Meet the Coach – Ross Golightly

I’m often described in many different ways – mentor, consultant, coach, Board Advisor, Non-Exec or even wing-man but, ultimately, I’m someone who will work with you to drive the growth of the business in a very hands-on, no-nonsense way.

Whilst I’ve spent the last 14 years working with SMEs, the irony is the six years before that were spent working for two large Fortune 300 corporate’s – Electrolux and PPG Industries. I joined another firm (as a Senior Consultant) after this before establishing my own business – Sphera Consulting – in 2009.

We have clients all around the UK and work with high-growth companies in London, Manchester, Birmingham and, of course, the North East. These clients are cross-sector and typically range from pre-revenue to £25m in annual revenues. The one thing they have in common is they are either growing aggressively or wish to accelerate their growth further.

In practical terms, the kind of things I can help with would be accelerating both top line revenues and bottom-line profitability, implementing an aggressive growth programme, readying your business for exit (and improving valuation) or helping you to make the business more scaleable, reducing over-reliance on you the owner, building a management team, building a business that can work without you, getting you focussed on the key things that will impact growth in the biggest way and optimising revenue by looking at all aspects of your revenue streams, sales mix, margins, fee structure and pricing.

I know the creative and digital sector really well, having worked on numerous high-growth programmes for the likes of Digital City, Sunderland Software City and now, of course, Generator. I’ve also personally worked with the Boards of many of the region’s leading creative/digital agencies (O Communications, Silverbean, Unwritten Creative and Boxmodel to name a few) and tech/software companies (Taopix, Zytronic and Kromek as some examples).

As well as my own business, I serve as a Non-Executive Director at Trend Bible, Duo Global Consulting and the recently formed Ponteland Multi-Academy Trust. I’ve held numerous NXD positions previously and also have two other businesses in ecommerce and property.

My passion is working with like-minded entrepreneurs and seeing the results of our work bear fruit. When we work together, I’ll bring some new ideas and a fresh perspective, introduce key processes that will help to scale the business, challenge some of your thinking and bring accountability for making sure it all happens. I’m looking forward to working with you!