NatWest Group

Research Consultant

Noggin The Brain People

🧠 Noggin The Brain People 🧠

Sainsbury's Bank

Head of Research, Planning & Brand

Head of Propositions & Innovation

Head of Customer Insight & Innovation

The Marketing Society Scotland

Chair Of Marketing Society Scotland

Heineken UK

Head Of CMI (Consumer & Market Intelligence)

Category Insights Controller

PepsiCo Intl

Consumer Insights For All PepsiCo Portfolio Of Beverage Brands across Western & Eastern Europe

European Consumer & Market Insights Director

PepsiCo

Worked on creating new International Trademarks for PepsiCo to play in exciting growing Asian beverage categories e.g. Healthy Whites (RTD Soymilk/Drinking Yoghurts) in China, India, Vietnam & Thailand.

Asia Regional Innovation Insights Manager

Quorn Foods

Consumer & market insights for the Quorn brand.

Consumer Insight Manager

Procter & Gamble

Consumer & Product Researcher Working In Skin Beauty Care (Oil Of Olay).

Products Research

🧠 Noggin - helping improve the cognitive health of the nation 🧠 | P&G | PepsiCo | Heineken | Sainsbury's |

I have over 25 years of insight, marketing, and innovation leadership experience in FMCG and FS sectors, I know, I don't look THAT old.

I've enjoyed working for some of the world's leading brands in various categories (health & beauty, food & beverages & financial services) and regions, delivering impactful consumer and market intelligence, brand strategy, and product innovation. My time spent working on Oil Of Olay made me my mum's favourite son.

Currently, I'm a research consultant at NatWest Group, where I'm supporting the bank's customer, technology and data-driven approach to enhancing its products and services. 

I'm a co-founder at Noggin The Brain People, on a mission to improve the cognitive health of the nation & founding investor in Gutzy Organic which makes having a healthy, happy gut, fun and easy. Active investor in the technology & health & wellness arena.

I'm a former chair and current fellow of the Marketing Society in Scotland.

Mick Doran

'What we fail to notice quietly shapes what we fail to do.'


My latest What I Underlined book review The Marketing Society Scotland

https://lnkd.in/e8UKwjqZ

#discovery #useyournoggin #marketing

We need to anticipate better.



It was Drucker who said "The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday's logic"

And if we're honest, lots of us are doing just this. 

I have an ask / request .... 

What's shaped your thinking on this?

Books, courses, people to follow, tools you actually use for strategic foresight?

Drop them below. I'll compile everything and share it back.

Thank you in advance, please share as I'd like to get a diverse viewpoint. 🙏🏽


#StrategicForesight #FuturesThinking #UsingYourNoggin

Credibility is overrated. Seriously. 

#nofluff #training #2026goals

If work feels exhausting, it’s probably not because you’re working too hard.


But it might be because your brain never gets to switch off.

Most corporate work doesn’t tire people out with effort.

It tires them out with constant cognition. Think about it ....

Notifications.

Messages.

Decisions that feel almost too small to matter, but never stop coming.

We’ve seem to have built jobs that demand continuous attention without recovery, and then act surprised when people feel drained by mid-afternoon.

Our noggins didn’t evolve for that.

They work best in bursts .... focus, effort, rest, and ready to go again.

Work used to have more boundaries, but now it just leaks into everything.

Somewhere along the way, most also confused being busy with doing good thinking.

Fast replies.

Full calendars.

Visible responsiveness.

But clarity comes from giving the appropriate space to THINKING.

Many organisational systems are optimised for efficiency and scale. Not a bad thing mind.

However, let's not forget that human brains need context, meaning and recovery.

When those don’t line up, the system might keep running but the people absorb the cost.

Which is why so many well intentioned fixes fall flat.

We tell people to be more resilient.

We add wellbeing initiatives on top of overloaded days.

We introduce new tools that promise efficiency and quietly add another layer of 'mental noise'.

The organisations doing better are taking a different approach.

They’re reducing unnecessary decisions.

Protecting thinking time.

Simplifying priorities.

Rewarding clarity, not constant availability.

Because recovery shouldn't be an afterthought.

It’s a performance input really.

so this year, remember this ....

Burnout isn’t normally a failure of people, it’s a failure of systems....

and Tony Schwartz puts it's brilliantly

The no.1 enemy of performance is not stress. It’s the absence of recovery.

Look after your noggin, so it can look after you.

#productivity #useyournoggin #brainhealth #cognition

taplio