Advisory · Product leadership · Skunkworks · Frontier technology
The next evolutionfor founders
We build capability your org chart can't hire for. Senior advisory, product leadership, and applied technology, embedded directly into your team. We're what consultancies pretend to sell, without the deck, the day rate, or the leaving lunch. The experience and the nerve to make things actually work.
The Skunkworks ProtocolWhat the people who've worked with us say
"Exceptionally broad skill set. Works just as effectively with senior leadership on strategic problems as he does getting into the detail. Passionate, candid, and never dogmatic."
Agata Laydon
Science Lead
Google DeepMind
"Critical strategic projects were successful due to David's experience, knowledge, and skill. He has an excellent broad knowledge of tech. I trust David implicitly."
Andy Tennent
Global Digital Product Manager
tcc global
"A juggernaut of digital knowledge. He has caught problems that others haven't even imagined exist. I would trust him to deliver everything from a corporate digital strategy to a nuanced microsite design for any size of organisation."
Phin Pope
Chief Platform Architect
Unisys
The Argument
The organisations that thrive in the next decade are being built right now.
Not by hiring more people. Not by buying more tools. By deliberately evolving the human layer while everyone else automates around it.
There is a fork in the road. On one side: organisations optimising for yesterday, faster pipelines, leaner headcount, more AI output. On the other: organisations building for what actually compounds from here.
Most organisations are already on the wrong side of that fork. The signal is subtle at first. Output is up. Decision quality isn't following.
The future workforce
What the automation consultants won't touch.
Ninety-three percent of AI investment goes to the technology. Seven percent goes to the people and the thinking. We work on the seven percent.
Judgment in an AI-saturated team
Junior people ship faster but cannot tell if the output is any good. We close the gap between production speed and decision quality.
The capability your org chart doesn't show
Pattern recognition. Commercial instinct. Knowing when to stop. These are the muscles AI can't replace and most organisations have stopped exercising.
Decisions that survive the meeting
Strategy gets agreed on Monday and ignored by Wednesday. The clarity was never there to begin with. We rebuild how decisions get made.
Systems that tell the truth
Twelve tools. None of them agree. We connect the plumbing so the numbers mean something and the team stops translating between three systems before lunch.
The work nobody will touch
Every company has the initiative that's too political, too tangled, or too close to someone's ego to fix. We have no history and no loyalty to the old decision.
Proof before commitment
Real signals from real buyers before you commit to production. We structure the experiment so you know whether to build before you've spent the engineering budget.
Who this is for
You'll recognise at least one of these.
The signals are specific. The cause is the same: the clarity required to make good decisions isn't there.
AI is running but nobody is steering
Output has tripled. Win rates stayed flat. The tools work. The judgment about what to point them at doesn't.
Strategy is a slideshow
The roadmap updates weekly. The deck updates quarterly. They are not the same document.
The organisation runs on fear
One person became the only safe option for changes. Decisions queue behind availability rather than urgency.
David Ashenden
"Speed is easy. Judgment is earned."
We get called when AI has made everything look productive but nothing has actually got better. The deliverables look right. The thinking is borrowed. The decisions don't hold.
Most of the value sits in what we stop. We have the authority to kill the zombie projects your internal teams are too polite to mention. We bring the outside view that turns the obvious-but-unsayable into an actual decision.
Rory Sutherland once observed that people who want to win the argument are prepared to ignore human truths to preserve the integrity of their artificial model. That's exactly what we see inside most growth-stage companies. The model says one thing. The humans know another. Nobody has permission to say it out loud. We're that permission.
Four things that change everything
Make the story executable
We surface the real promise, the real constraints, and the trade-offs nobody wants to name in a room with more than four people in it. The roadmap stops being a wish list and becomes a sequence you can defend. Commercially and operationally.
- Positioning & Promise
- Roadmap Triage
- Decision Rules
- The Stop List
Make the system honest
We trace where complexity is hiding: data, handoffs, permissions, the legacy shortcut someone built in 2019 that now runs half the business. Then we simplify. Less confusion, fewer brittle dependencies, more decisions that survive contact with a customer.
- Architecture Clarity
- Debt Triage
- Risk Reduction
- Simplification Plan
Prove demand before you build
We test the offer and the narrative in the market before committing to production. Sometimes the smallest prototype is a spreadsheet, a landing page, and a phone call. Suboptimal decisions at a five-billion-revenue firm cost a hundred and fifty million a year. Most of that is building things nobody wanted.
- Rapid Experiments
- Offer Design
- Pricing Signals
- Build vs Buy
Lead it, not just advise it
We coach senior leaders and product teams directly. When the situation calls for it, we step in and lead the product. Not as a consultant handing over a document, but as the person in the room making the calls, running the team, and accountable for what ships.
- Executive Coaching
- Product Leadership
- Team Development
- Embedded Advisory
Engagement Economics
What it costs
Most consultancies hide the price because they're pricing the client, not the work. We sell judgment, not hours. Fixed cost. Asymmetric ROI. Model your engagement below before we speak.
Step 1/4
Which archetype fits your current reality?
Not sure?We tailor packages for every stage.Drop us a line.
Recent work
Competence compounds.
At Unisys, we implemented a comprehensive design system and build tooling across their product delivery teams. Not magic. Just systems thinking applied to delivery.
Design and rework across BAU dropped by 75%. Projects that had been estimated at two years were delivered, fully functioning and to a higher standard, in just six months.
"This isn't magic. It's just what happens when you stop arguing about pixels and start building systems."
Field Notes
Occasional notes on product judgment, technology choices, and the everyday chaos that prevents good decisions. Not thought leadership. Observations from the field.
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Latest writing
Browse the archive
Articles on AI adoption, product strategy, organisational capability, and why most transformation programmes are expensive ways of avoiding the actual problem.
Resources for evolving businesses
Tools you can use before we've spoken.
Printable frameworks, checklists, and decision tools. Each one built around a single question most organisations are too busy to ask clearly.
Start with a conversation.
Forty-five minutes to work out where you are, where you're trying to get to, and what's in the way. If we can help, you'll know exactly how. If we can't, we'll tell you straight.
Confidential. No sales theatre.