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Tom Stenson: 52 proof points by role shape

Every row, grouped by the shape of role it fits, with Tom's own account of the theme where he has written one. A row can sit in two groups. The facts page shows the first 3 of each group: the facts page; the same rows as JSON: proof-points.json; skills: below.

Product management: 29 proof points

RoleProductSituationTaskActionResultYearSkills
Senior Product Manager at Novo NordiskWegovycare
Wegovycare, a digital service to drive retention and repeat prescriptions for Wegovy		The brief was a set of standalone features the business thought would help, but nobody had talked to the patients.Find the lever that would keep patients on treatment and coming back for repeat prescriptions.Talked to patients: everyone wanted the same three things, how much weight they will lose, whether this is normal, whether they are on track. Made those the core loop; built a weight-loss prediction model in Excel to answer the first, then a profiling engine to personalise the rest.10% penetration in the first national market. Fastest-scaling and biggest-adopted digital product at Novo.Mar 2020 - Feb 2022algorithm, API, regulated, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, ways of working, growth, retention, roadmap, 0 to 1, marketing, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer
Associate Product Director at Novo NordiskCagriSema
Digital discovery programme for CagriSema, the company's top drug asset		CagriSema was the first drug to span two therapy areas, diabetes and obesity. Each business unit ran independently with their own priorities and budgets.Define what digital initiatives should accompany the drug, get both business units to agree, and get it funded.Started with the problem, and uncovering the new user journeys to create a shared understanding of the problem space across both units. Then ideation: 128 candidate ideas, cut to a shortlist of 5, assumption-tested with prototypes, 4 recommended, each with a funding-gated rollout. Navigated the programme through internal governance.Funding secured for a portfolio of 4 digital initiatives (a first). Aligned two business units on a common digital strategy (also a first).Feb 2022 - Feb 2026AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabTREAT
TREAT, an app addressing underlying causes of inflammatory conditions through personalised nutrition advice, delivered as a decision-tree chatbot with nutritionists behind it. LEO Innovation Lab's first and flagship product.		The flagship product had a lot of attention, but was in trouble behind the scenes: massive tech debt, massive churn, no prioritisation, flaky metrics, unclear reporting lines and responsibilities, and no pathway to profitability.Parachuted in with a 6-month mandate to stabilise it and assess viability.Everything was on fire. Let some things burn and watched long enough to see which big patterns were broken, then started at the top of the funnel and worked through. Paused the service to refactor faster. Defined the value proposition and put KPIs into the daily workflow so the team steered by numbers. Set an experiment-led rhythm. Two levers: finding the fit before sign-up, and finding the fit inside the product.Halved customer acquisition costs. Increased activation 7x. Both levers worked.Nov 2016 - Aug 2017healthcare, ways of working, growth, activation, retention, funnels, experimentation, KPIs, roadmap, launch, 0 to 1, team leadership
Senior Product Manager at Novo NordiskWegovycare
Wegovycare weight-loss prediction model		Patient research showed everyone wanted the same three things: how much weight they will lose, whether this is normal, whether they are on track. Nothing in the brief answered them.Make those three questions the core loop of the product, and find the growth lever inside them.Built a weight-loss prediction model answering the first question: a predicted trajectory for the individual to check progress against. Started as an Excel spreadsheet on a laptop; the maths worked out with the strongest backend engineer, then taken from concept to prototype. The same check-ins fed the profiling engine.Patients could see whether they were on track against their own projection. The model was later spun out as a Bayesian API service, a product in its own right, and the team extended it from weight to HbA1c.Mar 2020 - Feb 2022algorithm, API, regulated, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, ways of working, growth, retention, roadmap, 0 to 1, marketing, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer
Senior Product Manager at Novo NordiskWegovycare
Wegovycare, a digital service to drive retention and repeat prescriptions for Wegovy		Applied for a SaMD product role at Novo; put forward instead for a digital solution for a then unheard-of weight-loss medicine. The final-round brief was solution-first: standalone features the business thought would help. Nobody had spoken to patients.Persuade the business to set the brief aside and start with the problem, then use that as a mandate to change how they worked.First product team at Novo to interview patients, run discovery, build prototypes and co-create with markets. Led a cross-functional team of 10 across the full product lifecycle; it took persuasion and a leap of faith from stakeholders.Launched on time and on budget. 10% penetration in the first national market, the biggest adoption of any digital solution at Novo; still live. Asked to scale the ways of working across the organisation and promoted to Associate Product Director.Mar 2020 - Feb 2022pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, ways of working, growth, retention, launch, 0 to 1, team leadership, stakeholders, budget
Associate Product Director at Novo NordiskGenAI proof of concept for automating compliance reviews
Agentic RAG proof of concept for compliance reviews, with a Figma plugin		Every release of health software needed sign-off from medical, legal and regulatory reviewers. The process was built for marketing materials, not software: every screen was manually captured as a PDF and reviewed manually, stacking the regulatory risk to the end of the development cycle and sometimes adding months to delivery.Test whether an LLM could take on the review so product teams could shift left: fail in design, not at review. Two acceptance tests set up front: useful to product teams, and catches what the manual review catches.Used an internal LLM sandbox to build a RAG model of the guidelines and regulations, producing a full audit trail per submission. Built a prototype agent that plugged into Figma so designers could query the guidelines before investing effort. Pitched it to senior leadership & tested with product team.Product team loved it. The proof of concept showed a clear path to much faster release cycles, but the timing was 12 months too early & the business was not ready for AI. Tom moved to help the Wegovy Pill launch.Feb 2022 - Feb 2026AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, discovery, prototyping, ways of working, launch, marketing, team leadership, stakeholders
