For founders, leaders and high performers

Lead it your way.

I help you get clear on what needs to change, make the hard decisions, and lead, work and live in ways that fit you, not the way everyone says you’re supposed to.

Book a Clarity Call

Six years at Google. Two at Amazon. CPO at a listed company. A decade working with startups and Fortune 500s. ICF-accredited coach.

Trusted by leaders from

What brings you here?

You’re capable. Something’s still in the way. Pick the one that sounds like you.

The startup I run

The company has grown. Too much still comes back to you.

Get the company moving again, with a leadership team that can carry more.

Startups

The transformation I’m leading

You’re responsible for change. You don’t have all the answers.

Get your leaders on one plan, and turn the AI pilots into real change.

Transformation

The life and work I’ve built

It’s working on paper. So why does it feel like this?

Work out what you want, whether that’s more, less or something different, and go after it.

What's next?

The way I work

You know you can do it. But why is it so hard?

Stop fighting yourself, and build a way of working that fits your brain.

ADHD

What matters when intelligence gets cheap?

AI comes up in almost every conversation I have now: what to build, how to organise, what work still matters, and what any of us should do next.

I’ve watched it grow up. I studied AI at university in the 1990s, when it was mostly a clever tool for games. Demis Hassabis had written the AI for one of them, Theme Park.

In 2015, a friend from Google joined DeepMind, the company Demis had co-founded, and helped build AlphaGo. Extraordinary, but still a game.

In 2022, ChatGPT arrived, and AI started to look useful. I wondered if it could be as important as the web or mobile.

Then, this year, it got personal. I started talking my thinking out loud, and it worked with me: interviewing me about how I think, helping me rebuild my website, writing code I could never write myself.

Most days now, I come upstairs to make a coffee, already buzzing from what we’ve just done, and tell my wife all about it. I talk better than I write. Now it helps me shape what I say, and it still sounds like me.

As intelligence gets cheap and plentiful, the things only people can do matter more: judgement, courage, emotion, connection, knowing what you want and deciding what matters.

The leaders who thrive will be those who get better at being human.

That’s the work I do.

Where does that leave you?

If you’re leading a business through it: Transformation →

If you’re running a startup and AI just made everything more urgent: Startups →

If you’re watching your world change fast and wondering where you fit: What’s next? →

If you’re seeing a chance to finally make the most of how your brain works: ADHD →

What they say

Hessam Lavi
CEO & Co-Founder, Climatiq
Shared direction, real action.
"Richard helped us get clear and move forward, both as a leadership team and as individuals. His strategy facilitation gave us a shared direction, and his coaching turned that into real decisions and action."
Rob van den Heuvel
CEO & Co-Founder, Sendcloud
From mess to efficient execution.
"Working with Richard was an absolute breath of fresh air! … Our company's operating system? Well, it was a bit of a mess, to be honest. But Richard came in, rolled up his sleeves, and helped us sort it out in no time. … We've seen a real boost in how efficiently we operate thanks to him."
Bella Bardswell
Senior Director, Sage
Stepping up to a new level.
"The conversation I had with Richard got me to an insight I definitely wouldn’t have reached on my own. It’s going to shape how I show up and the impact I make as I step into this new role... I recommend him extremely highly."
Alberto Grazi
Engineering Leader, Google
He's someone who actually listens.
"Richard skips the buzzwords, and helps you see things from an angle you hadn’t considered... A conversation with him always leaves you with clarity you didn’t have an hour earlier."

Hessam Lavi
CEO & Co-Founder, Climatiq
Shared direction, real action.
"Richard helped us get clear and move forward, both as a leadership team and as individuals. His strategy facilitation gave us a shared direction, and his coaching turned that into real decisions and action."
Rob van den Heuvel
CEO & Co-Founder, Sendcloud
From mess to efficient execution.
"Working with Richard was an absolute breath of fresh air! … Our company's operating system? Well, it was a bit of a mess, to be honest. But Richard came in, rolled up his sleeves, and helped us sort it out in no time. … We've seen a real boost in how efficiently we operate thanks to him."
Bella Bardswell
Senior Director, Sage
Stepping up to a new level.
"The conversation I had with Richard got me to an insight I definitely wouldn’t have reached on my own. It’s going to shape how I show up and the impact I make as I step into this new role... I recommend him extremely highly."
Alberto Grazi
Engineering Leader, Google
He's someone who actually listens.
"Richard skips the buzzwords, and helps you see things from an angle you hadn’t considered... A conversation with him always leaves you with clarity you didn’t have an hour earlier."

