Writing
Posts, papers, and ideas on leadership, performance, transformation, and resilience.
Latest Posts
The Tactician and the Technician
Defence software delivery consistently fails because of the structural distance between the engineer who builds and the operator who uses. The case for forward deployment, why it works, and why the commercial model is the hardest barrier to fix.
AI Is Now the Operating System. Here’s What That Actually Means.
AI platforms have shifted from productivity tools to enterprise operating systems. This post examines what that means for competitive strategy, workflow redesign, and how product teams should think about building and scaling AI agents.
The Moats That Matter in Defence AI
A framework for thinking about what makes a deftech AI company genuinely hard to compete with over time. From compliance and accreditation infrastructure to knowledge architecture and cleared human capital, the most durable moats in defence AI are not the most obvious ones.
Resilience is not Redundancy. What Catastrophic Failure Actually Teaches You.
Redundancy delays failure. It does not prevent it. Drawing on two real MOD recovery operations, this post sets out what genuine digital resilience actually looks like and why most digital programmes are dangerously underprepared for failure.
What Building a Startup Taught Me About Delivery in Defence
Running a startup teaches accountability in a way no programme governance framework can. This post draws on experience building and selling a company to examine what large defence programmes get structurally wrong about ownership and consequence.
The Hiring Problem Is Not the Candidate
Most bad hires are not candidate failures. They are system failures. When hiring keeps going wrong, the question is not how to hire better people. It is what the pattern of failures is revealing about the organisation itself.
Start With the Fire
The real insight in Ogilvy’s fire extinguisher line is not about how to open a pitch. It is about whether you actually know which fire you are fighting.
Build a Better Enemy
Most leaders believe they engage seriously with criticism, competition, and strategic risk. What they actually engage with is a simplified version that is easy to dispose of. This post examines what that costs, where the alternative pays, and how to know which discipline the moment requires.
Edge AI is a Logistics Programme Wearing a Software Badge
Edge AI in defence fails not because of the model but because of the operating model. This post examines what breaks in real deployments across land, maritime, and air environments and why it matters.
Orbital Datacentres. Real or Fantasy?
Orbital datacentres make sense first for space native workloads: processing Earth observation on orbit, reducing dependence on fragile downlinks, and offering burst compute to other spacecraft. Off planet storage may help continuity, but only with serious governance.
Should we Wargame LLM-enabled Adversaries?
LLM-enabled adversaries change the cost structure of information operations permanently. This post makes the case for wargaming against AI-generated pressure and explains what you are actually testing for when you do it right.
‘Sovereign’ is a Control Model, Not a Geography
Sovereign AI is not about where servers sit. It is about who controls the system when it matters. This post unpacks real sovereignty in defence procurement and why buying a postcode is not enough.
AI Assurance is Evidence, not Confidence
AI assurance is not confidence or compliance theatre. It is evidence. Defence needs proof of bounded behaviour, policy enforcement, and reconstructability under real conditions, with change control that sustains assurance after go live, not just at launch.
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Posts, essays, and ideas on leadership under pressure, resilience, and organisational performance.