Executive Investigation
Every business leaves clues. An Executive Investigation reveals the ones quietly shaping your future.
Most engagements begin with a conversation about how your platform actually runs, and where the money slows down on its way through.
Twenty years observing operational behaviour across affiliate marketing, digital commerce, 4,200+ retailers and 600+ independent merchants.
Book my investigation call →Designed for
Established organisations already operating at genuine operational complexity. Not early-stage businesses still searching for product-market fit.
- Affiliate publishers, cashback platforms, reward and voucher businesses. My primary specialism
- Established operational teams, not solo founders
- UK or international. Engagements are conducted remotely
The investigation
Every engagement follows the S.C.A.L.E. Method.
SSpot the Signal
Understanding what's really happening beneath the surface. Understanding what's really happening beneath the surface. I walk both journeys myself - the customer's and the partner's - and look at the meetings, spreadsheets, approvals and workarounds nobody writes down.
CClarify the Cause
Connecting behaviours, systems and what shows up across similar businesses, because they rarely operate in isolation. This is usually where things start to make sense.
AAct on Evidence
Presenting the evidence, the priorities and the commercial opportunities. Specific, and tied to outcomes. No generic framework, no slide deck of best practice nobody asked for.
LLeverage What Works
Working alongside your team to put the recommendations into practice, replicating what's already proven elsewhere in the business rather than rebuilding from scratch.
EExceed, Not Just Improve
The destination is profitable, sustainable scale, not just "fixed." A diagnosis nobody acts on is only an interesting conversation.
I don't arrive with the answer already written. I arrive with questions.
Recent investigations
Cashback platform · major telecom merchant partnership
£2,200+/month recovered, immediately
A single missing validation field was letting duplicate and cancelled orders get paid out every month. Closing that one gap stopped the leak on day one, and turned a source of merchant friction into one of the programme's strongest relationships.
Reward platform · national telecom & media partnership
Payout journey cut from 60 days to 45
Nothing here was broken. The brand simply refused to settle for "good enough." A targeted cash-flow fix took a third off the member payout journey, and five-star reviews followed within the quarter.
This isn't
- A generic audit
- A methodology applied off the shelf
- A slide deck of best practice
- A one-off report, then silence
This is
- An investigation into your specific operational issues
- Evidence gathered directly, not assumed
- Recommendations tied to commercial outcomes
- Support through implementation, while your team keeps ownership
- A fix that's often a process change, not a purchase
Three ways to work together
All remote, all built with you rather than handed down. I advise, design and support - I don't take over.
The Two-Journey Review
Four to six weeks. I walk the customer journey from click to money received, and the partner journey from first conversation to invoice paid, then map every place the two don't line up.
Build Support
Once we know what needs to change, I design it - the workflow, the rules, the screens, the exception paths - and write the specification your own developers build from. I stay alongside the team while they build it. I don't get into the code myself.
The Quarterly Seat
I come back every quarter, re-walk both journeys and catch the new workarounds before they harden. Ongoing operational judgement without another head on the payroll.
I work with a small number of leadership teams at a time, so every engagement gets the depth it deserves.
Ready to go deeper?
Tell me a bit about the business and I'll come back to you personally within one working day. If you'd rather look at your own numbers first, there's a two-minute Scale Scorecard - it gives me useful context before we speak.