Associate Product Director at Novo Nordisk (contributed, one of a team)Wegovy Pill launch
Wegovy Pill launch, consumer workstream		Pitched for and invited onto the launch team for a company-critical initiative to inject new thinking (very unusual for a digital role). Digital, packaging and direct distribution sat in separate silos, each with its own assumptions.Lead the HQ consumer workstream.Applied subscription-model thinking to connect the physical product to digital fulfilment: QR codes on the boxes linking to the digital experience, and work with production on bundling three boxes in a tertiary carton.Contributed to the largest pharma launch on record.Feb 2022 - Feb 2026pharma, healthcare, patients, growth, retention, launch, marketing, SaaS, team leadership, international, consumer, budget
Associate Product Director at Novo NordiskDigital Incubation
Digital incubation unit for branded digital engagement, evaluating build, buy and partner solutions		Asked after Wegovycare to scale its ways of working across the product organisation: to work across silos and help move the organisation from solution-first project thinking to a product model with an outcomes focus.Build the unit that shapes the organisation's next big bets, and make problem-first the default.Built the incubation unit entirely through influence. Designed a portfolio model and a gated incubation pipeline. Wrote the discovery playbook. Coached the incubation PMs. Secured funding and managed resourcing and cross-charges for the incubation teams. Evaluated build, buy and partner options for each bet.Moved the business from solution-first to problem-first, and from output to outcomes.Feb 2022 - Feb 2026AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget
Associate Product Director at Novo NordiskProduct Operations
standards, artefacts, ways of working		A wider remit across the product pipeline, to complete the move to a product operating model.Establish metrics across a portfolio of 12 products.Set product artefacts and quality standards: gate model and deliverables, product-ops metrics, portfolio reports, business case templates, problem and north-star statements.Helped product teams connect work to commercial outcomes.Feb 2022 - Feb 2026AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget
Associate Product Director at Novo NordiskHead of Patient Products
Patient Solutions, a portfolio of consumer engagement products (companion apps adjacent to the medicines)		Interim reorg of product teams before the Wegovy Pill project.Lead 6 experienced PMs building consumer engagement products, managing by outcomes; for a period, before moving into the pill team where the need was greatest.Individual coaching and weekly experiment sharing; made individual product metrics public.Broke product silos, established weekly demos and experiment sharing, encouraged learning loops.Feb 2022 - Feb 2026AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget
Associate Product Director at Novo Nordiskproject steercos
Chaired project steercos. Flipped the format from status updates to interactive co-creation		Steercos were project management checklists: project not product focused, and unsuited for high-uncertainty discovery-stage products.Chair project steercos.Flipped the format from status updates to interactive co-creation.Cross-functional VPs moved from product sceptics to advocates.Feb 2022 - Feb 2026AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, incubation, ways of working, growth, retention, funnels, experimentation, launch, brand, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer, budget
Senior Product Manager at Novo NordiskWegovycare
Wegovycare profiling and customisation engine, delivered as an interactive magazine		Research showed every patient journey is different and every patient has different needs. A linear app would not work, and the drop-off risks were different for each person.Identify each patient's drop-off risks and act on them automatically, with a system that coped with real people who do not check in on schedule.Tom's own idea and pattern, most of the algorithm his. Built a continuous profiling engine combining clinical data, usage signals and PROMs. Applied a consumer marketing playbook to act on the top risk: it decided what content was shown and could trigger a messaging flow. Ran on fuzzy logic, tolerating gaps and misuse. Output to the patient: an interactive magazine that changed with them.Every patient got a personalised experience from one product and one codebase. Part of the launch that reached 10% adoption in the first market and became the fastest-scaling digital product at Novo.Mar 2020 - Feb 2022algorithm, API, regulated, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, ways of working, growth, retention, roadmap, launch, 0 to 1, marketing, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer
Senior Product Manager at Novo NordiskWegovycare
Wegovycare, digital patient platform for obesity medicine, built to scale		Every market needed its own version of every digital product, so nothing at Novo had ever scaled beyond one country.Build one product that many markets could adopt and adapt without forking it.Designed for scale: modular architecture, feature flags, an integrated CMS and a translation pipeline. Systematised co-creation with the markets so they shaped the product rather than waiting for it.Novo's first digital health product adopted by multiple markets. First digital Novo product to scale.Mar 2020 - Feb 2022algorithm, API, regulated, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, ways of working, growth, retention, roadmap, 0 to 1, marketing, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabDiagnosis App
Prototype smartphone app diagnosing skin conditions with machine learning		A moonshot: could a smartphone camera diagnose skin conditions? A 12-person team of data scientists, ML and computer vision engineers, wired for logic and certainty, in the deep uncertainty of product discovery. His first deep experience leading an ML team.Lead the product direction, prioritisation and strategy, and get a working prototype that could be evaluated.Worked with dermatologists to redesign closed-loop diagnosis and the ML training platform. Bootstrapped the ML engine with clinical decision trees. Designed the pipeline for data collection and analysis. Models were evaluated against a set of pre-tested images the dermatologists had all voted on. Not a medical device by design: disclaimers made clear it was not a diagnosis. Evaluated go-to-market and identified seven paths to market.Over 80% accuracy across three skin conditions. Doubled the labelling output of the in-house image labelling platform.Nov 2018 - Jan 2020AI, machine learning, computer vision, healthcare, discovery, prototyping, growth, launch, team leadership
