The True Alchemy of Growth

Working in retail and hospitality is something I think everybody should do in their career, they teach such vital sills in understanding who your customers are, what matters to them and how you elevate that experience at every opportunity. Every business should be aiming for that, and that customer-centric, people-centric mindset played a huge role in shaping the leader I am today.

Moving into investment and portfolio management was, in some ways, a completely different set of disciplines, a different industry, but at the heart of it, it was still about people. Being able to move between such seemingly diverse industries so early in my career and see that, actually, there's one thing at the heart of every single one of them, the customer, has played a major part in my whole career and becoming the leader I am today.

Both my parents are entrepreneurial, so it was somewhat in my blood. Even at school I had this really strong feeling that I wanted to run my own business one day, I just didn’t know what that business would actually be back then.

I love problem-solving. At Groupon, one of their values was “Intolerant of Mediocrity” and it resonated with me so much, it's something I try to live by. If something isn't good enough, I want to work out how we make it better and I get really excited seeing those opportunities. I also believe firmly in the Japanese concept of Kaizen, continuous improvement, even when something isn't broken, there's almost always something that can be improved. Complacency has no space if you're an entrepreneur; you're constantly asking how do I make this better, how do I tweak it.

That need to keep improving and problem-solving, combined with growing up around two entrepreneurial parents, formed the foundations of where I am today.

Commercial strategy shouldn't sit in a silo, it overarches the whole business. It's not just pricing, product etc, it's the full client experience which incorporates how the business runs operationally and why everything underneath should be aligned to that one goal, with the commercial objectives as the baseline.

In order for a commercial strategy to work, a business needs to really understand who its client is, what they actually need, and how best to sell it to them. And everything has to work together with that same common goal. Creating a strong customer experience isn't just about giving customers a nice time — it's about removing every bit of friction along the way, because any friction on that journey costs the business something, which ultimately reduces margin. When the business works together with that commercial focus, the easier your product or service is to sell, the stronger your repeat business and the higher your margins. And improving margin is the commercial goal every business is chasing.

It's the whole purpose of Alchemy, and it is in the name. It's about everything coming together to create the gold. With every client, that means fusing tech, operations, culture, product, commercials, marketing etc. Absolutely nothing should be looked at in silos.

It showed me the real importance of understanding your market, taking the time to understand both the market and the culture behind it. During my time in Australia we developed a hyper-local sales strategy that drove significant growth for the ANZ business. It highlighted just how tailored strategies have to be to drive results. Groupon as a concept was the same everywhere, but the deal structures and the way we communicated were specific to every single market.

Understanding the different customer profiles and aligning that to decision making is key. The value proposition can stay consistent, but how you communicate it to your market, how you adapt product and services, customer experience, processes etc has to be different and, more importantly, it has to be relevant to that market.

It's not one-size-fits-all, but equally you can't be everything to everyone, so staying focused, knowing your core customer and adapting where it counts to suit each market is what really builds those long-term, vital client relationships.

It was a huge, pivotal moment in my career. The hyper-local strategy I mentioned was a real standout, we drove growth of 40% year-on-year, which for a company the size of Groupon was massive, and it went on to be rolled out globally. I was also lucky enough to win a number of awards while I was there and see a huge amount of recognition for the work I was doing, which has played a big role in where I am now.

But what stands out most is the people. The CEO I worked with taught me a huge amount and was a genuine inspiration to me as a leader. And working so closely with some incredibly brilliant minds, people whose brains worked completely differently to mine, was a perfect example of what happens when very different minds come together around one common goal, challenging each other, improving on each other's thinking, bringing different perspectives to the table. The output is just awesome. That experience gave me the insight that ultimately led to the creation of Alchemy.

Ultimately they're not separate levers, one can't really exist without the other. Intuition gives you the instinct, creativity turns that instinct into an idea and analysis shapes that idea into something realistic. Creativity on its own can often lack realism, and equally, if you're overly analytical, that becomes its own barrier. Businesses use data a huge amount now, almost to the point that they’ve become overly reliant on data and analytical decision-making but there's a real need to drive more creativity alongside that, especially in a world that's becoming more and more competitive. That creativity is what stands you out from the crowd.

