sake of it. I’ve done that chapter, learnt a huge amount from it, and genuinely enjoyed the journey, but what interests me more now is working across a smaller number of meaningful opportunities where I can bring experience, perspective and joined-up thinking at the points where it can make the biggest difference.

What genuinely excites me about this next phase is the chance to work with a mix of founders, SMEs and larger organisations at very different stages of growth and change. Sometimes that might mean helping an early-stage startup shape an idea or product direction. Other times it could be helping an established business think differently about technology, customer experience, connected systems or future opportunities.

I’ve always enjoyed sitting in that space between product, commercial thinking, technology and human behaviour, helping people make sense of complexity and turn ideas into something more tangible and actionable.

Alongside that, I’ve become increasingly interested in connected environments and experiences… stadiums, venues, airports, smart buildings and the systems that sit behind them. Places where digital and physical experiences need to work seamlessly together, often across multiple technologies, teams and touchpoints. I wrote a bit more about that recently here.

What I’m increasingly interested in

One thing I’ve realised over the years is that I don’t really have a favourite sector. I’ve worked across energy, financial services, insurance, aerospace and engineering, healthcare, marine, sport tech and a lot in between, and honestly the variety is part of what keeps it interesting.

More and more, I’ve found myself interested in the spaces between disciplines and sectors. Where engineers meet creatives. Where infrastructure meets AI. Where academic thinking meets real-world operational problems. Where founders, technologists, operators and designers all look at the same challenge through a different lens.

That cross-pollination between industries is often where the most interesting ideas and opportunities emerge.

Tangible

That thinking is a big part of why I’ve started building something new called Tangible.

It’s still early and intentionally quite open at this stage, but at its core it’s about creating better connections between people, ideas and organisations that might not otherwise naturally collide. Less about polished innovation theatre and more about conversations, experimentation, systems thinking and exploring real-world problems together.

There are a lot of quietly brilliant people doing meaningful work behind the scenes who never really end up in the same rooms together. Tangible is partly an attempt to change that.

I’m still figuring out exactly what it evolves into over time, and that’s part of the excitement of it. For now, it feels more like laying the foundations for something meaningful than trying to force it into a neatly defined shape too early.

I’ll be sharing more on that over the coming months.

Capacity and timing

Alongside this, I’ve already started working across a small number of opportunities this year, including Luupla, a circular economy project, some digital commerce advisory work, and an emerging connected audio product that I’ll share more about later.

Interestingly, none of those came through aggressively chasing work. One came through someone in my network who thought I could help after seeing my exit from New Icon, and another came from a conversation at a Bristol tech event that naturally turned into something more meaningful.

That’s one of the things I genuinely love about Bristol. The ecosystem here is full of good people, and the conversations worth having often tend to lead somewhere unexpected.

I’ll probably take on another couple of selective opportunities as the year evolves, particularly where there’s an interesting challenge, good people involved, and the chance to help shape something early enough to genuinely influence the direction.

What I’m looking for

At this stage, the common thread is fairly simple. Interesting problems, good people, and work that feels meaningful and genuinely collaborative.

If you think my experience could help someone you know, or there’s some potential overlap somewhere, feel free to reach out.