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabSkincoach
Skincoach, a patient-support app for terminally ill cancer patients, built in partnership with Amgen		Amgen, one of the world's largest biotech companies and a leading maker of immunotherapy treatments, wanted to help patients manage the skin reactions that come with treatment. Those reactions affect quality of life and, in some cases, whether a patient can stay on treatment. Nothing existed for the time between oncologist appointments.Build a product for this audience under strict regulatory and ethical constraints, and agree a partnership model with Amgen that neither company had used before.Interviewed terminally ill patients and worked with oncologists to reimagine care between appointments. Every decision intentional and judged with sensitivity: no moving fast and breaking things. Dynamically spliced video to simulate personalised dermatology consultations, designed for simplicity and trust. Negotiated a new partnership model with Amgen that challenged convention.Full product lifecycle in 8 months, on time and on budget. Live closed pilot in Spain and France. The partnership model was later adopted by Amgen's core business as an exemplar for innovation partnerships.Feb 2018 - Oct 2018regulated, healthcare, patients, discovery, ways of working, growth, launch, domains, international, stakeholders, partnerships, budget
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabBetterVisitBot
a pre-briefing chatbot for doctor consultations		Patients sometimes get intimidated by the doctor, and don't get the most out of their consultation, or forget what was said.Prototype it with GPs.Hid a dermatologist in an adjacent room to simulate a consultation chatbot.Right idea, too early. Now it isn't.2016 to 2020AI, machine learning, computer vision, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, growth, launch, team leadership
Independent Consultantindependent consultant
Remote product and strategy consulting		Moved to Denmark after meeting a Dane on a ski slope; needed to finance the move and Danish studies (Prøve i Dansk 3) and wanted into the Danish startup scene. Former employers Host Europe (UK) and EuroDNS (LUX) needed product and strategy work; Everplaces (DK) was a local startup client.Deliver product and strategy work remotely from Copenhagen while building a life in a new country.Briefed senior management, product managers, designers and marketeers. Pitched products; produced user stories, specifications, storyboards and wireframes. Wireframed order funnels to improve conversion. Created the strategy to refactor the legacy control panel serving 3M domains. Wrote content and did SEO, including interviews with MailChimp, Creative Commons, the EFF, Rand Fishkin and Michael Palin. Remotely managed teams in the UK, Luxembourg and Romania.Spotted Raspberry Pi before launch, got in touch and turned it into a sponsorship deal. The EuroDNS engagement turned into the Marketing Director role.Sep 2010 - Apr 2013pharma, growth, conversion, SEO, funnels, launch, marketing, startup, domains, web hosting, team leadership, remote, international, stakeholders, partnerships
PM/GM at LEO Innovation Labcompany all-hands
the monthly all-hands		Optimising the onboarding funnel at LEO Innovation Lab, on the hypothesis that more notification opt-ins would raise activation.Test a contextually-triggered opt-in shown at exactly the right moment.The split test won on conversion but activation barely moved: the opt-in sat too late in the funnel. Rolled out a simpler opt-in early in the funnel, lifting net activation, and presented the mistake at the next company all-hands.The monthly all-hands changed from presenting vanity metrics to mistakes made and lessons learnt.Nov 2016 - Aug 2017healthcare, growth, conversion, activation, funnels, experimentation, launch
PM/GM at LEO Innovation Labprototyping and user interviews
Ways of working across LEO Innovation Lab's product teams		Anthropologists were on staff at the lab, but product teams outsourced the investigation and got learnings second-hand.Raise the quality bar across the lab, not just his own team, without a mandate over the other teams.Championed design sprints and user testing. Made rapid prototyping and direct user interviews standard practice across all product teams. First product lead to present mistakes and learnings at the company all-hands.Prototyping and user interviews became the norm across the lab. The monthly all-hands moved from vanity metrics to mistakes made and lessons learnt.Nov 2016 - Jan 2020AI, computer vision, pharma, healthcare, patients, prototyping, incubation, ways of working, turnaround, 0 to 1, startup, team leadership
PM/GM at LEO Innovation Labtesting beats opinions
How design disagreements get settled		At Host Europe, as design manager in a PRINCE2 waterfall setup, a passionate argument with a graphic designer, each convinced their idea was right. Neither knew about testing.A decade later, at LEO Innovation Lab, the same disagreement with a product designer: he preferred A, Tom preferred B.They agreed to test it that afternoon.Users preferred something entirely different, option C. The poor decision was anchoring on their own ideas and locking out better alternatives. Detaching from ego changed everything: it is not about who has the best idea, it is about creating space for learning.2005 and about 2017AI, computer vision, pharma, healthcare, patients, prototyping, incubation, turnaround, startup, team leadership
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabAmgen partnership model
Innovation partnership between LEO Innovation Lab and Amgen for Skincoach		Partnerships operated as mercenaries not missionaries. The standard contracting process was delivery to be completed (output), not outcomes.Negotiate a partnership model that allowed building and piloting inside the constraints of two regulated companies.Managed stakeholders on both sides and negotiated a new partnership model and ways of working. It challenged convention at the time.The contract model and ways of working were later adopted by Amgen's core business as an exemplar for innovation partnerships. Tom led in-market discovery and delivery under it.Feb 2018 - Oct 2018regulated, healthcare, patients, discovery, ways of working, growth, launch, domains, international, stakeholders, partnerships, budget
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabTREAT team
