I can still hear the soft whirr of the dot-matrix printer in the corner of the office.
It was the early 90s, and every morning it churned out fresh reports for Clare—rows of neatly aligned numbers on perforated paper.
Clare would tear off the edges, smooth the page flat, and reach for her calculator.
Her job was to add up the numbers and check that the total the computer had printed at the bottom of the page was right.
"Has it ever been wrong?" I asked. "No," she replied. I was hardly surprised.
Why did she do this, you might ask? Was it because her boss didn't trust the computer? Or was it because they'd had someone to add up the numbers before the reports had been computerised, and no one had thought to change the process now that this step was no longer required?
The irony wasn’t lost on me. The tech hadn’t made her job easier; it had simply added another layer of work.
To me, that was Bad IT. Not because the system was faulty, but because it hadn’t solved the real problem. It hadn’t made Clare’s work more human—it had made her a human calculator.
Even then, I knew technology could be better. Good IT could free people from the mundane, help them focus on the parts of their job that truly needed human judgment, empathy, and creativity. That belief has been my compass ever since.
(I know Clare's story sounds made up. But it's not. Those were different times. Or have things really changed that much?)
The question that changed everything
Fast forward to the Dot.Com boom. The air felt charged with possibility.
Everyone was asking: “Can you build a system to…?” And more often than not, the answer was yes.
But I noticed the better question was: “Should you?”
I remember saying this out loud in a meeting once, and the room went quiet. It wasn’t the kind of question that got you applause in that climate. But when the Dot.Com bust hit, it became clear that “should” was just as important as “can.” Businesses that had been worth millions on paper were suddenly wiped out.
Around that time, I was deep into my MBA, learning to see the connection between technology decisions and long-term business outcomes. That perspective was about to be tested.
Doing myself out of a job
I was still living in South Africa. I joined a startup online bank that had imported a strategy straight from the UK. It didn’t fit the local market.
“This isn’t going to work here,” I told the leadership team after a few weeks of digging into the numbers. (To be fair, I was a little more diplomatic about it at the time.)
“Then fix it,” they said. (Also in a slightly less terse tone.)
So I did. We pivoted, refocused, and—successfully—changed direction. The bank thrived and even won awards. And my role? No longer needed.
It was a strange feeling, packing up my desk after a win. But it taught me something fundamental about strategy: sometimes, doing the right thing means letting go—even if what you’re letting go of is you.
London calling
Next came London. Six years later, I was Head of Group Strategy and Branding at a FTSE 100 multinational company. It was the kind of job people imagine you’d keep for life.
But I realised I didn’t just want to guide one company through its defining moments—I wanted to help many. So I left and set up as an independent consultant.
In consulting, I discovered there’s rarely such a thing as “steady state” in business. There’s always a decision looming, a change underway, a future to prepare for. And I loved it. And learnt a huge amount in the process.
The missing piece
But what struck me most, again and again, was how few people were actually thinking strategically.
Meetings were full of plans—but they were plans built on yesterday’s assumptions, not tomorrow’s possibilities. Progress happened, but it was incremental, cautious, reactive.
I became convinced that if more people thought strategically, we’d all enjoy better products and services—cheaper, faster, and more sustainably. That wasn’t just a business goal. It was a vision for a better world.
Back to the keyboard
Yet, in a twist of irony, strategy work itself had barely evolved. Everywhere else in business, technology had transformed how we worked. But strategy? It was still stuck in PowerPoint.
I watched so-called strategy teams spend days copying slides from one deck to another, chasing formatting instead of insight. That wasn’t strategy—it was administration.
So I built StratNavApp.com. For me, it was a return to my roots in technology, but this time I was building Good IT for the strategists themselves.
The AI turning point
I started with machine learning. Then, in late 2022, Generative AI burst onto the scene.
Suddenly, the possibilities expanded exponentially. StratNavApp could not only replace PowerPoint—it could analyse faster, surface insights instantly, and strip away the admin work that kept strategists from doing real strategic thinking.
For the first time, I could see my lifelong goal in reach: a world where strategy is better, decisions are smarter, and the results are more sustainable—for businesses and for the people they serve.
What now?
If you’ve ever wished strategy felt less like moving slides and more like moving forward, here’s where to start:
- Schedule a call to discuss your needs.
Let's see if we're a good fit to work together towards better strategy. -
Try StratNavApp.com for yourself.
Whether you're a consultant, working in a business, or starting your own, StratNavApp has all the tools and AI support you need to develop and execute which are future-oriented, evidence-based and will set you up for success.
