Commercial Director | Sustainability.
Commercial leadership, business development and market positioning.
| Berkshire, Surrey & London |
What I bring
I bring 25+ years of commercial leadership and Managing Director experience, combined with 5 years of deep, practical focus on sustainability.
Having led businesses with full P&L accountability (Archant Dialogue, Ultima Media) and held senior commercial roles at BBC Worldwide and Universal Pictures, I know how to make commercial decisions when real budgets, margins, and customer relationships are at stake.
Over the last 5 years, I’ve worked on the front line of sustainability: carbon footprint audits, PPN 06/21 tenders, supply-chain requirements and business cases for renewables and decarbonisation.
I bring that experience into two key areas:
For sustainability businesses: Leading commercial development, structuring routes to market, and securing high-value B2B customer contracts and partnerships.
For established businesses: Stepping in to handle customer sustainability demands, defend key contracts in competitive tenders, and turn sustainability requirements into a commercial advantage rather than an overhead cost.
How I work
Whether embedded as a Commercial Director or brought in for a specific commercial assignment, I focus on the fundamental commercial levers:
Commercial Development & Growth: Structuring routes to market, opening doors, and winning high-value B2B contracts.
Proposition & Positioning: Making sustainability products, services, or credentials clear, credible, and commercially compelling to enterprise buyers.
Tenders, RFPs & Key Accounts: Securing and defending significant customer contracts where sustainability criteria dictate the buying decision.
Commercial Viability & Margin: Pricing for profit, protecting gross margins, and focusing teams on where money is actually made.
Selected Experience
Sustainability and customer requirements: Helped retain contracts for Acosta Europe through competitive tenders; delivered commercial ESG training to more than 100 employees; built internal ESG capability and a supply-chain framework at Financial Services PLC.
Renewables and carbon reduction: Turned an NHS hospice’s carbon audit into actionable renewables recommendations.
Sustainability workshops: Ran workshops for clients including the Chartered Institute of Marketing, German Tourist Board and the B2B automotive repair sector.
Commercial growth: Led UK distribution and marketing at Universal Pictures to 34% revenue growth (£150m) and a 41% contribution improvement across a £15m+ budget.
Turnaround and margin: Took Archant Dialogue to approximately £6m turnover and a £900k margin improvement, with 10% organic growth while retaining key clients.
Business transformation: Moved Ultima Media, a £7m legacy business, into digital, data and custom content, generating 6,000 new registrations and profitable new revenue lines.
Operational savings: Audited supplier contracts for more than £12m in savings across print, IT, CRM, marketing and business services. Built financial dashboards to show teams where cash and profit were made.
Sustainability Credentials & Capabilities
Five years of hands-on application across carbon auditing, PPN 06/21 tender compliance, BSI Net Zero, circular business models and renewables economics:
Future-Fit Business Benchmark Accredited Advisor
Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)
Course Director, CIM Sustainability & Marketing
Accredited Carbon Literacy Facilitator
Corporate Governance Institute (Board Oversight & ESG Governance)
MBA | Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM)
“Gavin combines commercial thinking with practical sustainability expertise. He focuses on what sustainability means in real business terms rather than theory or ESG reporting.
He provided clear, actionable advice and a coaching style that helped us rethink how we approached the challenges we were facing.
He also delivered a written strategy document that gave us a practical foundation and pathway for moving forward.It was a strong mix of commercial clarity, practical sustainability insight and hands-on support.”
-- Nick Payne, Managing Director SA Brain
What clients say
“What really sets Gavin apart is how well he gets both the sustainability world and the commercial one. That mix meant we ended up with a strategy that wasn’t just ‘nice to have’ but something people could get behind and deliver. He brought our teams along for the ride and helped us talk to clients about it in a way that felt honest, inspiring, and practical.
He made a big difference to our journey. I’m really glad we had him on board and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him to anyone looking to do sustainability properly."
-- Group Managing Director, Retail Marketing & Logistics Company
"Gavin facilitated a full-day sustainability session for a room of people from the same sector but with very different commercial priorities. He managed something genuinely difficult - bridging real commercial pressures with genuine sustainability ambition, without making either feel like a compromise.
His candour, warmth and depth of experience created an environment where people felt comfortable being honest and had their thinking genuinely challenged. Lively, enjoyable and substantive - a rare combination.
If you're looking for a facilitator who can hold a complex room and leave people energised, I'd recommend Gavin without hesitation."
-- Cheryl Chung, Corporate & Government Affairs
About me.
I'm a commercial director and former managing director with more than 25 years' experience in media and marketing, and a focus on sustainability since 2022. I've worked at BBC Worldwide and Universal Pictures, and run B2B media and marketing businesses.
I've worked on the decisions that shape how a business performs: what it offers, how it positions itself, where it makes money, and when to change. I look past the story a business tells about itself to see what's really happening, then work with people to decide what to do next.
I'm based in Berkshire and work with businesses across Berkshire, Surrey and London.
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