About

Award-winning, creatively-driven, entrepreneur, founder of Pooch & Mutt and lover of all things brand, marketing and health.

Thank you for visiting this site. I am certainly not the most accomplished entrepreneur out there, but I have been doing this for a while and have learnt a bit on the way, both intentionally and by making a lot of mistakes.

This site is to enable me to share what I have learnt and continue to learn and hopefully help others in their journey.

The main ways that I tend to share are by writing articles, contributing to articles, interviews, talks/ panels and one-on-one consulting/mentoring. This site is a way to keep everything together in one place.

A bit about me

I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, which set me up to be a terrible employee, but I gave it a go for a while.

My first real taste of the professional working world was a 6-month placement at the ad agency FCB working on the exciting world of toilet cleaners and air fresheners. This gave me a great insight into how marketing and agencies work.

After uni I started work (for free at first) for the guerilla marketing agency Cunning / Cunning Stunts, famous for projecting Gail Porter on the House of Commons. I quickly went from free labour to managing the design department, Stunning. I got to work on some amazing brands and projects (MTV, MINI, Robbie Williams)and learnt a huge amount about how to get the most from a marketing budget. Working with some incredibly talented designers gave me a love for design, which led to me self-teaching the skills that later earnt me two international packaging design awards. I am grateful for the crazy experiences I had there and the ridiculous opportunitiesĀ I had, such as co-directing a TV commercial, when I had no idea what I was doing.

My final job before setting up Pooch & Mutt was running the creative department of BLM (a media company that later sold to Aegis). This taught me ‘how the grown-ups did it’ and I got to work on more commercial brands (Roundup, The Week, Dominos Pizza), where there was a bigger focus on ROI.

In 2008 I launched a marketing consultancy and Pooch & Mutt at the same time. The original idea was that I would use Pooch & Mutt to prove marketing techniques so that I could demonstrate these to potential clients. Pooch & Mutt quickly grew beyond this and became full time.

Pooch & Mutt is now sold all over the world and in the UK online and via Supermarkets, Amazon, Ocado, Pets at Home and all good vets and pet stores. It is at the same time a great business, a great training ground for young people and a great opportunity to genuinely make a difference to the lives of dogs and their owners.

Areas of expertise

– Marketing

– Product development

– Branding

– Packaging

– Social media / digital media

– e-commerce

– Business strategy

– Artificial intelligence

– Selling into and working with multiple retailers

– Working with online retailers

– Problem solving

– How to have a good work/life balance

– Productivity

Awards

Manufacturing Entrepreneur of The Year at The GB Entrepreneur Awards (Winner)

SMARTA 100 “Made in Britain” (Winner)

Grocer New Product Awards (Winner)

European Design Awards (Winner)

Pentawards (Silver)

Microsoft techoverĀ (Winner)

The Ethical Award (Pooch & Mutt)

Feefo Gold Customer Service (Pooch & Mutt)