Work

About

Introduction

I've been working in digital since 1994. That's not a boast, it's context. I've watched this industry be born, grow up, make a lot of mistakes, and keep moving forward. I've made plenty of mistakes myself. That's mostly where the good stuff comes from.

I started as an engineer and designer, founded agencies in Boston and London, led teams inside some of the UK's biggest organisations, and spent the last decade helping companies figure out why their digital teams aren't working and what to do about it. I'm direct, I ask uncomfortable questions, and I don't dress things up. Most clients find that useful. Some find it alarming at first. They usually come around.

My Journey

My career has followed an unconventional path: engineering to design, design to leadership, leadership to consulting. But looking back, every step was preparation for the work I do now.

I started in engineering and telecommunications in the late 1980s, moved into digital design as the web was finding its feet, and spent the first decade of my career building things: products, teams, agencies. I founded fourMangos in Boston in 2000 and phunQube in London in 2003, both award-winning digital product and service design agencies. Running agencies teaches you things about teams, clients, and organisations that you can't learn any other way.

From there I moved into interim and fractional leadership roles inside large organisations: Lloyds Banking Group, EE, Purplebricks, BBC, the UK Government, building and restructuring digital functions at scale. Each engagement deepened my understanding of why digital teams struggle, and what it actually takes to fix them.

Since 2014 I've been consulting independently, working with organisations from scale-ups to global enterprises across financial services, media, telecoms, government, and technology.

Let's Talk...

If you're dealing with any of these challenges, I'd be glad to have a conversation.
DM me on LinkedIn or drop me a line at enquiries@brianhoadley.com

A Few Highlights

Launched an e-commerce website personally introduced by Bill Gates in 2000
Led design and delivery of the UK's first data.gov.uk website, supporting the appointment of Sir Tim Berners-Lee
Built a 40-person research capability for Lloyds Banking Group, supporting a £3 billion digital transformation programme
Restructured a 60-person Digital Customer Experience team at EE while maintaining live delivery throughout
Delivered the first ever product roadmaps at Purplebricks and built their Product and Design function from the ground up
Led design of Channel 4's 4oD platform, winning BIMA Grand Prix and Entertainment awards
Built the first ever in-house Product Design function at Sopra Banking Software, spanning five countries

Being Liminal Podcast

A conversational-based podcast for people interested in leadership, design, transformation and the liminal spaces that exist within and between them.

In 2022 I co-founded the Being Liminal podcast with my colleague and collaborator Martin Dowson. We started it because we were curious.

Curious about the spaces people find themselves in between one thing and another. Between stability and change. Between who they were and who they need to become. In organisations, in teams, in leadership. We'd both spent years watching people and businesses navigate these transitions, and we wanted to explore what that actually looks like: not in theory, but in practice, through honest conversations with people who've lived it.

Over two years we've spoken with senior leaders, designers, researchers, and thinkers from organisations including PepsiCo, Livework, the Royal College of Art, and many others. The conversations keep surprising us, which is usually a sign you're asking the right questions.

You can find all episodes at beingliminal.com