A hands-on module that helps media leaders read their organisation through its numbers
Leading with a Business Mind teaches independent media organisations to see their financial reality clearly — cost structure, funding risk, and the trade-offs behind every editorial decision. Not a finance course, a working tool for leadership.
Across a live session and five guided exercises, participants map their true costs, weigh initiatives on cost and impact, stress-test their funding against a major donor loss, and build a shared language between editorial and finance. A 1:1 session then works through their own specific situation.
The result: leaders who can name their numbers, defend their decisions, and reduce dependence on any single funder, without losing sight of the mission the numbers are meant to serve.
Advisory support for independent media and public-interest journalism organizations working with International Media Support.
Four areas of practical advisory support
Understand what can realistically generate income, what should be tested, and what should be stopped.
Move from activity-based budgets to cost awareness, runway thinking, and basic P&L discipline.
Prepare for grants, blended finance, venture philanthropy, or VC fundraising depending on your stage.
Turn strategy into a 90-day action plan with practical follow-up.
I did not come from business. I was a social scientist — taught politics at university, advised governments on policy. In 2014 I walked away from that life to start my own company, with no pedigree, no network to lean on, and no idea what I was doing.
What followed was 20 years of learning everything the hard way — how to sell, how to lead, how to read a balance sheet, how to make decisions when the numbers are bad and the pressure is worse. I built a creative studio to $800K in revenue, raised $40M for a seed fund, helped 80+ startups navigate their early years, and ran a developer ecosystem for Bayer's radiology AI portfolio. I made every mistake in the book. Some of them twice.
The thing nobody tells you about running your own business is how distressing it actually is. Not just stressful — distressing. The kind that warps your problem analysis, clouds your judgment, and stirs up whatever life baggage you were already carrying. The entrepreneurial journey can become a vicious loop, and the last thing most founders want to do is let someone into that loop. Who wants to show the seams, especially when everyone expects the poster-perfect leader?
I get it. I have been in that loop.
I do this work because it makes the journey less lonely — for the people I work with and honestly for me too. I work best with people I find genuine mutual fit with, as entrepreneurs and as human beings. If you found me here, it is probably because an organisation I work with pointed you in my direction. That matters to me — it means there is already some degree of trust in the room before we start.
I am not going to tell you I have all the answers. I am going to sit with you in the hard decisions, help you see your numbers clearly, and make sure you are not making them alone.