Results

Clients have made hard career decisions, stepped into bigger roles, led their teams better, clarified their strategy and changed ways of working that weren’t sustainable.

A Series A CEO and his leadership team were stuck on direction. We worked together to clarify where they were going and how to make decisions as a team. They moved forward with clarity and conviction.
A Series C CEO clarified strategy and unblocked a critical bottleneck his team had been stuck on for months. They found a scalable solution in weeks. The company went on to raise a successful Series D.
A Series A CEO was making every decision himself and slowing everything down. We rebuilt his management approach around clear delegation and rapid decision-making. He went from bottleneck to leading a scalable organisation.
A Series C VP Engineering had the capability but not the confidence to shape company strategy. He started bringing technical insights into business decisions, found new product opportunities nobody else had seen, and is now CTO.
A Series C Director of Product was at risk of being fired. He transformed from defending his team against the CEO to becoming a true partner with his peers. He's now one of the strongest members of the leadership team.

More Results

How I work

We start with what you want to change, what’s happening now and what seems to be getting in the way.

Sometimes it’s a better tactic.

This might be a decision, clearer priorities or a difficult conversation.

Sometimes a new strategy.

This is when what you’re doing is never going to work, even if you do it both harder and smarter.

And sometimes it’s to stop trying to be someone you’re not.

This is the hardest to see: trying to solve the problem by becoming the leader, professional or person you think you’re supposed to be.

My job is to help you work out which one you’re facing, and act on it.

I've been there

I spent six years at Google, then two at Amazon, where I led a 100-person organisation. Since then I’ve worked with founders, senior executives and leadership teams, from startups to the Fortune 500.

So I know what it’s like to make hard decisions with incomplete information, lead people smarter than me, and work in places full of opinions about what a good leader should be.

I’ve also had to work out how my own brain works best, and what I actually want from work, not just what looks good on paper. That’s made the biggest difference of all.

I’m ICF-accredited, and I’ve been an operator, an executive and a consultant. Today I bring all of that to my coaching.

More about me

I've been there

So I know what it’s like to make hard decisions with incomplete information, lead people smarter than me, and work in places full of opinions about what a good leader should be.

I’ve also had to work out how my own brain works best, and what I actually want from work, not just what looks good on paper. That’s made the biggest difference of all.

I’m ICF-accredited, and I’ve been an operator, an executive and a consultant. Today I bring all of that to my coaching.

More about me

I've been there

So I know what it’s like to make hard decisions with incomplete information, lead people smarter than me, and work in places full of opinions about what a good leader should be.

I’ve also had to work out how my own brain works best, and what I actually want from work, not just what looks good on paper. That’s made the biggest difference of all.

I’m ICF-accredited, and I’ve been an operator, an executive and a consultant. Today I bring all of that to my coaching.

More about me

Next steps

Book 20 minutes

Free, confidential, no preparation needed.

We talk it through

What’s happening, and what you want to change.

We decide together

If we both want to work together, we’ll find the right way to make it happen.

Book a Clarity Call

In the meantime…

You don't have to start with coaching. Sometimes you need something else.

Tools

Writing

Strategy

Read time:

mins

Why am I still the bottleneck, even though I delegate?

Delegating more won't fix it - you need a shared strategy.

Every scaling founder hears 'delegate more'. It doesn't fix the founder bottleneck. A shared strategy does. Here's a test to run with your leadership team.

Read →

Come to my open office hours

In the meantime…

You don't have to start with coaching. Sometimes you need something else.

Tools

Writing

Strategy

Read time:

mins

Why am I still the bottleneck, even though I delegate?

Delegating more won't fix it - you need a shared strategy.

Every scaling founder hears 'delegate more'. It doesn't fix the founder bottleneck. A shared strategy does. Here's a test to run with your leadership team.

Read →