TREAT team, about 15 people including a product lead and a product manager		Brought in to troubleshoot the flagship product. The existing team were passionate but struggling to fight fires, and already had their own product lead and PM; it needed delicacy to keep their passion and expertise while helping them out.Take over the team without losing it.Started as a consultant for the first month, then proposed as the lead with the team reporting to him; that needed trust and humility, so the team got the option to veto. They went ahead. Fires, chaos, blurred reporting lines, people problems; the service paused to refactor faster; morale at rock bottom. Kept the faith: new cadences, new ways of working.The team came out the other side intact and stronger, with real trust, and then halved acquisition costs and 7x'd activation.Nov 2016 - Aug 2017healthcare, ways of working, activation, retention, roadmap, launch, 0 to 1, team leadership
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabTREAT closure
TREAT, LEO Innovation Lab's flagship product		Six months in, the metrics were transformed: acquisition cost halved, activation up 7x. The product had a lot of attention inside the lab and was the first thing LEO Innovation Lab had launched.Answer the second half of the mandate: is it viable?Looked at the unit economics rather than the growth curve. As customers increased, nutritionist costs grew with them. The 1:1 model did not scale, and the technology to replace the nutritionist did not exist yet. Recommended the business be closed.The recommendation was accepted and Tom wound the project down, preventing further sunk investment. Turning around the metrics is not the same as proving viability; sometimes the right call is to stop even after making things better.Aug 2017healthcare, ways of working, growth, activation, retention, roadmap, launch, 0 to 1, team leadership
Senior Product Manager at Novo NordiskWegovycare releases
Wegovycare release process		Release cycles for digital products at Novo were yearly. Every release carried heavy documentation for a high-regulation environment, and the documentation was written by hand.Release often enough to learn from patients, inside the same regulatory rules.Automated the documentation and the release workflows so the compliance paperwork fell out of the build rather than being written afterwards.Release cycles went from yearly to bi-monthly. Fast for pharma. Iterative learning became possible.Mar 2020 - Feb 2022algorithm, API, regulated, compliance, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, ways of working, growth, retention, roadmap, 0 to 1, marketing, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer
Senior Product Manager at Novo NordiskWegovycare roadmap
Wegovycare roadmap		A project-model organisation steered by deliverables and dates. Nobody on the product had a way of saying what mattered next, or why.Own the product vision and the backlog, and steer priorities by what patients did and said rather than by the plan.Set the vision. Implemented OKRs, as in every product, else how do you know you have succeeded. Owned the backlog end to end: problem statements, user stories, acceptance criteria, sprint-by-sprint prioritisation with a cross-functional team of 10. Steered priorities and the roadmap with qualitative and quantitative signals together, patient interviews beside usage data.A roadmap that traced back to patient evidence and a definition of success the stakeholders had agreed up front. The product hit 10% adoption in its first market against that definition.Mar 2020 - Feb 2022algorithm, API, regulated, pharma, healthcare, patients, discovery, prototyping, ways of working, growth, retention, roadmap, 0 to 1, marketing, team leadership, stakeholders, consumer
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabDiagnosis App data pipeline
Image labelling platform and data pipeline for the diagnosis app		Labelling by dermatologists was critical for model performance, and a significant bottleneck.Get more labelled data through the system without lowering its quality.Interviewed every dermatologist on the labelling work to understand how they actually worked, then redesigned the in-house image labelling platform around that. Designed the pipeline for data collection and analysis to feed it.Doubled dermatologist labelling throughput. Less of their time on labelling training data, more labelled data for the models.Nov 2018 - Jan 2020AI, machine learning, computer vision, healthcare, discovery, prototyping, growth, launch, team leadership
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabDiagnosis App paths to market
Go-to-market evaluation for a moonshot ML prototype in dermatology		A functioning prototype, but heavy regulatory barriers and no clear path to market.Work out how, or whether, a moonshot prototype could reach a market.Evaluated go-to-market systematically and mapped the options with the team.Identified seven paths to market, with the trade-offs of each, for the lab to decide on.2019AI, machine learning, computer vision, regulated, healthcare, discovery, prototyping, growth, launch, team leadership
PM/GM at LEO Innovation LabLEO lab model
LEO Innovation Lab as an operating model		LEO Pharma could see digital disruption coming to healthcare. Its answer was an arm's-length innovation lab: better to disrupt ourselves than let a competitor do it. Keeping it separate made sense: different thinking, different ways of working, experts from all sorts of fields. A true melting pot.Build and ship ventures inside that model, and get them home to the core business.They did. The lab was incredibly agile, with rapid learning cycles and brilliant peers, but too remote: the innovations struggled to find a home in the core business.The lab worked in isolation; the parent ship sailed on unchanged, and the model was not sustainable. Disruption cannot be outsourced to a separate unit and grafted back on later; the parent has to change too. That conclusion took Tom to Novo to try the harder bet from inside.Nov 2016 - Jan 2020AI, computer vision, pharma, healthcare, patients, prototyping, incubation, ways of working, turnaround, startup, team leadership, remote
Independent ConsultantRaspberry Pi partnership
A partnership with Raspberry Pi		Consulting for Host Europe around 2011, Tom found out about Raspberry Pi before it launched, before anyone had heard of it.Turn a hunch about an unknown project into something for the client.Reached out to the creators directly and offered them a server for their downloads. Shaped that into a sponsorship deal for Host Europe.Host Europe became a sponsor of Raspberry Pi before it launched.2010 - 2013pharma, growth, SEO, launch, marketing, web hosting, remote, international, partnerships

