I have worked at both ends of IT, and I think that is the useful part.

I started at an international computer manufacturer, supporting real-time operating systems primarily with UK customers and then developing them in an engineering role based in Germany. It taught me that systems are only as good as the operations around them: a lesson everything since has confirmed rather than replaced.

From there into software consultancy, writing code for a business in the travel sector (yield management, data warehousing, financial systems) before a spell doing something else entirely for a few years. I came back into IT through an airport parking and call-centre operation, starting in day-to-day support before becoming ICT Implementation Manager: running a development team that grew to more than 20 people, using PRINCE2 and Agile, and acting as technical architect on the infrastructure upgrades and an organisational relocation that ran alongside it.

A period freelancing followed: web and IT consultancy for non-profits and SMEs, including a project mapping community activity around a major international event. That led to a Head of IT role at a small non-profit foundation, where I led the adoption of a new CRM system for donor and supporter engagement alongside a website rebuild that grew giving and participation.

More freelance work, then several years as IT Manager for a membership organisation, where I ran the day-to-day infrastructure and led the move to a single CRM system covering income processing and membership: the specialism in CRM and data that still shows up in how I work now.

From there to leading the IT function at an international charity: a multi-site estate, and senior management colleagues who needed plain answers. Strategy, budgets, compliance as the nominated Data Protection Officer, and a Project Board seat on a multi-million-pound office consolidation: the whole range of what running IT for an organisation actually involves.

I kept the hands-on half too. I still design data models, write migration scripts and build sites, this one included. It means I can tell when an estimate is optimistic, and I can prototype something rather than commission a paper about it.

I work remote-first from London & the South East with SMEs, non-profits and a handful of agencies. The goal is simple: nothing dramatic happens.