My professional journey really began long before my first job. I was diagnosed with severe dyslexia at the age of 9, at a time when I genuinely felt as though I might be the only person in the world experiencing the difficulties I faced every day. I struggled to read, spelling was incredibly difficult and navigating an education system that did not always understand how I learned created frustration, uncertainty and at times a feeling that I simply did not fit. Like many young people who experience difference, bullying also became part of that journey.

But there was also hope, and importantly there were people who believed in me.

My parents supported me every single day and continue to support me today. Through the Leicestershire Dyslexia Association, I received specialist help and began to understand that dyslexia was not something I was experiencing alone. Teachers who recognised my potential and took the time to understand how I learned also helped build my confidence and showed me that difficulty in one area did not define what I could achieve.

That support network has changed and grown throughout my life. Today it includes my wife, family, colleagues, friends and professional support, including my Access to Work support worker. One of the most important lessons I have learned is that achievement rarely happens entirely on your own.

The support I received as a 9 year old trying to understand dyslexia eventually became part of the knowledge, lived experience and determination that would shape the career I have today.

Dyslexia had always been part of my life, but over time it became an increasingly important part of my professional journey. What started with trying to understand my own difficulties developed into wanting to understand dyslexia more widely and, eventually, helping other people and organisations understand it too.

My connection with the dyslexia community began at a grassroots level. Having received support through the Leicestershire Dyslexia Association as a child, I later became involved myself, giving something back to a community that had played an important part in my own development. That relationship has continued for many years and has given me a perspective that stretches from being the child receiving support to becoming an adult helping to create it for others.

That experience eventually developed into professional opportunities within the national dyslexia community and the not for profit sector. I worked across membership, local associations, events, partnerships, technology, communications, commercial development and organisational support. It gave me the opportunity to work with people experiencing dyslexia themselves, as well as parents, teachers, schools, professionals, charities and businesses.

One of the most valuable parts of this journey was recognising that lived experience and professional knowledge can strengthen each other. My dyslexia gave me an understanding of some of the barriers people experience, but professional experience taught me that my experience could never represent everyone else’s. Listening to other people, understanding different perspectives and continuing to learn became just as important as sharing my own story.

My work also began to move beyond dyslexia. The conversations increasingly included SEND, accessibility, assistive technology and the wider understanding of neurodiversity. I became interested not only in the difficulties people experience, but in how environments, systems, technology and attitudes can either create barriers or create opportunities.

This changed how I thought about inclusion. It was no longer simply about supporting somebody when they were struggling. It was about asking why the barrier existed in the first place, what could be done differently and how we could recognise the strengths, abilities and different ways of thinking that people bring.

Over more than 20 years, that understanding has continued to develop. I have worked across education, employment, technology, business and the not for profit sector, but neurodiversity has remained a thread connecting much of what I do.

Technology has played an important role in my life for many years. Initially, it was about finding tools that could help me overcome some of the barriers I experienced because of dyslexia. Assistive technology gave me different ways to read, write, communicate and organise information, and showed me that sometimes the difficulty is not a person’s ability, but the tools and methods they are expected to use.

That personal experience developed into professional knowledge. I began working with assistive technology, accessibility and education, supporting individuals, schools and organisations to understand how technology could remove barriers and create different ways for people to participate. I worked with a range of education and technology organisations, gaining experience across training, consultancy, digital transformation, accessibility, product development and the practical implementation of technology.

A significant chapter in that journey was spending more than 5 years working with Microsoft as its UK Dyslexia and SEND Consultant. This brought together my lived experience, my understanding of education and neurodiversity, and my growing expertise in accessibility and technology. It gave me the opportunity to contribute to conversations around inclusive technology while working with educators and communities in the UK and internationally.

During this period, I delivered training and professional development to more than 40,000 educators around the world, helping teachers and education professionals understand how technology and accessibility features could support learners. It also gave me the opportunity to contribute insight from the dyslexia and SEND community, connecting the experiences of people using technology with those developing, implementing and teaching with it.

My work within education has never simply been about technology. I have worked with schools, educators, SEND professionals, EdTech organisations and education leaders, exploring how learning environments, teaching approaches, accessibility and technology can work together. This has given me experience ranging from individual learner support through to organisational strategy and wider conversations about inclusive education.

Technology has changed enormously during my career, but one principle has remained consistent for me: technology is most powerful when it gives people greater independence, choice and opportunity.

My own experience demonstrates that. Technology does not remove my dyslexia, nor should it need to. It gives me different ways to work with it.

