A note for Mark Long
I think there is a useful conversation here.
Not a speculative application. A considered view of where your network and my product leadership might create value—for founders, investors and both of us.
Why I am writing
Your profile made me stop.
Not because you recruit CPOs. Plenty of people do that. What caught me was your interest in the problem before it becomes a brief: what a company actually needs, and who can genuinely help.
That sounded closer to how I work than a conventional search conversation.
What appears distinctive about you
Your advantage is proximity.
Four decades around high-growth technology. Direct relationships with founders, investors and C-suite leaders. A view of ascending talent before it becomes obvious to the wider market.
01
Search
02
Community
03
Pattern recognition
What I bring
I turn complex product choices into commercial progress.
The underlying pattern
Enterprise scale.
Founder pragmatism.
I have led product across HSBC, Temenos, Finastra, Fiserv and Zai—and built businesses from zero. The common thread is making difficult systems, priorities and organisations work together.
Now I am applying that experience to practical AI adoption and product-led value creation.
The intersection
I suspect the useful bit happens before the brief.
You see
Founders before the brief is settled
Investors before the leadership gap is explicit
Executives before the market sees their trajectory
I can help
Frame the actual product problem
Test whether a senior hire is the right intervention
Create momentum before and after the appointment
Why I may be useful to numi
Here is where I could earn my place in your network.
01
A credible, placeable product and AI executive with quantified outcomes
02
An outside-in adviser for founders and investor-backed portfolio companies
03
A useful voice for numicon or numi Talks—not another generic product commentator
04
A source of senior product, platform and technology relationships
Why you may be useful to me
What I would value from you.
01
Situations that have not yet become advertised CPO roles
02
Honest market calibration of where my evidence is most compelling
03
Introductions across UK, Europe and MENA
04
A route into permanent, fractional and portfolio-level work
What collaboration could look like
Three small ways to find out.
Founder diagnostic
A focused conversation that clarifies whether the constraint is strategy, operating model, capability—or leadership.
Portfolio intervention
A short, evidence-led engagement to unblock product direction, platform choices or practical AI adoption.
Community contribution
A candid numicon roundtable on turning product and AI ambition into measurable enterprise value.
What I am not proposing
No grand partnership announcement.
No forced fit.
Just a conversation to test the thesis: where are your founders and investors encountering product problems that sit between advisory, leadership and search?
If there is no useful intersection, we will know quickly. If there is, the first experiment should be small and real.
The invitation
Worth a conversation?
01
Where are your clients struggling before a search brief exists?
02
Where could product leadership create value without immediately becoming a permanent hire?
03
What would you need to see to introduce me with conviction?