AI: 10 proof points

What is your AI experience?

source: Tom's own account

I've been hands-on with AI/ML across multiple roles:

At Novo, I built a GenAI proof of concept for automating compliance reviews - a RAG model that could auto-document submissions and a Figma agent for shift-left design validation.

At LEO, I led a machine learning team building a skin diagnosis app.

I also built a weight-loss prediction algorithm at Novo - hands-on work with clinical data that later became an API product.

Right now I'm building with Claude Code, GitHub and Netlify. This chatbot is one of those projects.

I'm not a specialist engineer. My value is in understanding enough to ask the right questions, spot opportunities, and bridge between technical and commercial.

Want to know more about any of these projects? Just ask.

Related

RoleProductSituationTaskActionResultYearSkills
Solo projects, building with AITomBot
TomBot, a chatbot CV at takenbyninjas.com		Tom wanted to create a novel way of presenting his CV, and find out first-hand what AI can and cannot do. Accuracy of recall was the key criterion: a CV bot that hallucinates is worse than no bot.Build something real with AI and ship it, in his own content and voice.Built with Claude Code on the Claude API: chunked RAG vector store, eval suite, guard-rails. Question-to-question matching against a bank of pre-mapped questions rather than searching raw content: it limits the chatbot nature but keeps the answers accurate. Content and tone of voice his own.Live January 2026. Linked from every CV with a UTM tag per employer so each application's traffic is visible. Pinned on LinkedIn.2026AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, prototyping, team leadership
Solo projects, building with AIkittenpm.com
kittenpm.com, a free browser-based product management training SIM inspired by Lemmings		Wanted a portfolio piece that is not a portfolio, aimed at product peers and recruiters.Generate reach and demonstrate product skills by teaching product trade-offs as a game.Built with React, TypeScript and Phaser, using Claude as the engineering team. Players practise balancing product trade-offs in real time; those who complete the game get a digital certificate to embed on LinkedIn, which drives further reach.Live July 2026, in public beta.2026AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, prototyping, team leadership
Solo projects, building with AIdeathspiralorgoldenage.org
deathspiralorgoldenage.org, a weekly public poll, live sentiment tracker and open economic model on AI's economic impact, with CC0 data		A thought experiment that spun out from a discussion at a Claude meetup with Anthropic.Build a public, open-data way to track the question over time.Researched and built with AI. Content is human; the site is engineered and researched with AI. Weekly poll, sentiment tracker and an open economic model, all data released CC0.Live September 2026.2026AI, GenAI, regulated, compliance, prototyping, experimentation, team leadership

Also in this group, shown in full above:

Growth: 18 proof points

What growth experience do you have?

source: Tom's own account

I have a track record of driving growth. Improving funnels, reducing bounce rates, increasing activation and conversion. I have done this both from marketing and product seats.