That understanding continues to influence how I think about accessibility today:

Entrepreneurship has been part of my professional journey for much of my working life. I have never been someone who simply sees a problem and accepts that this is how things have to be. My natural instinct is often to ask what could be done differently, whether there is another way and, importantly, whether an idea can be turned into something that works.

Over the years, I have created and developed businesses, services, training, communities, events and new ideas. I have worked with small organisations, charities, education providers and businesses, supporting everything from technology and communications through to strategy, marketing, commercial development and organisational growth. At the same time, I was learning what it actually means to run a business: finding customers, developing services, building partnerships, managing finances, creating systems, leading people and taking responsibility when things do not go to plan.

Some ideas have been successful. Some have evolved into something completely different from where they started. Others have failed. Each has taught me something.

One of the biggest examples of this entrepreneurial journey was recognising that the UK dyslexia community needed something different. I had spent years attending exhibitions, conferences and education events, but I believed there was an opportunity to create a national event specifically dedicated to dyslexia.

That idea eventually became the UK’s first national exhibition dedicated to dyslexia, held at the NEC Birmingham. What started as an idea grew into a major event bringing together educators, families, individuals, employers, charities, specialists, technology providers and organisations from across the dyslexia community.

Creating and running an event of that scale required far more than an understanding of dyslexia. It involved commercial strategy, sales, marketing, sponsorship, partnerships, event management, operations, technology, logistics, finance, leadership and building relationships across an entire sector. It also meant taking risks, solving problems quickly and continuing to adapt when circumstances changed.

It reinforced something that has become central to the way I think about entrepreneurship: ideas are important, but an idea on its own changes very little. You need people, systems, strategy, commercial understanding and the determination to turn that idea into action.

Entrepreneurship has also taught me that success is rarely a straight line. Building something means accepting uncertainty and understanding that not everything will work. There are moments of growth and achievement, but there can equally be setbacks, difficult decisions and failure. Those experiences have shaped my understanding of resilience just as much as the successes have.

I continue to see entrepreneurship as more than simply starting companies. For me, it is a way of thinking. It is about seeing possibilities, identifying problems, connecting ideas and having the curiosity and determination to create something that did not exist before.

That entrepreneurial mindset continues to influence my consultancy, coaching and strategic work today.

A professional journey never happens in isolation from the rest of your life. We often talk about careers through roles, achievements, businesses and successes, but behind every professional journey is a personal one. For me, as a neurodiverse individual, those two journeys have often intersected and sometimes collided.

There have been incredible opportunities and achievements of which I am immensely proud. I have built businesses, developed communities, worked with organisations around the world and created the UK’s largest national exhibition dedicated to dyslexia. But entrepreneurship and professional life have also brought difficult experiences, including businesses entering insolvency and liquidation, financial uncertainty and the reality of seeing something you have spent years creating come to an end.

At the same time, life outside work continued. I got married, built a family and experienced some of the happiest moments of my life. I have also experienced profound loss, including our second daughter being born asleep, and the pressures that come with supporting my wife through the lifelong impact of chronic kidney disease. These experiences change your perspective on what really matters.

I also continue to navigate my own challenges. Neurodiversity does not disappear because it has become part of my professional expertise. I still experience the cognitive pressures of dyslexia and neurodiversity every day, alongside periods of anxiety, mental health challenges, burnout, uncertainty and the financial pressures that can accompany entrepreneurship and life.

The support network around me remains incredibly important. Just as my parents, teachers and the dyslexia community supported me when I was younger, today I have my wife, family, friends, colleagues and professional support around me. I have learned that resilience is not simply about pushing through everything yourself. Sometimes resilience means recognising when you need help, stopping, adapting and allowing other people to support you.

I do not believe we should describe every difficult experience as positive. Loss is loss. Failure can hurt. Anxiety and burnout can be incredibly difficult. Some experiences cannot and should not be turned into convenient success stories.

But they do become part of our experience.

They can change how we understand other people, how we make decisions, how we lead and what we value. My own experiences have given me a greater understanding that we rarely know everything another person is carrying with them.

And sometimes, it is during those periods of change and uncertainty that we discover different tools, different ways of working and entirely new possibilities.

Through periods of change, challenge and uncertainty, technology has continued to play an important role in helping me adapt, communicate and keep moving forward. Artificial Intelligence feels like a natural next chapter in a relationship with technology that has existed throughout much of my life.

