From the CEO's chair, not a textbook. I have built and sold companies. I did it with an ADHD brain I did not understand until I was 49.
Plenty of coaches have led teams. A few have founded something. Very few have exited more than once and been the CEO through the whole arc, the raises, the scaling, the exit. I have. So I am not coaching you from a framework, though I have plenty of those. I am coaching you from the seat, on the same wiring.
CEO × 3 · qualified coach · late diagnosed
There is a lot of noise about neurodiversity at work right now. Some of it helpful. Some of it not. After three companies and a late diagnosis, here is the version I believe.
Most organisations still run on systems built for a kind of person who does not really exist. Constant interruption. Vague communication. Artificial urgency. One size fits all expectations. We call it a people problem. Usually it is a design problem. So that is where I start, with you, and with the system you are operating inside.
As AI takes the operational work, the human parts get more valuable, not less.
Attention. Creativity. Trust. Energy. Judgement. The businesses that keep treating people like interchangeable resources are going to struggle. The ones designed for how people actually think are going to pull ahead.
You built a business full of brilliant, creative people.
Those "talented but chaotic" people are the ones generating your best ideas. They are also the ones burning out, or quietly handing in their notice.
What you need is not accommodations that breed resentment. You need systems that work for variable brains. That is the work I do.
Four kinds of leader, one underlying pattern.
How I work with founders.
Three companies built and sold. From the chair, not the textbook.
Four gears of one relationship, chosen by what the moment needs.
The founder is the most common unpriced risk in a growing company.
It is also the one you can actually fix. That is the work.
You set the weather
How you operate propagates to every hire, meeting and decision.
→Fix the source, not the symptoms downstream.
The same wiring multiplies or divides
The traits that built the company can quietly fracture it.
→Aim the strengths. Contain the costs.
Know yourself, then regulate
Founders break on emotional regulation, not the calendar.
→Sensitivity, impulsivity, the hyperfocus crash, steadied so judgement holds.
Build systems and people that fit
Move planning, memory and follow-through out of your head.
→The company stops depending on your best day.
Work the sweet spot, loop the rest
Outside it: goals, then weekly loops, accountability, and rewards built in.
→Output stops riding on willpower.
Make your wiring an asset. Build systems for the parts you will always find hard. Be the leader the company needs for its next phase, without becoming its ceiling.
I want your company to run as well as you know it could.
You are capable. The business is moving. But there is a gap between the leader you are on a good week and the one you want to be every week, and closing it on effort alone is costing too much. That is the work.
- The decisions you keep circling. Get clear on what matters, decide faster, and second-guess less.
- You as the bottleneck. Rebuild how you delegate and decide, so the company stops routing everything through you.
- The board and the co-founders. Manage up and sideways without it draining your week.
- Leading the way you are actually wired, not the way you think a CEO is supposed to.
This is not productivity coaching. It is performance at the altitude you are really operating at.
More on 1:1 coaching →I have run this exact gauntlet three times.
When you describe the thing keeping you up at night, I have lived a version of it, and sold the company on the other side of it. You will not be explaining the CEO experience to someone who has only watched it from the outside.
High performance, run on an ADHD brain, and the hidden tax you are paying for it.
You perform at a high level. It costs more than it should. The masking is exhausting. The boring-but-critical work gets dodged until it is a crisis. Feedback lands harder than anyone around you realises. By the evening, there is nothing left. None of that is a character flaw. It is a role built for a neurotypical brain, run by one that works differently, and nobody flagged the mismatch.
This is for you if
- You are a CEO, founder, or senior leader in a high-responsibility role.
- You are ADHD-diagnosed, in assessment, or you recognise every line on this page.
- You are clearly capable, but your execution is inconsistent in a way that does not match your ability.
- You want to change how you actually operate, not collect another productivity system.
This is probably not for you if
- You are looking for therapy or a clinical diagnosis.
- You want tips to read, rather than work to do.
- You are early in your career and not yet in a senior seat.
The question is not "how do I fix my brain". It is "how do I run this role so my brain is the engine, not the thing I am fighting?"
Let these do most of the work
Let the role absorb these
The admin. The working-memory load. The context-switching. Designed out of your day, instead of white-knuckled through it.
Why work with me on this. I built and exited companies on this exact brain, most of it before I understood what I was working with. So I know the difference between where the structure is failing you and where you are failing yourself. It is usually the structure. And I am a qualified coach, so we do this with method, not just empathy.
Aren't we all a little bit ADHD?
It is the question that gets a room nodding, and then thinking. I give talks to business audiences about neurodiversity, leadership, and the systems we build around people. Not a lecture on labels. A conversation about work.
I draw on being a CEO, a founder, a parent, and a late-diagnosed ADHD adult. It is honest, occasionally uncomfortable, and never political. Just human.
"The most impactful thing I have seen at any conference for a long, long time."
BrightonSEO attendee"The best talk I sat through. Out of the box, and full of actionable ways to improve my workflow."
BrightonSEO attendee"Someone came over afterwards and said your talk made her feel seen."
BrightonSEO attendeeI did not go looking for an ADHD diagnosis. It found me through my son.
His struggles at school led to a discovery about both of us, and it changed how I think about leadership, productivity and culture. Permanently.
I had spent years assuming everyone else found parts of the job easier than I did. They did not. They just had different challenges, invisible in structures built for a neurotypical brain.
I was late-diagnosed at 49, in October 2022. One client at BrightonSEO put it better than I could: "the mask pays the bills." This is the work of taking the mask off and still winning.
NetRank
Client Services Director at one of the UK's earliest SEO agencies, the white-label engine behind major media. Clients including RBS, NatWest, Black & Decker, Audi and VW Commercial Vehicles. Acquired by LBi in 2007.
Enterprise service layer
Delivered an enterprise service layer to key agencies.
Yard Digital · CEO
Took the CEO role and grew the business by £1M in year one and £1.5M in year two. Sold the Analytics division in 2024.
Qualified executive coach
Accredited with the Association for Coaching. Mentors on coaching for neurodiversity and on business development. Speaker, "Aren't We All A Little Bit ADHD?", BrightonSEO Spring 2026, plus webinars on the topic.
What stays with people.
"Your session changed the way I think about collaboration. It is not just how individuals communicate, but how we adapt to support different people and working styles."
Workshop attendee"I really resonated with your story. ADHD diagnosis in 2022, and it is a classic golden-handcuff situation. The mask pays the bills."
Agency leader"I name-dropped your session the next morning when I began my own, by moving a speaker to a right angle, because if I did not the world would have ended."
BrightonSEO speaker"I loved the problem, action, solution framing. I took lots of notes from that section."
BrightonSEO attendee"You were absolutely brilliant. It gave me a lot to think about in my own work. I have two ADHD clients and you gave me real clarity."
Consultant"I downloaded the audit and I can relate to so much of what you talked about. Thank you for taking the time to create and give the presentation."
BrightonSEO attendee"Just SO relatable in lots of ways. I would love to chat about it, and understand some areas more."
Founder"A colleague attended your talk and had nothing but good things to say."
Second-hand, still counts"Would you mind sending the slides? My partner, fellow SEO and ADHD'er, would really benefit. We do stick together, after all."
BrightonSEO attendee