I am Irish and currently living in South-West London. I am married with 3 sons and a somewhat neurotic dog. 

I love travel, spending time in restaurants and bars with friends and family and actively supporting my collection of mostly underachieving sport teams. I also enjoy reading and sharing about the changing nature of work and leadership. I do this for pleasure - honest!  

Professionally, I have successfully held leadership roles in a number of wonderful global companies in the beverage industry. I have recently completed a 3 year stint as CEO of Compass Box, a premium scotch whisky. I am beyond proud of what we delivered during a challenging period for the spirits industry. I have held multiple leaderships roles for Bacardi Ltd including President Incubation Brands and Global Commercial Development, was the Global Chief Marketing Officer for William Grant & Son and Chief Operating Officer for Suntory Beverage & Food for the African, Middle East and Caribbean region. I have shared some incredible successes and learnt from some failures along the way. I have been blessed with working with some inspiring leaders and had the privilege of leading brilliant, successful teams. 

I am currently the Chair of the Board for the Cotswolds Distillery, a Non-Executive Director for Santa Teresa rum and have been on the Advisory Board for NONA, a leading non-alcoholic spirits from Belgium.

I have always felt that leadership involves winning collectively via championing and challenging people to be and do more than they ever thought possible. I have enjoyed mentoring assignments at work. Typically I focused on supporting people from different backgrounds, those people that thought differently and who perhaps struggled with parts of corporate life. In truth I gained at least as much from these assignments as the people I worked with.

I am sure this experience inspired my coaching journey. I am a trained and qualified Leadership Coach (Certified Professional Co-Active Coach).

I have coached/mentored many entrepreneurs and senior business leaders who were looking for positive transformation. I also advise Premium Beverage Businesses to successfully build and scale their brands globally.

Engaging with many leaders, academics, friends (thank you one and all!) has shaped my own personal philosophy on work and leadership. This is the basis of Generous Spirits. The nature of work and of leadership is changing. The old model of compliance, control and command is becoming less relevant. Our expectations from work are changing. What it takes to be a leader is evolving. But the corporate machine and indeed a sense of learnt helplessness in leaders themselves can make it very hard for established companies to deliver anything more than incremental change.

Generous Spirits in business focus equally on the "how" and the "what". From my experience, the relationship between the "how" and the "what" forms the basis of enduring competitive advantage for companies. A Generous Spirit mindset uncompromisingly focusses on superior outcomes (rather than on inputs), especially the delivery of sustainable market-leading growth. But a Generous Spirit leader also recognises that they win by helping lift others. They connect authentically and empathically with the people they lead. Working in a culture which is truly based on generosity of spirit leads to higher engagement and gratitude which drives better performance and retention. Simply put, people deliver more when they feel valued, respected, empowered, trusted.

Fundamentally, I believe those businesses and those leaders that consistently behave in a generous manner outperform competitors over the medium to long-term.  

In my career, I have been drawn to more entrepreneurial roles and leadership positions where I could positively shape behaviours. What is achieved in terms of results has always been very important to me but equally important is how growth is delivered in terms of culture and especially behaviours.