For years, assistive technology helped me overcome barriers created by dyslexia. AI has begun to change that relationship. Technology is no longer simply helping me compensate for something I find difficult. It can help me develop ideas, organise thoughts, communicate, explore information, create content, solve problems and turn the way I think into something I can more easily share with others.

I use Artificial Intelligence every day, alongside assistive technology and human support. As a neurodiverse individual, that combination is important. I do not believe technology needs to replace the people around us. My own experience has shown me the value of both. Technology can provide independence and remove barriers, while people provide knowledge, challenge, understanding, experience and human connection.

Professionally, this has opened an entirely new area of exploration. I am particularly interested in how AI can support neurodiverse people, transform education, increase accessibility, help charities and not for profit organisations do more with limited resources, and enable businesses to improve productivity, communication, creativity and innovation.

But the speed at which Artificial Intelligence is developing means we also need to ask bigger questions.

It is not enough to ask what can AI do? We also need to ask what should it do, who benefits from it, who might be excluded and what happens when human judgement is removed from the process?

My approach to AI is therefore built around a simple principle:

I believe Artificial Intelligence should be human centred, accessible, responsible and transparent. Accessibility and inclusion should be considered from the beginning rather than added once technology has already been created. We also need meaningful human involvement, particularly where technology affects people’s opportunities, education, employment or lives.

For neurodiverse people in particular, I believe we are only beginning to understand what this technology could make possible. AI can provide different ways to read, write, communicate, plan, organise, learn and express ideas. It can reduce some of the cognitive barriers that have existed throughout my own life while allowing strengths such as creativity, problem solving, curiosity and different thinking to come forward.

My journey with technology started with asking, “How can this help me do something I find difficult?”

Artificial Intelligence has changed that question.

That is one of the areas I am most excited to explore as the next chapter of my professional journey develops.

Today, I bring the different parts of my journey together. I am a neurodiverse Consultant, Coach, Speaker, Strategist and Entrepreneur specialising in Neurodiversity, Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Inclusive Innovation.

I do not see these as separate areas of work. They are connected by more than 20 years of lived and professional experience across education, business, technology, accessibility, entrepreneurship and the not for profit sector. Each part of my journey has influenced how I approach the next.

I work with individuals through coaching, communication and personal development, helping people better understand themselves, recognise their strengths, explore the barriers they experience and find practical ways to move forward. I also work with organisations through consultancy, strategy, training and professional development, helping them challenge existing thinking, understand different perspectives and turn ideas into meaningful action.

Increasingly, my work sits at the intersection of people, neurodiversity, technology and innovation. I am interested in what happens when we stop looking at inclusion simply as something we have to accommodate and start recognising the opportunities that different thinking can create.

The same applies to technology and Artificial Intelligence. I want to explore how we can use innovation responsibly to remove barriers, increase independence, improve productivity and create new opportunities, while ensuring that people remain at the centre of the decisions we make.

My approach is not built purely from theory. It comes from being the 9 year old who struggled to read, the employee trying to find his own route, the entrepreneur creating businesses and ideas, the consultant working with organisations, the leader sitting around boardroom tables, the husband and father navigating life outside work, and the neurodiverse individual who still experiences challenges and needs support today.

All of those experiences matter.

My professional journey has never really been about reaching a final destination. It has been about learning, adapting, creating and continuing to ask what could be possible next.

And that remains one of the most important questions in everything I do:

I work with individuals, organisations, educators and leaders who want to understand neurodiversity, embrace Artificial Intelligence and create more inclusive ways of working, learning and thinking. Through consultancy, coaching, speaking and strategic support, I bring together lived experience, more than 20 years of professional knowledge and a curiosity for what could be done differently. Whether we are solving a challenge, developing an idea or exploring new opportunities, my approach is about understanding where you are now and helping you move forward.

Build a clearer understanding of how your neurodiversity affects the way you think, work, communicate and experience everyday life. Start to recognise the patterns, situations and environments that influence how you feel, respond and perform.

Explore your strengths, existing strategies and the environments or approaches that help you work at your best. Identify what already supports you so you can use those approaches more intentionally and consistently.

Look at the things that are getting in the way and explore practical strategies, technology, AI and different ways of approaching them. Consider what could be adapted, simplified or done differently to reduce unnecessary difficulty and create more sustainable ways of working.

Turn greater understanding into realistic actions and changes that work for you, rather than trying to fit somebody else’s way of doing things. Focus on practical next steps that you can test, review and build on as your understanding develops.