Advisory
I selectively advise founders, executives, boards and investors on technology strategy, AI adoption, engineering organisations and technical risk.
Grounded in operating responsibility, not advisory theory
Every area below is something I have carried operational responsibility for, as CTO at McKenzie Intelligence Services and as Director of Data at Builder.ai, not a framework I studied from the outside.
Where My Judgement Is Useful
CEO / Founder Advisory
- Technology strategy, organisation design and AI adoption at the point where engineering decisions become business decisions.
- Building a technology and data roadmap the board and investors can actually track against.
- Deciding when to build, buy, or automate, before headcount becomes the default answer.
Board Advisory
- Technology risk, AI strategy, architecture and technology economics, framed for board-level decisions rather than engineering ones.
- Governance and reporting frameworks that hold up under investor and board scrutiny, not just internal review.
- Reading a CTO's roadmap and delivery numbers the way a board needs to, independent of that CTO's own framing.
Investor / PE Advisory
- Technology assessment, diligence and value creation planning for the investment thesis, not a generic technical audit.
- Reading investor-grade analytics (ARR, MRR, churn, LTV, CAC) for what they actually say about the technology behind them.
- Assessing whether an engineering organisation can carry the growth plan in the deck.
Technical Due Diligence
- Architecture and scalability risk under the load the growth plan implies.
- Engineering organisation design, delivery process, and technical debt as a carrying cost, not a vague concern.
- Cloud economics, data maturity, and AI capability: prototype-grade versus production-grade.
If one of these is a live question for you, get in touch.