The In-between Work

What I've learned working with creative and neurodivergent founders - and the role I built to fill the gap

I don't fit in a bucket. Neither do you. That's exactly the point.

I've been called a manager, a head of, a consultant, a mentor, a trustee, a chief of staff. None of those titles are wrong. But none of them fully capture what I actually do - or where I add the most value.

The truth is I sit between job titles. I always have. And for a long time I thought that was a problem. Now I understand it's the whole point.

Because the work that really matters - the work where real change happens, where problems get solved rather than quietly rippling through a business - lives in the in-between spaces. The connections between strategy and execution. Between what the founder sees and what the team understands. Between the vision in someone's head and the business that needs to act on it.

That's where I work. And I built this role for myself because I spotted the gap.

The pattern I keep seeing

I've spent over a decade working inside founder-led businesses - sportswear, outdoor, wellness, consumer brands, mental health, education. Different industries, different stages, different founders. But the same pattern, again and again.

A founder who has built something through sheer energy, drive, and a distinctive vision. A business gaining real traction. Products people love. A way of operating that got them here - and got them here fast.

And then a moment where that same energy needs to move differently.

Not because something has gone wrong. Because something has gone right. The business needs to grow beyond what one person can hold. Maybe it's the first time bringing in a team and figuring out how to lead people behind a vision rather than just executing it yourself. Maybe it's later - wanting to step into a different role, or needing the team to operate more independently so you can focus on what only you can do. Maybe you're thinking about exit, or scaling to a new level, or simply hitting the limits of what's sustainable to carry alone.

Whatever the trigger - the underlying need is the same. More capacity. A different way of operating. And someone who can help you make that transition without losing what made the business work in the first place.

Why standard advice sometimes misses the point

The default response to this moment is familiar. Hire a COO. Add structure. Document everything. Slow down to speed up.

And sometimes that's exactly right. But sometimes it misses the real opportunity - or actively makes things harder, especially for creative founders whose energy and instinct is the engine of the business.

Adding structure that doesn't fit how you think doesn't slow you down gradually. It can stop you in your tracks. Processes built around a different way of operating don't just feel uncomfortable, they fight against the very thing that's driving the business forward.

And here's what's changed: we're operating in a completely different environment now. With AI tools and the ability to build, test, and implement faster than ever before, the question isn't just how do we add more process - it's where do we add more brain power. How do we leverage insights, accelerate thinking, and keep moving at pace while building the foundations that will actually hold?

What's needed isn't always more structure. Sometimes it's someone who can see the whole picture, bring commercial rigour to the decisions that matter, and help you work out what's actually right for your business - not just what the standard playbook says.

What I do - and how

I'm a Strategy Translator and Operational Catalyst. I work in both directions at once.

From founder to team: I take what's in the founder's head - the vision, the instincts, the half-formed ideas, the things they know are right but haven't yet been able to articulate — and I make it legible. I help clarify the strategy, connect it to commercial reality, and build the frameworks that let the team understand what it means for their work. Not as a document that lives in a folder. As a shared understanding that actually drives decisions.

From team back to founder: I bring insights, patterns, and validated hypotheses back in a way the founder can actually use. Because founders with strong instincts often know what's right before the data confirms it - but they don't always have the capacity to investigate properly and figure out the path forward. I do that investigation. I test, validate, and prioritise without assuming. And I bring it back in a way that works with how they think.

In practice this means working across strategy, commercial rigour, operational pace, and team capability. Getting into the metrics and trading rhythms. Finding where time and energy are being wasted. Building smarter ways of working - including using AI tools to accelerate implementation, test ideas faster, and free people up for higher-value thinking. I understand the full picture well enough to use these tools to amplify thinking and bring results back to the people who are the real experts. Because AI doesn't replace specialist knowledge, it turbocharges it when someone can see how it all connects.

I also work across product development, go-to-market, finance, team capability - wherever the translation gap is showing up most. The work doesn't respect functional boundaries. Neither do I.

Why it has to feel safe

I want to say something about the emotional reality of this - because it matters and it doesn't get talked about enough.

Bringing someone else into the parts of your business that feel most personal, the vision, the strategy, the decisions that keep you up at night, takes trust. Real trust. And for founders who have built something from nothing, whose identity is deeply tied to what they're creating, that trust is hard-won.

I understand that. I've felt it. I've studied the psychology of it. And I know that the only way this works is if it feels genuinely safe.

Safe to share the half-formed idea. Safe to say "I don't know." Safe to hand something off and trust it will come back better, not just different.

Psychological safety isn't a nice-to-have in this work. It's the foundation everything else is built on. Creating that environment - for the founder, and for the team - is as central to what I do as any framework or process I build.

I work with people who are open, who want to grow, and who understand that adapting is part of scaling. Creative founders often feel this naturally - partly because they've spent their lives navigating systems that weren't built for them, and they know what it feels like to need someone who genuinely gets it. But it's not exclusive to them. What matters is the openness. The willingness to look honestly at how you're operating and ask whether it's working.

Bringing out the brilliance

Here's what drives me underneath all of it.

I want to bring out the brilliance in the founders and teams I work with. Not fix them. Not slow them down. Not replace their instincts with someone else's system.

Bring out what's already there, and create the conditions for it to go further.

That means directing your energy toward the work only you can do - the vision-setting, the direction, the shiny generative work that lights you up - and away from the things that are draining you. It means building a team around you that can think strategically, not just execute tasks, so you're not the only person carrying the intelligence of the business.

And it means understanding that building a business is also about personal growth. You have to evolve as a leader alongside the business you're building. That's not always comfortable. But it's where the real breakthroughs happen, for you, for your team, and for what you're building together.

What works for neurodivergent people works for everyone

One more thing I believe strongly, and have seen proven repeatedly.

When you build environments and processes that work for neurodivergent people - clear, purposeful, flexible, focused on what actually matters - you build something that works better for everyone.

The structures that help a neurodivergent founder scale their thinking through their team don't constrain neurotypical team members. They liberate them. Because clarity is always better than ambiguity. Because purposeful processes beat processes for their own sake. Because teams that genuinely understand the vision always outperform teams that are just executing tasks.

So when I talk about creating optimal environments for neurodivergent success, I'm not talking about a niche solution. I'm talking about building businesses that work better. Full stop.

This is what I do

I sit between job titles. I always have. I've held many of them, and across every one, I've been doing the same thing. Seeing the pattern. Understanding the vision. Translating it into something the business can act on. Building the structures that work for the people at the centre of it.

I don't think everyone needs this. I think the right founders at the right moment need it, and when the fit is right, it changes everything.

If you're a creative or neurodivergent founder navigating that transition, needing your thinking to move through your business rather than stay in your head, wanting someone who works with how your brain operates rather than against it, looking for more brain power that can see the whole picture and help you move faster and smarter -

I'd love to talk.