Related

RoleProductSituationTaskActionResultYearSkills
Head of Marketing, OpbeatOpbeat
Opbeat, developer tools SaaS startup providing application performance monitoring. Backed by the cofounders of Facebook and Instagram.		New product came out of stealth and lacked traction. The audience was developers, who are allergic to advertising.Build the brand, marketing strategy, team and channels from scratch, and get traction without advertising at people who ignore advertising.Learnt the developer audience by sitting with the engineers in the team. Defined the core product proposition and the developer narrative, and told the story. Built the brand, the team and the channels from nothing, then ran growth experiments across them. The two biggest levers, the meetup video engine and the pricing restructure, have their own rows.Trebled traffic and sign-ups in 12 months. The brand became known in the Python, Django and Node.js communities.Nov 2014 - Apr 2016growth, conversion, experimentation, KPIs, launch, 0 to 1, brand, marketing, SaaS, startup, developer tools, team leadership, international, budget
Marketing Director, EuroDNSEuroDNS
EuroDNS, an ICANN-accredited international domain registrar specialising in unusual domain extensions. Customers included MailChimp, Lotus F1 and Time Warner.		Four years of decline when Tom joined: traffic dropping, online sales down, a legacy website, and SEO damage left by a previous agency's black-hat work.Turn it around.Restructured the marketing department (four direct reports), implemented KPIs and rebooted every marketing channel including the website, in under 8 months. Remediated the black-hat SEO damage. Analysed user flow and redesigned the website and ecommerce funnels. Collected customer feedback and repositioned the product. Launched over 500 new domain extensions, repositioning dry domains with Creative Commons photography of the world. First provider to offer a free SSL certificate with every domain.Decline reversed. Organic traffic doubled in 12 months. Bounce rate halved, from about 60% to about 30%.Feb 2013 - Nov 2014turnaround, growth, conversion, SEO, funnels, KPIs, launch, marketing, ecommerce, domains, team leadership, international
Web Designer, Host Europe Groupdomain search
Domain search on 123-reg: one text field that interpreted whatever the user typed and searched every ending asynchronously		Domain search was the key entry point for upselling hosting, and the UX was clunky. You typed a name, picked an ending from a dropdown and hit search, because each registry needed its own API call. One domain at a time, and users kept hitting taken names. Frustrating, poor conversion.Nobody asked for it: the shop window of the business was a poor experience and worth fixing.One text field, interpret whatever the user enters, search all endings asynchronously and show them together. First use of AJAX in the stack.New revenue up 20% overnight. The approach became the industry standard: if you search for a domain anywhere today, this is how it works.Feb 2004 - Aug 2005API, growth, conversion, funnels, domains, web hosting
Head of Marketing, OpbeatOpbeat
Opbeat, B2B devops startup backed by Balderton Capital and the cofounders of Facebook and Instagram		A small startup with no marketing processes, KPIs, reporting or budgeting, and a runway to extend.Put the basics in and create enough traction to raise.Introduced marketing processes, KPIs, reporting and budgeting to the business. Grew grassroots meetups and built a video engine to reach developers.Traction that enabled a $2M bridge-funding round.Nov 2014 - Apr 2016growth, conversion, KPIs, launch, 0 to 1, brand, marketing, SaaS, startup, developer tools, team leadership, international, budget
Sales Executive, Host Europe Groupalternative website
an alternative ecommerce website made in his free time		The company website had high traffic (1M monthly visits) but was dated and cluttered. It explained the "why" poorly, and lacked focus and a core funnel.Unasked, as a sales executive: this could be done better.Built an alternative version in evenings and weekends, booked a meeting with the brand manager and pitched it.Sales went up; moved to the web design team the next week and led it six months later.Mar 2003 - Feb 2004funnels, brand, marketing, ecommerce, web hosting, team leadership
Head of Group Strategy, UK2 GroupMidphase pricing
Midphase, UK2 Group's underperforming US hosting business unit		The US unit had a downward revenue trend: two flat-rate monthly accounts, very few customers on the top one, high churn. Tom was the CEO's troubleshooter across the UK, US and Ukraine offices, working remotely from the UK.Diagnose the unit and reverse the trend without a new product.Lifecycle analysis of the customer base. Restructured the two flat plans into tiered accounts with term-based pricing (3, 12 and 24 months), framed so longer commitments were visibly cheaper per month. Ran an anti-churn programme for existing customers: free upgrades to the new plans, added features such as backup to justify the structure, and switching costs such as losing the free domain on downgrade. Repositioned the brand and marketing and created a product roadmap.ARPU up, customer lifetime extended, recurring revenue locked in. Downward revenue trend reversed in 6 months. 8 products launched in 10 months.Sep 2008 - Sep 2010turnaround, retention, roadmap, launch, brand, marketing, ecommerce, domains, web hosting, team leadership, remote, international, budget
Head of Marketing, OpbeatOpbeat meetup video engine
Opbeat developer community channel		The audience was developers, who are allergic to advertising. Brand-building and acquisition with no budget for ads that would not have worked anyway.Reach developers where they already were, and have them bring the audience.Advertised for a video marketing intern to travel the world attending developer meetups, unpaid but all expenses covered. Filmed and live-streamed the meetups on the company blog; speakers promoted the stream to their own developer audiences. No direct advertising in the video; the audience captured with retargeting ads, organic traffic and backlinks.Grassroots meetup presence and a content engine that fed the trebling of traffic and sign-ups. Scrappy, high-leverage.Nov 2014 - Apr 2016growth, conversion, SEO, KPIs, launch, 0 to 1, brand, marketing, SaaS, startup, developer tools, team leadership, international, budget
Head of Marketing, OpbeatOpbeat pricing
Opbeat pricing and free tier		The pricing model inadvertently disincentivised upgrading, and there were barriers at the point of entry for a product that needed developers to try it first.Remove the barriers to entry and to upgrade.Found the disincentive in the pricing structure and persuaded the CEO to restructure it. Put the emphasis on the free tier so growth came from the ground up: developers adopt first, teams pay later. Demoted pricing from the navigation to the footer to cut friction at entry.Pricing that no longer worked against the product's own growth loop, feeding the trebling of sign-ups. No separate figure for this lever.Nov 2014 - Apr 2016growth, conversion, KPIs, launch, 0 to 1, brand, marketing, SaaS, startup, developer tools, team leadership, international, budget
Marketing Director, EuroDNSEuroDNS SEO remediation
EuroDNS organic search		A previous agency had used black-hat SEO. The damage was part of why traffic had fallen for four years.Repair the search footprint and get organic growth back.Implemented remediation for the black-hat SEO damage, analysed user flow and redesigned the website and ecommerce funnels on the back of it.Organic traffic doubled in 12 months. Bounce rate halved, from about 60% to about 30%.Feb 2013 - Nov 2014turnaround, growth, conversion, SEO, funnels, KPIs, marketing, ecommerce, domains
Marketing Director, EuroDNSEuroDNS domain extensions
EuroDNS domain product range		A registrar whose edge was unusual domain extensions, selling them to a customer base that had been shrinking. Hundreds of new extensions were arriving in the market.Reposition the product and give customers a reason to buy from EuroDNS rather than the giants.Collected customer feedback and repositioned the product. Launched over 500 new domain extensions: where most registrars showed extensions as word art, EuroDNS showed .aq with a picture of icebergs, Creative Commons photography with the author credited, so a string of characters became a place. Rebooted the newsletter and built content marketing around it, including interviews with Rand Fishkin and the EFF. First provider to offer a free SSL certificate with every domain.Part of the turnaround that reversed four years of decline in traffic and online sales.Feb 2013 - Nov 2014turnaround, growth, conversion, SEO, launch, marketing, ecommerce, domains, team leadership, remote, international
Sales Executive, Host Europe Groupsales competition
First job, answering phones in web hosting sales		Graduated into the dot.com bust with no jobs. Got a foot in the door answering phones at a web hosting company: not his passion, but the way in.Be good at it while finding the way to the web team.Learnt to listen to customers by answering the telephone. Won the annual sales competition. Spent evenings and weekends on the alternative website (row 31).Won the competition. Nobody expected it, so the prize changed from a Psion organiser to a record player, still in use. The alternative website got him into the web team the following year.Mar 2003 - Feb 2004turnaround, SEO, funnels, 0 to 1, brand, marketing, SaaS, startup, ecommerce, domains, web hosting, team leadership, stakeholders
Head of New Media, Host Europe Group123-reg
123-reg.co.uk, the group's domain brand		Running all online channels for a group whose biggest brand was a domain registrar in a market with several larger rivals.Keep the registrar growing while the group went through acquisitions and a rename.Owned ecommerce and every online channel for the brand: the domain search and order process rebuilt earlier, #1 organic rankings for "domain names" and "web hosting", the affiliate programme, online ads and early content marketing through the blog, and the KPIs and web metrics to steer it all.123-reg became the first company to register 1 million .uk domains, on a platform doing 2M+ unique monthly visits.Jan 2006 - Jun 2008turnaround, SEO, funnels, KPIs, 0 to 1, brand, marketing, SaaS, startup, ecommerce, domains, web hosting, team leadership, stakeholders

