Please note that as of April 2022, I have been appointed Chief Executive Officer for Compass Box Whisky, a boutique premium scotch whisky (www.compassboxwhisky.com). In this role I can leverage my twin passions of 1/ helping develop people and teams to their full potential and 2/ building and scaling premium beverage brands. Therefore I have no personal capacity for any new business. However if you are looking for coaching or consultancy for beverage brands, feel free to contact Generous Spirits as I can recommend highly qualified professionals with similar values to myself.

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

Out of work, I love travel (probably explains why I have travelled so extensively over the last 20 years), spending time in restaurants and bars with friends and family and actively supporting my collection of mostly underachieving sport teams.  I also love reading and sharing about the changing nature of work and leadership.  I do this for pleasure - honest!  

Professionally, I have held leadership roles in a number of wonderful global companies in the beverage industry.  I have served on the Executive Leadership Board of Bacardi Ltd, William Grant & Son and Suntory Beverage & Food Europe.  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 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 proud to say I am now a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) and an Associate Certified Coach (ACC).

I coach/mentor entrepreneurs and senior business leaders who are 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.  The expectations of consumers, customers and wider societal stakeholders from business are certainly evolving.  What it takes to be a leader is changing.  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 leader recognises that they exist to 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 contribute more when they feel valued, respected, empowered, trusted. But a Generous Spirit mindset also uncompromisingly focusses on superior outcomes (rather than on inputs), especially the delivery of sustainable market-leading growth.

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.