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Maths and statistics at Brunel
A BSc in Mathematics and Statistics at Brunel University, with a year’s work placement built in.
Graduate programme at Logica
Straight from Brunel onto Logica’s graduate programme, where I trained in data warehousing and business intelligence.
On the side
The start-up nobody quit for
musicrooms.com: a concept, a pitchbook and a plan to raise pre-seed money for a proof-of-concept site. We didn’t raise it. Nobody on the team would give up the day job.
Carried forward An idea needs someone willing to go all in. Next time, that was me.
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Consulting for the blue chips
As a business intelligence consultant I built data warehouses and management reporting at UBS, Swiss Re, BNY Mellon, ING, Shell, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Universal Pictures, OAG and the Inland Revenue.
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Living and working in Zurich
Enterprise technology in Zurich, where serious institutions expect every system to be controlled and documented. UBS among them.
Carried forward Controls, data and process at scale: the standard investors and lenders expect now.
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Out of corporate, on my own
Back to London from Zurich, and out of corporate life for good. The plan: start a business of my own.
Mind the gap
This time I gave up the day job, for a bar on Essex Road.
All in
Barrio opens on Essex Road
In May 2007 I opened the first Barrio on Essex Road, Islington. Barrio Angel: a colourful Latin bar built around a proper welcome.
Carried forward Culture is the product.
From
Barrio takes the party to Glastonbury
Four years after Essex Road, Barrio took the party to Glastonbury: a pop‑up bar in Shangri-la, three festivals running.
Disrepute, my second concept
I pitched a members’ bar to the landlord, Shaftesbury, and in December 2016 opened Disrepute: 100 seats in a Soho basement between Carnaby Street and Beak Street, in the space that had been The Pinstripe Club.
At the peak
One bar becomes five venues
Barrio Soho on Poland Street, a flagship on Shoreditch High Street and Barrio Brixton joined Angel, alongside Disrepute, grown organically and by acquisition. I raised equity from private investors, acquired leaseholds in high-footfall London and project-managed all five fit-outs. At the peak: 120 staff and £7m of revenue.
Carried forward Acquisitions only work if you can absorb them. I learnt that site by site.
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COVID: everyone came through
When the bars had to shut, we found new revenue streams and ran temporary pivots to keep going. We came out the other side with all 120 staff.
Sold to Nightcap plc
I’d built a senior team with heads of operations, sales and finance, installed a Managing Director and stepped back from the day-to-day. In November 2021 I sold the group, four Barrio bars and Disrepute, to Nightcap plc. Gerald Edelman ran the sale.
Carried forward Buyers pay for clean numbers, documented systems and a team that runs without you.
Read more The Morning Advertiser The Spirits Business The Caterer Gerald Edelman on the sale
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A year as brand steward
I stayed on as Barrio’s brand steward for Nightcap, keeping the brand true to itself through new openings in Covent Garden and Watford.
Carried forward I’ve lived integration from the seller’s side.
The two biggest days of my life
I sold my life’s work.
And thenOur daughter Perla was born.
The first closed a chapter. The second told me who the next one is for.
Advising Zacal, mezcal from Michoacán
Zacal kept me close to hospitality while I moved on to new pastures. Since May 2023 I’ve advised its founders, drawing on fifteen years in the trade. A mezcal from Michoacán, Mexico, it launched in the UK in May 2025 and has won Master medals at The Global Spirits Masters.
Clamshell Capital, named for Perla
In March 2024 I set up Clamshell Capital, my personal investment company. It’s how I put my own capital into EverGrowth Group. Perla is Spanish for pearl, and a clamshell is what keeps a pearl safe.
Co-founding EverGrowth Group with Chris West
Chris West and I co-founded EverGrowth Group to partner with UK essential services businesses and grow them as a group. Chris is CEO; I’m the full-stack COO.
Full-stack COO I’ve built a business from zero, designed the operating system that ran it, scaled it and sold it. I can work the detail on site and the strategy with the board.
From a Friday night out to the boiler in January
Discretionary
People choose to spend it.
Bars sell a night out. When budgets tighten, it’s the first thing to go.
Non-discretionary
Businesses have to spend it.
Cleaning, heating, waste, power. Buildings can’t run without them, whatever the economy is doing.
Our thesis, Chris’s and mine, starts from that contrast, and I learnt it in 2020, when the bars had to shut. What transfers is how you lead teams across many sites, and the systems that keep every one of them running.
Bet on hands.
At Barrio every cocktail was made by hand, adjusted live for the sourness of the limes. That’s craft. AI will reshape the office, but it won’t rewire a building or deep-clean a hospital. We back businesses where skilled hands are the product, and put AI behind them to help them go further.
Excell, our first business
Excell Cleaning Services in London became EverGrowth’s first business, funded with our own capital and a loan from Allica Bank under the government’s Growth Guarantee Scheme.
Carried forward Now I sit on the other side of the table, and I remember the seller’s chair.
Read more Excell joins
Backed by FourLeaf Capital and OakNorth Bank
Our founding raise: private equity from FourLeaf Capital and senior debt from OakNorth Bank, with Forvis Mazars advising on both.
Carried forward Zurich’s controls and Barrio’s exit both showed up in the data room.
Read more FourLeaf Capital backs EverGrowth OakNorth Bank’s announcement
Paul Barry joins as Chair
Paul Barry, Executive Chairman of Phenna Group, joined as Non-Executive Chair and Investor, with Jeremy Waud and Dane Houlahan as Non-Executive Directors.
Read more Paul Barry joins Jeremy Waud and Dane Houlahan join
Medway and Haulaway join the group
Medway Heating in Bolton and Haulaway, a waste management business in the South East, joined EverGrowth alongside Excell. More are on the way.
Read more Medway joins
Now
Building in public
Partnering with more businesses and building the shared services that help each one grow. I share the build as it happens on LinkedIn.
Carried forward All of it.
The full‑stack COO
Every layer of a business, worked first-hand. Each one was picked up somewhere on the line.
- CapitalFundraising, acquisitions and exit.Barrio’s exit. EverGrowth’s raise.
- Brand and cultureBrands people feel, and teams that carry them.Barrio and Disrepute.
- Sites and teamsMulti-site operations, people and service.Five London venues, 120 staff.
- Operating systemProcesses, data, controls and KPIs, designed and run every week.Zurich. Barrio. EverGrowth.
- CodeData warehousing and business intelligence, now with AI in the loop.Logica. A decade consulting.
Destination
Partnering with and growing UK essential services businesses.
Co-Founder and full-stack COO
See what’s growing
My own capital in EverGrowth, through my personal investment company
Partnering with and growing UK essential services businesses.
Co-Founder and full-stack COO
See what’s growing
My own capital in EverGrowth, through my personal investment company
Turn over the next card. Graft gets you to the table, and luck turns a few cards your way. Neither happens unless you’re in the game. My first start-up never was.