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0 to 1, incubation and new ways of working: 16 proof points

Have you built teams from scratch?

source: Tom's own account

Creating teams, departments, and ways of working where none existed:

Related

RoleProductSituationTaskActionResultYearSkills
Head of Group Strategy, UK2 Groupnew domain platform
One platform replaced them		6 brands on 3 different providers, some going direct to the registry, each with different APIs, rules and management fees.Manage development of a new domain platform.Owned the business case, budget, specifications, contracts and migration strategy.One platform replaced them (500,000+ customer domains).2008-2010turnaround, retention, launch, brand, marketing, ecommerce, domains, web hosting, team leadership, remote, international, budget
Head of New Media, Host Europe GroupNew Media
New Media department: all online touchpoints, ecommerce, digital campaigns, email marketing and SaaS dashboards across all brands		Promoted from web designer to management team to take ownership of the end-to-end online presence across multiple brands.Create the department from scratch and run every online channel across every brand: ecommerce portals, SEO, branding, UX, email marketing, blog, development, copy, creative and reporting.Built a team of five to six. Established KPIs and web metrics to steer the business. Prioritised the development roadmap and briefed the development teams. Introduced self-service support and pioneered site-building tools. Optimised the support centre. Built the affiliate marketing, content marketing and online ads programmes. Scaled SEO to #1 for "domain names", "web hosting" and "dedicated servers".123-reg became the first company to register 1 million .uk domains. Sat on the Senior Management Team and the on-call duty rota, still in his 20s.Jan 2006 - Jun 2008turnaround, SEO, funnels, KPIs, roadmap, 0 to 1, brand, marketing, SaaS, startup, ecommerce, domains, web hosting, team leadership, stakeholders
Co-founder, TextualHealing.comTextualHealing.com
TextualHealing.com, mobile barcode tickets and coupons via MMS		Fresh out of university as the dot.com bubble popped and there were no jobs. The idea was good; the founders were far too early and lacked experience.Launch a multi-sided marketplace for mobile tickets.Wanted perfect and kept polishing instead of shipping. No go-to-market plan and no viable first iteration.Never launched. Years later a CEO's motto, "launch crap, but launch", completed the lesson: ship in small viable increments to capture value and learn early, but never ship junk; to learn fast, run a test.2002 - 2004pharma, growth, SEO, launch, marketing, web hosting, remote, international, partnerships