Intuition is the foundation layer, and it's really important, but you build on that with a combination of analysis and creativity. Rory Sutherland has one of my favourite quotes on this: “every creative decision requires someone rational to approve it, never the other way around.” We talk about this a lot with our clients, really driving that creativity, across absolutely every area of the business, always comes back to the same question: how can you be better?

In a world becoming more and more digital, where AI is playing an increasingly significant role, creativity and innovative thinking is more important than ever to make sure your business stands out.

It was a huge honour to be recognised in that way. The Opera House is my first ever Non-Executive role, and I'd only been in the position three months when I heard I'd been nominated as Non-Exec Director of the Year. That alone was an absolute honour but to then be made a finalist on top of that was amazing.

I absolutely love the role, and I love the organisation. It was great for the Opera House too, especially after the reopening, having one of their board members nominated was fantastic for the organisation. The whole board is an amazing one to be part of, and it's a realy exciting time for the Opera House.

I love this island. My husband and I moved here in 2020 after years in the UK and Australia because Jersey felt like exactly the right place to build our family, and it hasn't disappointed. What excites me about both roles is the chance to be part of proving how much potential Jersey has, culturally and commercially, which we sometimes undersell to ourselves.

The Opera House is a huge part of the community's identity, but it also makes Jersey stand out as not many islands the size of Jersey have such an amazing, fabulous historical arts venue. We need to really showcase it, not just for the performing arts but to bring more and more business to the island. It's one of the unique jewels in our crown and could play a major role in Jersey's future economic growth.

And Alchemy too, building something rooted in Jersey, but where the recognition goes beyond it, and keeping on proving that the opportunity here is exceptional, is really exciting to me. My ambitions for Alchemy are only just getting started and Jersey's a fantastic place to build and test them as that journey begins.

It's very difficult to pick just one. One very special time was I was lucky enough to go on the top-performers trip to the Maldives for Groupon, which was an amazing trip and was just an incredibly happy time. You had a group of fantastic people who'd worked incredibly hard, celebrating their performance together.

But honestly, every single place along the way has brought something. I've been lucky enough to love every job I've done, for different reasons, sometimes it's the people, sometimes it's the work, sometimes it's absolutely everything combined. I count myself really lucky in that sense. I've developed some amazing friendships along the way and that matters enormously to me.

There have been a few amusing moments too. One of my roles required a three-month stint in Stoke-on-Trent, staying in a hotel every week, and after a number of weeks I walked into my room to find a lovely rectangular box on the bed that looked deceptively like a lovely bottle of wine might be inside. When I opened it, it was actually a garden gnome, possibly one of the strangest loyalty gifts I've ever received, and a very clear example of a company not doing its customer profiling properly, given I was practically living in that hotel with absolutely no garden to put it in.

Overall, I’ve learned something from every job and I still find myself in meetings and on projects today, pulling experience from every single one. That's something that makes me smile.

Naming the business was one of the hardest parts of starting it. At its root, Alchemy is about base elements combining to make something far more valuable than the sum of their parts.

That's in how we work. We're not a generalist consultancy, we have a network of expert specialists, our Alchemists, and we bring them together in a unique combination for every single client, to create the best output with the most relevant perspectives for their specific opportunity.

And it's the philosophy we bring to the businesses we work with, too. Working in silos will never create the optimum result. Bringing things together creates efficiency and productivity, but more importantly, it creates a far better client experience. It's all about alignment across the whole business rather than focusing through one lens, one problem, one solution. We look at the ripple effect, how we can align a business to create the highest possible impact with every solution and every strategy.

And ultimately, that combination is powered by creativity and innovative thinking, it's what turns expertise into simple, realistic solutions that align tightly to a client's commercial goals and help them shine in a competitive market. When everything comes together in the right way, with that element of creativity in there too, it creates real magic, and seeing those 'a-ha' moments in a client workshop is the best part of our job.