The combination is the differentiator.

Most creative directors come from one direction.

Agency. Or in-house. Or start-up. Rarely all three, and almost never with a decade spent inside the capital raise process — understanding not just how brands look, but how they perform under the pressure of investor scrutiny.

That's the unusual thing. Twenty years across broadcast, Hollywood motion graphics, global agencies, ASX-listed corporate creative leadership, and founder-led venture. At the intersection where design decisions have commercial consequences.

"In an age where AI can produce anything, the only thing that still compounds is judgement."

The frameworks I trust most: Neumeier on brand architecture, Godin on audience and permission, Kahneman on how people actually make decisions. Applied not as theory but as working tools — in the room, on the brief, in front of the client.

As AI reshapes what gets made and how, I'm focused on the work that can't be replicated: the thinking, the taste, and the narrative instinct that comes from twenty years of being accountable for outcomes.

It started in London. Then Los Angeles. Madrid. Singapore. Sydney. Each city a different context, a different creative culture, a different set of constraints — all of them teaching the same underlying lesson: the work that endures is built on thinking, not just taste.

A decade in the venture capital world — working with hundreds of founders on the hardest creative problems a growth business faces — sharpened something else. An understanding of what investors are actually looking for. Not the deck. Not the design. The conviction. The story that holds together when someone pushes back on it at 4pm on a Tuesday in a partner meeting.

That insight led to founding a design-led brand consultancy. Built it to an $8M valuation. Won 7x Global Rebrand Awards as an independent practitioner — without a large agency's production budget behind the work.

Then walked 400 kilometres across northern Spain to think about what comes next.

What came next is a clearer sense of what great creative work actually requires — and who it's actually for.

20 years international experience — UK, USA, Europe, Asia, Australia

7× Global Rebrand Award winner as an independent practitioner

AMA Brand Effectiveness Award — CoatesHire

$100M+ contributed to capital raises across pre-Series A ventures

Executive Creative Director — IVE Group (ASX: IGL), Australia's largest marketing services company

Campaign work across Big W, Coca-Cola, STIHL, BBC, Disney, Volkswagen, Hungry Jack's

3x

businesses

4x

continents

10+

global agencies

50+

scale start-ups

000’s

brands

000’s

investor decks

$000m

investment capital raised

I work with founders and creative leaders who are honest enough to know that the next decision carries real weight — and who want someone in the room who understands both the creative and commercial consequences of getting it wrong.

If that's where you are — let's talk.