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Turnarounds: 8 proof points

Tell me about turnarounds you've led

source: Tom's own account

I like difficult problems, the more difficult the better. So I often get called when something's broken or stuck:

Related

RoleProductSituationTaskActionResultYearSkills
Acting Marketing Manager US, UK2 GroupUS Marketing department
Managed all online and marketing activity across 5 web properties		Run remotely from the UK, with a team never met in person.Rebuild the underperforming US Marketing department before recruiting a US-based successor.Created the marketing strategy, implemented a reporting structure, set and met budget targets.Bounce rate down ~15%; sales conversion nearly doubled; product roadmap created and 8 products launched in 10 months.Feb 2009 - Feb 2010turnaround, growth, conversion, roadmap, launch, marketing, team leadership, remote, international, budget
Head of Marketing, TwentyThreeTwentyThree
TwentyThree, an integrated video marketing platform for digital marketers		A global launch six weeks out and at risk, and a marketing team of 10-12 that needed stabilising. Joined on a short contract to get it over the line.Rescue the launch on the 6-week deadline and leave the team with a structure that held.Implemented OKRs, crystallised the USPs and introduced a lightweight reporting and planning structure. Produced video content. Set up a content and events calendar, including quid-pro-quo streaming rights for TechCrunch Disrupt.Global launch rescued on the deadline. Team stabilised. The contract was extended to the end of the engagement.May 2016 - Oct 2016turnaround, launch, marketing, startup, team leadership, deadline

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Regulated and health: 9 proof points

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Leadership and management: 17 proof points

What is your management experience?

source: Tom's own account

I've led teams of 5-15 across multiple roles:

Managing people is something I can do and enjoy, but it's not my primary motivation. I'm motivated by creating impact - sometimes that means being a people manager, other times it works best through informal leadership or hands-on building.

Related

RoleProductSituationTaskActionResultYearSkills
Marketing Director, EuroDNSEuroDNS
EuroDNS marketing team, run from another country		Based in Copenhagen; the team of four in Luxembourg, visited every two weeks for three days.Lead a turnaround team without being in the room most of the time.Set a cadence: fortnightly face-to-face meetings, 1:1s and plenum discussions when in the office, then space to focus and get on with it in between. Available for ad-hoc calls but not hovering.Structure without micromanagement: clarity on direction, autonomy on execution. It taught him to manage by outcomes rather than tasks, a habit kept since.Feb 2013 - Nov 2014ways of working, turnaround, marketing, team leadership, remote, international
Head of New Media, Host Europe GroupGX Networks
Rename of a publicly listed company		Due to a sale the brand name had gone and the company, a Plc, needed a new one in five weeks. It landed on his desk although he ran online, not brand: known for getting things done.Rename a publicly listed company, end to end, in five weeks.The hardest part was agreeing the name; as an old internet company there were domain names and trademarks lying around, which gave options. Then execution: brand identity, corporate website, campaigns, office signage, stationery, email signatures, lawyers, and the stock market ticker.Done in five weeks. The company became GX Networks.Jan 2006 - Jun 2008brand, domains, deadline
Group Design Manager, Host Europe Groupgroup design
Design across the group's brands after the Pipex acquisitions		Via acquisitions the company became part of Pipex, the UK's fourth largest broadband provider: multiple brands, multiple offices, each with its own design.Manage the web design output for the whole group and keep the ecommerce funnels improving while the brands were being stitched together.Coordinated a team of designers and developers across multiple offices. Created the project and campaign briefs. Led ecommerce across the brands and kept optimising the order process. Laid the SEO groundwork that the New Media department later took to #1 for the core terms.Design and ecommerce run as one function across the brands. The platform reached 2M+ unique monthly visits in this period. Promoted to Head of New Media in January 2006 to build the department around it.Aug 2005 - Jan 2006turnaround, SEO, funnels, 0 to 1, brand, marketing, SaaS, startup, ecommerce, domains, web hosting, team leadership, stakeholders

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International and remote: 7 proof points

Have you worked internationally?

source: Tom's own account

I've worked across multiple countries and managed remote and distributed teams throughout my career:

I'm a British and French citizen with Danish permanent residency (no work visa required for Denmark). I've lived in Copenhagen since 2010.

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Solo projects, building with AI

source: Tom's own account

Solo projects, building with AI (2026).

I learn by doing, and I love building. So I shipped three products with AI to find out first-hand what it can and can't do.

The task I set myself: build something real with AI and ship it.

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Skills

Every skill at least one row carries, with the number of rows. A row carries a skill only when its own text or its source section does; the skills of each row are in its table row above and in the JSON.