Expert in Digital Change
27+ yrs in tech, 18+ in the Service Sector. From founding a successful SaaS company to leading major digital transformations for global brands, I'm fascinated in how harnessing technology can shape the hospitality day.
Depth and breadth of skills
Technology Strategy
- Broad view of technology, what's hot and what's next.
- Focus: operational efficiency of Service Sector Teams.
- Adept at political influence to win hearts and minds.
Technical
- Data lakes + AI + ERP/SaaS.
- Designing Enterprise architecture with hands-on functional/technical skills.
- Rolled out to 10,000s of users across the sector.
Product & User Leadership
- Adept at uncovering the problem to be solved to build products users actually need.
- Passionate about working with end users & User Led Design.
C-Level Experience
- Member of numerous boards.
- Skilled in legal review and contract negotiation.
- Experienced in P&L presentation and forecasting.
- Confident and engaging presenter at C level
Commercially Driven
- Founder and CEO of Trail
- Achieved 40% market share before successful exit in 2021
- Handled sales, finance, fundraising and investors.
Investor & Startup Advisor
Active investor/advisor to multiple fast-growth start-ups including Youda, Joli and Roots Allotments, providing fundraising support and coaching to founders.
Experience
The future of hospitality lies in unified platforms that don't just report what happened, but intelligently predict and recommend what should happen next.
2024: - Present: GDK
Technology Strategy/Fractional CIO
A.I Data Strategy & Build
- Defined strategy for a Unified Data Lake (Snowflake).
- Ideated and launched GDKHome, providing complete, real-time Balance Scorecard to drive franchisee outcomes.
- In progress:
- Using Snowflake Cortex to build an AI Operations Manager chat bot for sites.
- Delivering daily snippets to site GMs to change perfromace via WhatsApp.
Full Tech Stack Replacement
- Wrote and conducted 500 point RFI to replace EPOS, Inventory, KDS and Labour.
- Ran beauty parade, performed technical and commercial diligence, selected vendors.
- Managed budget and deliverables with CFO.
- Hired a Consultant and Head of Technology to implement.
- Project will reach 10 countries and take the brand to 1000 sites.
2025: - Present Zero Carbon Services
A.I Product Strategy (Fractional)
Core Product Rebuild and A.I Enablement
- Using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Fabric Platforms to deliver OpenAI-enabled advisor for carbon reduction.
- Delivering SECR-compliant Carbon Reporting, competitive leaderboard, and AI-powered Action Plan Generator.
- Architecting new platform, defining core product.
- Hired Product Manager.
2024: FeedItBack
Interim Managing Director
- Led team of 50 through period of consolidation.
- Helped team refocus strategy to highlight insights over volumous reporting.
2015 - 2022: Trail
Founder & CEO
- Ideated and founded a smart checklist tool to run sites and change daily habits.
- Proudest of rolling to 980+ Wetherspoons with zero training. "The most user friendly app the sector has seen" 🦚
- Hit ~40% market share in UK and stared international expansion.
- Single-handedly raised £4m from VC and private investors.
2006- 2015: Senior roles at Fourth, Itsu, Pret and more.
Approach & Methodology
Structured methodology, rigorous analysis, and an Agile/MVP mindset ensure technology programs deliver tangible, financial returns.
Agile & MVP Development
Employing SCRUM/Agile team structure using the Jobs to Be Done Framework for continuous development and deployment of minimum viable products.
Data-Driven Prioritisation
Proponent of feature scoring system (Importance/Urgency) to structure product roadmaps to determine feature value systematically.
Financial Process Auditing
Extensive use of Financial and Technical Business Process Analysis to track improvements to Business Cases
User Led Design
Employing User story mapping and Jobs to Be Done frameworks ensure deliverables are fit for purpose
Current Projects
Current advisory work focuses on harnessing the next wave of operational data to create competitive advantage.
Unified Data Lake Architecture
Consolidating transactional, document voice and other data from multiple siloed sources into single, queryable source.
Slow-Moving Data
Collecting, validate, and manage contols of complex data sets e.g. Store Lists - are fundamental to AI data models
Operational Balanced Scorecard
Paving the way for all reporting in one system using thresholds around operational KPIs to track performance over multiple locations.
Agentic AI Strategy
Enabling pattern detection from various data and automatically generating personalised strategies to nudge user behaviour
Joe Cripps
Fractional CIO