The Entrepreneurial Spark Never Fades

I think I'm a natural entrepreneur. It's not a job title; it's a way of looking at the world. My first real 'business' started in my parents' garage when I was still at school. I loved Minis – my first car – and I saw an opportunity.

I started advertising in the Auto Trader, offering to refurbish classic Mini engines. Customers would drop their cars off, and I'd get to work. I'd pull the engine, strip it down, and meticulously rebuild it—boring the block, replacing piston rings and bearings, and re-grinding the cylinder head valves. Unbelievably, I often did the delicate cylinder head work in my bedroom! I pored over those old Haynes manuals, and seeing the results of my work, a purring engine brought back to life, was pure satisfaction.

That fundamental curiosity—seeing how something works and figuring out how to make it better—has been the driving force in every role I've ever had. It inevitably led me and a business partner to start our own company. Over 12 years, we built a successful service business from the ground up. It was an amazing, stressful, and utterly life-changing experience. I was fortunate enough to exit that business, taking time out to travel and reflect on the incredible journey.

Now, I find myself engaged again, this time in a different seat. I'm not the CEO anymore; I'm a Technical Operations Manager in a product-based business. You'd think it would be a world apart, but the fascinating thing is, the core problems are the same. The need to improve processes, enhance the product, and solve customer challenges is universal.

In my current role, I have the freedom and psychological safety to challenge norms and experiment. My mission is to bring our team along on a technical journey of improvement. We're developing strategies to turn our vision into reality, using rapid, collaborative ideation to spin up a host of AI initiatives. This taps right back into that entrepreneurial streak I discovered in my parents' garage. I love the power of transformative strategies; there are never enough hours in the day.

With technology developing at a record pace, it's the perfect environment for someone wired for continuous improvement. For us, driving these AI initiatives isn't about hype or just keeping up with competitors. It's about three things:

• Making our business smarter and more efficient.
• Improving the lives of our employees.
• Adding tangible value for our customers.

The real magic is in finding those nuggets of gold—identifying what makes us different, sharpening our value proposition, and communicating that at every single touchpoint.

At the end of the day, my job description hasn't really changed since that first Mini engine. I'm still responsible for making sure things run beautifully for the customer. I just get to bring the 'big guns' of modern technology to help us do it.