Across my career, I have seen a pattern repeat across very different organisations: strategy only creates value when leaders have the capacity, ownership and operating discipline to deliver it.
Before the Cambridge MBA, I built my early career as an engineer and operator in Canada’s energy sector. At Enbridge, I led root cause analysis across the Canadian pipeline network, working with the field teams responsible for keeping critical infrastructure running. That experience still shapes how I think about business. The best strategic decisions are never abstract. They are grounded in operational reality.
I came to Cambridge Judge Business School because I wanted to broaden that foundation. I had seen how complex organisations worked from the inside. I wanted a more global lens on strategy, markets, leadership and enterprise decision-making.
Cambridge MBA became the pivot. It helped me move from operations into consulting, then enterprise strategy, and eventually into founding Strathen Group.
That pivot was not only academic. Through the Cambridge Venture Project, I worked with mOm Incubators on go-to-market strategy and phased launch for the world’s first portable, collapsible neonatal incubator, conducting over 50 clinician interviews across intensive care, ambulance and NGO settings to shape the launch roadmap. That device has since helped save the lives of more than 1,500 babies in Ukraine following attacks on hospital infrastructure.
Our MBA CVP team after delivering our final strategy presentation to the CEO and executive team at mOm Incubators.
Through the Global Consulting Project, I led decarbonisation and digitalisation research for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, building cross-sector scorecards across aviation, marine and rail transport. My MBA summer project was with the European Commission and Deloitte Belgium, focused on circular economy and cybersecurity across Europe’s power sector, spanning generation, transmission and distribution. I was also part of the Fintech Special Interest Group, which connected directly with the next chapter of my career.
Going back to share Fintech industry trends with MBA class of 2023
Each of these forced me to work at the intersection of strategy and delivery, which is the same intersection I would spend the next six years advising on.
After Cambridge, I joined Baringa Partners in London, working across operational excellence and C-suite advisory engagements. My work at Baringa included co-building an asset-level climate transition model later acquired by BlackRock as the foundation of the Aladdin climate platform. Through subsequent leadership roles at Worldpay and FIS, I moved deeper into fintech and enterprise growth strategy.
Those chapters reinforced the same conviction.
Strategy without execution is theatre. Execution without strategy is motion. Organisations fail in the gap between them.
That gap is why I founded Strathen Group. After nearly sixteen years spanning engineering, consulting, climate, financial services and commercial strategy across multiple continents, building an independent firm was the natural next step.
Strathen Group is a boutique strategy and execution consulting firm that helps leaders move from strategic intent to delivered outcomes. We work with organisations on strategy execution and operational excellence, with a focus on the mechanisms that turn decisions into measurable progress: ownership, governance and sustained delivery.
The Cambridge network continues to sit at the heart of the story. Three of the four members of Strathen Group’s Leadership Council are my Cambridge MBA 2018 classmates. Years after graduation, those relationships have become a source of intellectual trust, leadership perspective and business impact.
Day 1 of MBA and new friendships. Two of the friends in above picture would become part of board members at my firm 7 years after graduation.
I also remain closely connected to Cambridge Judge Business School through alumni conversations, careers panels and support for students exploring consulting, entrepreneurship and post-MBA career transitions. My advice to them is simple: do not treat the MBA only as a career transaction. Use it to build judgment, trusted relationships and the confidence to act on the problems you believe are worth solving.
For me, the Cambridge MBA was an essential pivot. It connected the operating experience I brought with the consulting, strategy and founder journey that followed. That journey now continues through Strathen Group, where the work is focused on a simple idea: strategy only matters when it gets delivered.