Career Summary
1968 – Graduated from Liverpool University with a BSc degree in Life Sciences (Biology, Bacteriology, Microbiology, Biochemistry).
September 1968 – July 1969 – Biology Teacher, Bankfield School, Widnes
September 1969 – July 1970 – Postgraduate Certificate in Education, University of Liverpool – Executive Member, Liverpool University Guild of Undergraduates
January 1970 – March 1983 (Before Computers) – Production Director and sometime Managing Director of Anvil Press (Liverpool) later Peter James Printing Ltd. – Set up my own printing company from scratch initially to serve Student Union market. General lithographic and screen printing, local publishing, student guides to Liverpool and Manchester supported by advertising sales. Contracts with Ladbrokes and Rank Organisation for sales material.
1983 –retraining in IT as a Systems Analyst
May 1984 to May 1986 – Systems Support Analyst, United Biscuits Management Services, Liverpool. Transition from paper based to IT based system for Sales function.
Jun 1986 – Jan 1993 – Programme Manager, later Senior Programme Manager Mainframe Systems Software, ICL plc Manchester. – Introduced and implemented graphics based project planning system using Macintosh PCs into mainframe systems. – Transitioned internal mainframe based mail system from ‘free for all’ to controlled process. – Managed the Project List of around 120 active projects in terms of priority and progress on a weekly basis. – Contributed to the development and management of quality control systems involving detailed analysis and assessment of existing processes and transitioning to new procedures for corporate ISO9001 status. – Carried out company wide survey interviewing staff at all levels on the effectiveness and uptake of the new ‘quality’ processes. This formed my MBA dissertation and was a report to the corporate Quality Director showing some disturbing signs for the future.
Jan 1993 – March 1994 – Self Employed Management Consultant
Local Building Firm – Oswestry – Marketing System – Developed bespoke sales and marketing system
Architects – Newcastle on Tyne – Project Management System – Developed bespoke project management system using Windows PCs in a Mac environment which involved significant interviewing of staff to understand requirements.
March 1994 – present – CEO Business Developments Limited – Set up limited company for eligibility to undertake public sector contracts. The company continues to be fully operational after 30 years.
Clients served:
Railtrack – Civil Engineering reorganisation – Worked on the transition of the civil engineering function from the previous British Rail organisation involving extensive review with staff of existing processes.
Railtrack – ‘Geogis’ Asset management system – Through an extensive survey of the railway from existing BR records, site visits and local knowledge gathered from front line staff, put in place a definitive database of the UK railway infrastructure, reducing the overall inventory by about a third from that held by British Rail by identifying mislocations and duplications of data.
Railtrack – Performance Regime – Working with a team of people looking at IT and operational procedures, defined the performance standards by which the relationship between the Train Operators and the Infrastructure authority (Railtrack at the time) were to be managed and how the transition from the old British Rail systems would be made.
Railtrack – Y2K – With two other ‘critical path’ managers built a team of 20 people to collect and manage the progress of the Y2K investigations as to what would be affected by the ‘millennium bug’ and what would need to be done to avoid disruptions. This was highly intensive over around 18 months and involved numerous site visits and questioning of staff about the systems they were using.
Railtrack – Crash Investigations – Assisted in the investigation of ‘what went wrong’ in relation to three major multi-fatality incidents. In all cases the root cause turned out to be a failure to communicate between departments. Processes were later put in place to avoid recurrence and have been successful.
Rotherfield Peppard plc – ‘Bruce’ driver information system – Worked on a proposal for a train driver information system using a robust handheld device. (This was before smartphones or iPads and before GPS positioning systems) This required interviews with drivers and travel in cabs to assess the operational requirements.
Railtrack North West Region – Track Access Safety Review – Working with local front line staff created a comprehensive directory of track access points throughout the region with individual safety considerations for their use.
Survey Inspection Systems – Asset Management Consultant – Worked on a proposal to update the current written database of railway geography I’d worked on previously, with a visual map based database. This was before the advent of Google mapping and the use of drones. Local knowledge, camara trains, track walks and the use of helicopters eventually proved too costly for the Railway to take on board at the time.
