About
The thinker, the problem-solver, the one who asks why.
Probably the first thing you'll notice is how many questions I ask.
How does a brand actually get onboarded here, start to finish? Who chases the invoice when it's late, and how do they know it's late? What happens when a sale doesn't track - and who finds out? What did you promise the customer at the top of the journey, and does the bit at the very bottom actually deliver it?
I ask because I'm invested. Not politely curious - properly invested in how a business works, and in the people making it work. Twenty years in and I still find it fascinating: how a platform is put together, where the money comes in, what it touches on the way through, and where it quietly stops moving. Behind every one of those stages is somebody working extremely hard, and they deserve to see what that work is worth.
You're growing fast. The front end is the fun bit everyone celebrates - and your back end is holding on with tape and good people. That back end is where I live.
That's the bit I'm good at. Following the money through your platform and finding where it stops.
A confession
The spicy stuff is the easy bit to love.
The look and feel of your platform. The big brand deals. The influencers. The consumers. The money rolling in. Every founder fancies that part - and rightly so.
The bit nobody fancies? The back-end. Tracking, onboarding, validation, invoicing, payouts. The plumbing behind the magic.
Here's my confession: I love that stuff. Genuinely. Whether it's a manual process made lean and quick, or a full automated build - APIs, an admin portal, dashboards, data you can actually read - that's my idea of a good time. (I still love a good spreadsheet. There, I said it.)
Because that unglamorous back-end is exactly where these platforms sink or swim. They move fast - twelve months from now there's a new influencer, a new brand, a new way to sell. If your operations aren't sharpened every six months, you fall behind. I keep that engine running while everyone else stares at the spicy bit.
Businesses I've Collaborated With
Built over more than twenty years, across everything from global affiliate marketing platforms to independent business owners.
Different businesses, different industries, different technology. Remarkably similar operational behaviours.
Affiliate & Agency Partnerships
30+ Partnerships Overseen
Managed affiliate networks and marketing agencies as Head of Client Operations, advising on best practice across every partnership.
Digital Commerce
4,200+ Retailers Overseen
Direct operational oversight of retailer accounts on a national cashback platform. Managed, not observed from a distance.
Major UK Brands
BT · Sky · Vodafone · Virgin Media
Also EDF Energy, British Gas, AXA, Legal & General, LV and Hotels.com. Key ecommerce accounts advised on operational best practice.
Independent Business
600+ Independent Merchants
Hands-on operational support across retail, hospitality and service businesses throughout the UK.
Cashback Ecosystems
Quidco.com — The UK's #1 Cashback Site
Nine and a half years at Quidco.com, progressing from Admin Operations Manager to Head of Client Operations.
Business Funding
£500k+ Secured for Clients
Generated over £500,000 in merchant funding and embedded finance for 200+ clients - securing the financial foundations for their growth.
Operational Growth
200+ Clients Supported
Reviewing end-to-end business processes and financial operations to identify inefficiencies and automate what's left behind.
How I got here
Fingers in all the pies. On purpose.
A manager once told me I had "fingers in all pies." I said: yes - because people pull me in for my knowledge, advice and leadership. He wasn't wrong.
Over 20 years I've seen every affiliate network and how their APIs actually work - and I've worked shoulder to shoulder with every team that keeps a platform running: marketing agencies, finance, sales and marketing, tech, customer service and delivery, legal and partnership contracts.
Most consultants know one lane. I've lived all of them. That's exactly why I can see the whole chain - and spot where it breaks before it gets expensive. Somewhere along the way, curiosity turned into something more deliberate, and eventually into the way I work today.
The gap I care about most
Where business leaders meet the customer delivery
Leadership sets a promise. Marketing sells the promise. Somewhere between the two there's a payment flow, an onboarding process, a support queue and a spreadsheet nobody upstairs has ever seen - and that is what the customer actually experiences.
If a member is promised a reward and receives it four months later, that reward is no longer a good deal. The offer didn't fail. The delivery did. And nobody in the room owned the bit in between.
I've spent two decades on that seam. Payment solutions, embedded finance, merchant and brand relationships, and an awful lot of time sat between teams who each quietly assumed the other one had it covered. I've written the service levels both sides actually agree to and then stick to. I've gone through the patterns, the discrepancies and the unpaid sales line by line until I found what was causing them - and then fixed the cause, not the symptom.
Businesses rarely stall because the opportunity isn't there. They stall because the machine underneath can't convert that opportunity into money in the bank, fast enough, often enough, for enough people.
What happens if we work together
I'll learn how your business works before I have a single opinion about it.
I want to understand the model, the teams, the vision, what you're building towards and what's genuinely in the way. Then I follow the money end to end - brand to member, contract to invoice to payout - and I show you where it slows down, where it sits still, and what that's costing you in cash, in team hours, and in customers who quietly don't come back.
After that: the fixes, in the order I'd do them, with the reasoning attached. Efficient systems, communication that actually flows between teams, and payment routes that don't need six people and a spreadsheet propping them up.
Where a tool or an automation would genuinely help, I'll say so - and I'll point you at the people who do that part properly. Work smarter, not harder. I mean that fairly literally.
I won't tell you your business is broken. Most of the platforms I want to work with are already good, already growing, and already know something isn't keeping up. My job is to find that thing, and help a good business become genuinely brilliant at the operational end.
What people say
"Nat is a pleasure to work with: friendly, proactive and highly strategic. We worked closely together on the BT programme during her time at Quidco, strengthening the partnership, improving operational efficiency and delivering strong results. In particular, Nat helped introduce a more effective validation process, which improved both performance and the customer experience for people purchasing BT products through Quidco."
My Questions
Most Consultants Ask
How do we improve this?
How do we increase revenue?
How do we reduce costs?
I Usually Ask
Why has this become normal?
What assumptions is nobody challenging?
What quietly changed?
What workarounds have become accepted?
What is everyone compensating for?
Which behaviours are quietly becoming normal?
Every Business Leaves Clues.
Everyone thinks growth is the goal. I think profitable scale is.
Let's talk about your platformOr if you'd rather look for yourself first, there's a two-minute Scale Scorecard.