After three decades in corporate life, I stepped away for a while. Not to reinvent myself — more a pull to step back, and a curiosity about what would happen if I simply paused.

That pause became a physical move too. We left the city and moved to the bush — 200 acres of ancient land in a World Heritage area just north of Sydney.

The timing was… interesting. I stepped into that pause a month before COVID hit. Then came lockdowns, a world on edge, bushfires after years of drought — and then floods. Everything seemed to arrive at once, externally and internally.

Out here there’s a lot of space, not much distraction, and no familiar rhythm to hide behind.

This land is quiet. The stillness is almost deafening. And it does something to you. At first I did what any sensible modern person does in the face of stillness: I kept busy. Building, fixing, clearing, repairing.

But there’s a point where the land stops letting you stay occupied. You slow down. You start listening. And then, annoyingly, you’re left with yourself.

For me, that brought up the stuff I’d been stepping around — feelings I’d kept contained, patterns I’d normalised, distortions I’d learned to live with. Out here you can’t negotiate with that for long.

I didn’t shift any of it by thinking harder. (I tried.) What helped was simpler: staying with what I was actually feeling — letting it move through without forcing an outcome or trying to “solve” it in my head.

The stillness didn’t hand me a new identity. It just stripped away some noise. Things that no longer belonged started dropping off. Bit by bit, what was underneath showed itself.

Simple. Not always easy.

That pause clarified what I care about — and what feels worth putting energy behind.

My Work Today

These days I do a couple of things.

One is work inside businesses — alongside executives and their teams — usually when things are stuck: tension is interfering and the business is feeling it. My role is to uncover what’s in the way, so things can move again.

Alongside that, I’m exploring ideas and social ventures in the nature-repair space — community-backed ways to support care for land and ecosystems.

And this site is a third thing: Field Notes. Observations from wherever I am. A place to write down what I’m seeing while I’m living it.

My Work in the Past

I’ve spent a good chunk of my life in startups and big organisations — building things, fixing things, and occasionally walking into messy situations and helping people find their feet again. That sits in the background of how I work now.

• Credit Savvy — Founder & MD (CBA-backed)
  Started it from scratch and grew it to 1M+ users.

• Interim leadership (Europe & Australia)
  Dropped into complex organisations to help lead change — product work, restructures, integrations, the lot.

• Growth roles (sales / marketing / partnerships, Europe & Australia)
  The practical side of getting things to move: customers, markets, deals, momentum.