Rotherfield Peppard plc – Document Control and Co-ordination – Managed and controlled the technically sensitive documentation of a number of innovative projects for the road and rail transport industries.
Survey Inspection Systems – San Francisco – Advised a software company working on railway and metro infrastructure on how to how to identify, record and manage linear assets using previous experience gained with Railtrack.
Serco Consulting – Docklands Light Railway – Worked on assessment of operational processes used by Docklands Light Railway in support of a management bid.
Metronet – London Underground Resignalling – Assisted with the major project to update and upgrade the signalling systems on the London Underground. This required extensive interviews and liaison with front line staff at stations to determine what was happening in reality rather than existing information on the way trains were operated dating back several decades.
For personal reasons largely involving commuting to London on a weekly basis I decided to take a break from consultancy work
July 1999 – March 2016 – Network Marketing
To 2003 – Amway – Independent Business Owner – Built a team of 19 carrying out direct sales of household, cosmetic and nutrition products.
From 2003 – Utility Warehouse – Group Leader – Brought most of the team across to what was then Telecom Plus, direct selling domestic telecoms and energy. Developed this working full to a team of around 150 people and a customer base of several thousand of which nearly 600 were personally introduced. Was one of between 5 and 10 top personal customer gatherers for seven years running.
From July 2013 – Continuing Professional/Personal Development – Sustained by my UW income, pensions and loans I embarked on a period of ‘retraining’ and developing my previously acquired skills and knowledge for a career in a more coaching approach than the consulting role I had so far taken. – This has brought me to a wider understanding of how the world, and life, really works and equipped me to assist people and businesses in many ways above and beyond what I have been doing before.
December 2016 – present – CEO Life Mastery Universal Ltd, The Freedom Academy – Chief Philosophy Officer – I set up this business to serve individual rather than business clients and provide coaching, hypnotherapy and other services to individuals using various systems and frameworks according to clients’ needs. – Alongside these face to face and remote personal services I have also set up the web based ‘Freedom Academy’ which provides members access to a significant number of training programmes, publications and tools.
May – October 2022 – Chief Operating Officer – Rhino XR Studios LLC, New Hampshire – Appointed to take charge of the development of a metaverse ‘world’ relieving the CEO of working ‘in’ the business. Unfortunately, he was unable to let go of any level of control resulting in the resignation of myself and four other senior appointees. The project has now folded.
October 2022 – present – MXRB Consultants (mxrb.io) – Senior Consultant – A part-time occasional role advising interested parties on all things blockchain, AI, crypto, metaverse and other emerging technology, focussing on education, process development, and connection between providers and those who require work done.
Parallel Activities
1979 – 1981 BSAC Merseyside – Diving Officer – Appointed Diving Officer responsible for safety and operations for the Merseyside branch of the British Sub Aqua Club after gaining qualification as Advanced Instructor.
1984 – 1994 Manchester Scuba School – Director – Having gained the qualification of Open Water Scuba Instructor from the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) later upgraded to Master Scuba Diver Trainer, I set up in association with a local dive equipment shop owner a recreational diver training school taking groups to Malta to gain their qualifications.
1992 – 2022 Warwick Business School, University of Warwick – MBA Tutor – After gaining my MBA qualification at Warwick they asked me to stay on to become a part time distance learning MBA tutor to assist incoming students in dealing with their assignments in Marketing, Information Management, Business Start Up and Organisational Behaviour. This period gave me excellent experience of dealing with senior managers and helping them to understand what was going on in their businesses.
2003 – 2011 Business Referral Exchange (BRX) – Area Partner – Co-ordinator for a business networking group in the North West. Organising meetings, forming new groups and finding venues.
2006 – 2007 Davenham Parish Council – Chairman – Represented the Council at the local Borough Council mainly on issues of planning and traffic management, learned how to make a point in three minutes or less!
2011 – 2022 Business Focus Group – Secretary and Treasurer – Set up with a networking colleague on the demise of BRX I took the role of managing the membership, collecting the fees and paying the bills to and negotiating with the venue.
2013 – 2015 BNI Vale Royal – Vice President – Appointed Vice President responsible for maintaining the membership records and reporting the innumerable statistics they collect weekly to the central system.
