I hired Keith to help scale Simply Business from a startup to a multi-million-pound venture with two successful exits—before an outright $490m acquisition.
Keith demonstrated his curiosity for learning and the capability to achieve demanding outcomes from an early stage. He executed with results that set the tone for our ambitions. He rapidly developed his commercial and strategic acumen, and actively challenged our assumptions—priming us for success.
Keith was integral to the team I built to take the venture from product-market fit to rapid scale. He would be an invaluable coach or advisor to any early-stage or scaling startup.
Keith's insightful product coaching and the follow-up workshop he led with our founding team was incredibly useful.
Specifically, Keith's thinking, expertise on product management practices and his questions on our overall strategy helped us uncover the fundamental assumptions of our model. By facilitating a workshop with the team, Keith helped us identify how we could test our hypotheses. Overall, he quickly grasped our position and offered practical next steps for us—allowing us to achieve clarity of focus.
As an early-stage marketplace startup without formal product leadership expertise, we really value the time Keith spent with us and hope we can work together again in the future.
And we've recently raised additional funding to continue creating a brilliant product—delivering the future of transport outside big cities.
Within 10 minutes of meeting Keith, I knew he had a gifted mind for product and all things startup. He was able to very quickly give me his thoughts on the macro market trends and the competitors we should be keeping tabs on.
Just to have him put some time into our go-to-market strategy, competitor landscape and our product roadmap was hugely valuable. Keith is a rare find and a very gifted thinker.
Keith and I collaborated on several hyper-growth projects.
I was always impressed by his ability to break down problems and solve them with a coaching-like approach—even before he started formally coaching. Keith effortlessly helps people to bring down barriers and achieve results. He listens to what's needed and thinks through issues with you, helping you see what's possible. I think he genuinely gets a kick out of it.
Not doubt his approach underpinned many of the great successes we had. Not only did we have great fun working together, but he's also a fantastic person to have on your side.
I've built two successful startups, and I'd have no hesitation in working with Keith again should the opportunity present itself.
Keith was in the early stages of his career when we worked together.
Even then, it was evident that he had that valuable but unique mix of commercial rigour, energy and empathy to deliver in a way that makes a difference for people. He has an infectious passion for solving problems with them.
Keith is also a natural at connecting disparate ideas and exploring high-quality questions. He values what is right rather than who is. He loves to learn, and it’s this curiosity that steers broader discussions in a more purposeful direction. The crucial things become that bit clearer.
As a coach, being a domain expert is one thing; happily, Keith is also highly resourceful and possesses the necessary leadership skills to cultivate great results for clients.
I would relish the opportunity to work with Keith again and would recommend him in a heartbeat to anyone wanting to work with a commercially minded coach who demonstrates not only diligence but candour and passion within his field of expertise.
Keith is a pleasure to work with and someone you want on your side when working in a competitive business environment.
He has exceptional skills in strategy, leadership and problem solving which were best demonstrated by the results and outcomes his team achieved when we worked together at Simply Business. He's diligent when it comes to devising strategy but never afraid to act quickly and seize an opportunity.
Keith possess that rare skill of seeing the bigger picture but knowing that the devil still lives in the detail.
Keith and I worked together for four years at Simply Business.
Our core growth engine was Keith's insurance product team. He led this team with his deep relationship skills, sound commercial nous and thoughtful pragmatism. He consistently used his big-picture view to identify great opportunities to grow our business and deliver results for our partners.
He's the kind of person whose perspective you always want to stop and listen to—on point, thought-through, and often with an angle that others have missed.
I was fortunate enough to work alongside Keith.
His ability to portray evidence-based information in a way that helped the teams and organisation gave much needed direction. His perspective accelerated the learning of those involved to truly understand the customer problem and business value that was being added.
Keith’s approach really helped with understanding how the prospective products on offer may scale in the future, helping to reduce development costs and increase customer value.