Independent adviser to payments, fintech and platform businesses, based in London and Barcelona.
Every engagement is fixed price. After a short call I send a statement of work with the scope, deliverables, timing and price, and nothing starts until we've both signed it. I invoice on delivery, and if the work isn't what we agreed, I fix it first.
I do the analysis and write the narrative myself, with no team behind me. The output is usually a short executive deck.
I work one to one with a single executive, or with a wider team. One to one can stay between us if you prefer. Some clients keep bringing the next question, and the longest has run for eighteen months as a series of separate engagements.
Some of the analysis uses AI tools. If you ask, I'll tell you which parts.
Nearly a decade as a Principal at Edgar, Dunn & Company, the payments consultancy, on more than 75 engagements for banks, fintechs, card networks, private equity firms and merchants. That included commercial due diligence before deals and expert witness work on interchange.
Before that, a decade in operating roles at Mastercard, Citi and Luup. Co-author of Price Management in Financial Services (Springer).
Hence I don't need a discovery phase to understand a payments business, and engagements can be short and fixed price.
Built the strategic and valuation case for a pivot and replatforming, and took it to the board. Then designed the value creation plan, the dashboard it rolls up to, and the data and AI strategy.
Segmented B2B customers across 13 markets. Acquisition rates were similar everywhere, so retention decided where to invest, and the growth budget moved to a few segments instead of being spread evenly.
Commercial due diligence on a pre-IPO round in an AI fraud platform, at Edgar, Dunn & Company. The business was sound, but the price assumed a technical lead unlikely to last the seven-year hold, so I recommended against it.
I have taken an AI product to production myself, with hosting, a database, payments, and integrations with FreeAgent, Xero and WhatsApp. I also build prototypes for questions that come up in engagements, such as what an AI use case costs to run at volume. So I know how much work is left once a prototype looks finished. AI Use Case Lab →