Innovation and Leadership Team Lead | Strategically connecting Corporates and their Leaders with Startups I Connectd

Connectd works with individuals looking to build fractional careers through board advisor, non-executive director and fractional c-suite roles.

Through the Connectd platform, we help both active and aspiring fractionals access networking and fractional opportunities, CPD-accredited training and mentoring.

In turn, we support businesses in overcoming their biggest challenges through strategic fractional support to help take them to the next level!

Connectd also works with leading Venture Capital firms, including Fuel Ventures, Haatch & Antler, as well as wider ecosystems, such as Startup Grind & Barclays Eagle Labs, to support their startups to build their boards and move the needle on core business metrics.

If you’d like to explore opportunities, feel free to email me at: will.s@connectd.co

William Smith

Connectd

Chief Revenue Officer

Raised $10m funding ($9m equity, $1m debt)
Generating $7.6m ARR (October 2024)

VP Commercial

AgPulse Analytica

We study the markets from multiple vantage points, including but not limited to APY, weather, seasonality, government policies, macro factors and evolving trade patterns. Our Experienced team is extensively travelled and well networked across geographies.

Our weekly reports are not just newsletters but cover the undercurrent of the global market, helping you to strategize for the next quarter, whether you are a farmer, miller, crusher, exporter, importer, policy maker, insurance or financial institution. We analyse stories from all over the world; from insatiable Chinese demand to government policies in Asia; from Pulses consumption in EU to Oilseeds processing in Africa; from heatwave in North America to effects of La Nina in the Southern Hemisphere.

In addition to our weekly newsletter, AgPulse also undertakes Bespoke Consultancy assignments. Our timely, customized projects are backed up by trusted proprietary data, authoritative analysis, and insightful forecasts, helping you make critical decisions and seize key investment opportunities.

Board Advisor

AgFlow

Responsible for all commercial activity at the business and member of senior management team. Doubled the ARR of the business in 2020.

Head of Sales and Marketing

GlobalData Plc

Commercial responsibility for FMCG teams in Americas.

Vice President of Sales - Consumer

Informa

Installed South American commercial division in Sao Paulo, retained North American operations for Agribusiness.

Head of Business Development - North and South America

Installed and led the North American commercial team for Agri division.

Snr Sales Manager - Americas

Sales lead for FMCG team focused on EMEA markets.

Sales Manager, EMEA and USA

New business responsibility focusing on FMCG (food, beverage, personal care, household care) markets.

Business Development Manager

Foreign Currency Direct plc

Brokered currency deals to individuals and corporateson a spot and options basis.

Senior Executive Dealer

Golfbreaks.com

Sales and marketing responsibility for Corporategolfdays.com.

Corporate Sales

Looking to transition into a full time portfolio career through fractional advisory board and independent director positions? I help connect highly skilled talent with startup founders seeking strategic growth support across North America and Europe, with a particular focus on Florida's startup ecosystem.

I post a thought, question or commonly steal wisdom from another on a daily basis - content on:

- Startups
- Portfolio careers (board advisors / non execs / fractional support)
- Sales
- Sales leadership
- General business content 

Please join the conversation.

James Matthews

I didn’t expect becoming a dad to change how I deal with people, but it has.

Not because I suddenly care about completely different things, or had some overnight shift in priorities. A lot of what matters to me now was always there, it just comes out differently.

I used to think being firm meant being hard. Now it feels more about being clear and fair, without stripping the empathy out of it. That shift shows up everywhere, not just at home.

I wouldn’t say I’ve softened. I still care about standards and outcomes, I just approach them from a different place than I did a few years ago.

Chief Commercial Officer | Board Advisor | Exec Director | Over $15mill in 4 years

I’ve been wrong publicly more times than I’d like.

Decisions that felt right at the time and aged badly. Hires that didn’t work out. Opinions I was confident in that turned out to be off. It’s uncomfortable, especially when people remember.

Earlier in my career, I took that stuff personally. Being wrong felt like a reflection of competence rather than part of the job, so I spent more time defending decisions than really looking at them.

These days, I try to hold it differently. You make the best call you can with what you know at the time. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. What matters more is how you respond once it’s clear you missed something.

Being able to be wrong, to be comfortable in that and to be the first to raise it is now something I consider a strength and it doesn’t hurt anymore (most of the time).

I had a good conversation with James Bissell recently about AI and forecasting.

There’s a lot of excitement around custom GPTs analysing pipeline data and producing board-ready summaries. That’s impressive, and in the right context, useful.

But the part I kept coming back to is this: AI doesn’t have scars.

It doesn’t remember the quarter where you over-forecasted because one enterprise deal “felt” done. It doesn’t know that your team tends to be optimistic in Q3. It doesn’t understand the pattern behind why certain deals quietly slide into no-decision.

That context lives inside the business. It lives with the people who’ve seen where it breaks.

If you don’t understand where you’ve historically got things wrong and why, handing your data to a model won’t fix that. It will just package it more neatly.

For me, AI becomes powerful once you give it that context. Not just numbers, but the story behind the numbers. That’s when it can do the heavy lifting and free you up to focus on judgement and coaching.

Where do you draw the line between automation and experience?

One thing I’ve learned over time is that experience doesn’t automatically mean you should step in.

That’s especially true in advisory or fractional roles. There’s a temptation to think being useful means being involved all the time.

Giving opinions. 
Having a view on everything. 

In reality, that’s often when you start getting in the way.

Sometimes your input genuinely helps. Tightening up sales forecasting, sense checking a commercial plan, calling out a risk before it becomes expensive. And there are other moments where adding another opinion just creates noise. Knowing when to step in and when to leave space matters more than how senior you are.

I’ve been in rooms where speaking up made things clearer. I’ve also been in rooms where the right thing to do was say nothing and let the team work through it themselves. That judgement doesn’t come from confidence. It comes from restraint and paying attention.

This is something I think about a lot with fractional work. The value isn’t in constant involvement. It’s in being specific. Being clear on why you’re there and disciplined enough to stay in that lane.

Getting that wrong is easy. Getting it right takes time, trust, and a bit of humility.

I became a board advisor slightly later than I probably could have.

Not because I didn’t have the experience, but because I didn’t really understand how to position it. I assumed advisory was something you did once you hit some arbitrary career milestone.

In reality, a lot of it is just formalising what you already know and being clear about the value you can actually add.

Once I stepped into it properly, I realised I could have started earlier. The knowledge was there. I just hadn’t drawn a line around it.

This Wednesday in NYC, our Founder and CEO, Roei Samuel will be joined by John Hoeller Jr, Sarah Lerche, Francia Cooper and Eric Callahan to talk about landing your first paid advisory role and what that journey really looks like.

If you’re in New York and have been thinking about advisory or fractional work, it’s probably worth attending and secure your seat for FREE here: https://lnkd.in/ebBTVu6N

Budgeting season is one of the hardest parts of scaling a business and I do not think people talk about it honestly enough.

It looks tidy from the outside. Forecasts, plans, numbers that feel controlled. In reality it is a constant judgement call. 

What to invest in, 
what to hold back on, 
what you think will matter later versus what feels urgent right now. 

You make the calls knowing some of them will be wrong, you just do your best to understand the consequences.

This is the time of year where the weight of the role really hits me. Every decision connects to people and that pressure does not disappear, it just moves. If you get it wrong, it shows up months later in ways you could have avoided.

I always come away from these conversations pretty tired. You question assumptions, challenge your own thinking, go back and forth on things you will never have perfect answers to. There is rarely a sense of relief at the end of it, just a clearer picture of what you are committing to.

It is not exciting work and it is not something people celebrate, but it is some of the most important thinking you do as a business grows.

I used to think pressure was something you eventually got better at and then it eased off.

That once you proved yourself a bit, or got more settled, it would calm down. It doesn’t really work like that.

It just changes where it sits.

Earlier on it was obvious. Targets, numbers, whether you were doing well or not. Now it’s quieter, but it sticks around for longer. Decisions you replay in your head. Things you realise have knock-on effects you didn’t think about at the time.

To be honest a few years ago I thought I had start to deal with it well, but I’m now in a more holistic role, I find myself struggling with this new type of pressure. 

Some days it’s fine. Other days it’s just there in the background and you don’t fully switch off from it, even when nothing is actually wrong.

I don’t have a clever way of dealing with it. I just notice it more now than I used to.

Is that just part of this stage of life?

*Pic from Deloitte Fast 50 Awards

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James Matthews

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}James Matthews's LinkedIn Performance

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