01
Decision Support
Frame the real decision, clarify options and trade-offs, and challenge assumptions before commitment.
Decision & Planning Advisory
Better decisions through structure, clarity and digital thinking.
Most organisations do not suffer from lack of data, but from fragmented decisions, unclear ownership and planning complexity.
I work with leadership teams facing high-stakes investment, planning and transformation decisions — bringing structure, alignment and practical digital thinking before organisations commit to action.
Operating reality
Decision structure
Digital leverage
Core
Decision
quality
quality
Decision architecture: structure, judgement and digital leverage before committing to action.
About
Who I am.
I spent two decades inside some of the most complex decision environments in the energy industry — first at Shell, then building WhiteSpace Solutions from the ground up. What I kept finding was the same pattern: organisations with good data, capable people and genuine intent, still making decisions that were fragmented, late or poorly owned.
I stepped back from operational leadership at WhiteSpace to work on that problem more directly — as an independent advisor, without the constraints of a single company's agenda.
I bring analytical depth, operational credibility and a genuine interest in the human side of decisions. I'm not here to produce a report and move on. I work best as a thinking partner — for leaders who want to get the decision right, not just get it done.
What I do
Alignment before acceleration.
Good decisions only happen when intentions, incentives and daily reality line up. I help leadership teams see where they don’t — and bring them back into alignment.
02
Planning Effectiveness
Improve planning rhythms, ownership and decision flow where processes have become slow, fragmented or ineffective.
03
Digital & AI
Translate digital ambition into practical decision-support opportunities, grounded in operating reality. This includes Meridian, a developing decision intelligence layer for structured reasoning and challenge.
04
Senior Sparring
Independent challenge for founders, boards and leadership teams facing complex strategic or operational choices.
For whom
For leaders facing decisions that are too important to leave unstructured.
The common thread is decision complexity: high stakes, multiple stakeholders, unclear trade-offs and material cost of delay.
01
Leadership teams in asset-intensive industries
Teams making planning, portfolio, operational or investment decisions where timing, constraints and trade-offs matter.
02
Founders, investors, boards and senior advisors
People who need independent challenge before committing to a strategic direction, operating model, investment case or transformation path.
03
Organisations between process pain and digital ambition
Teams that sense AI or optimisation could help, but first need a sharper view of the real decision problem and the value case.
Typical situations
Where I usually get involved.
The work is most useful when moving faster without first structuring the problem would create more risk than progress.
01
Before a major investment decision
Review the decision frame, options, assumptions, risks and trade-offs before committing capital, resources or executive attention.
02
When planning processes are under strain
Clarify where planning has become slow, fragmented or disconnected from operating reality — and define a more effective decision rhythm.
03
When AI ambition needs operational grounding
Translate digital ambition into concrete decision-support opportunities with a clear view of value and adoption.
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When stakeholders see different versions of the problem
Create a shared structure for trade-offs, constraints, ownership and next steps.
How this looks in practice
A
Investment decision
A leadership team in upstream oil & gas was approaching a multi-hundred-million dollar field development decision with competing technical options and no shared frame for the trade-offs. Over four weeks we restructured the decision architecture, clarified the real constraints, and surfaced two assumptions that were doing most of the work. The team entered the investment committee with a far cleaner case — and a clear owner for the remaining uncertainty.
B
Planning under strain
A mid-size operator had built a planning process that had gradually fragmented across four departments, each with different data and different views of capacity. What looked like a scheduling problem turned out to be a decision-ownership problem. We mapped where the gaps were, redesigned the planning rhythm, and connected it to a simple decision-support structure that the team could run independently.
C
AI ambition, grounded
An executive team had invested eighteen months in an AI roadmap that wasn't moving. The blockers weren't technical — they were upstream: unclear objectives, disputed ownership and a value case nobody fully believed. We worked backwards from the decisions that actually mattered and rebuilt the roadmap around three concrete, defensible opportunities.
All cases anonymised. Details available on request.
How I work
Short, senior, clearly scoped.
My work is advisory and independent: short, clearly scoped and senior-led. I don’t take on implementation roles.
Good advisory work should reduce complexity, not introduce dependency.
01
Scope agreed upfront.
02
Short, time-boxed engagements.
03
Senior challenge without implementation dependency.
04
Outputs that support decisions and next steps.
Experience
Operator, founder, advisor.
Over two decades working in and with asset-intensive organisations, primarily in Oil & Gas, at the intersection of operations, planning and digital decision support.
2002
Shell International E&P
Seventeen years across reservoir engineering, field development planning, asset management and major project delivery. The most important thing I learned wasn't technical — it was how large organisations lose the quality of their own decisions: through complexity, silos, time pressure and the quiet disappearance of accountability. I left with a deep understanding of what good decision structures look like, and what it costs when they break down.
2019
Co-founder, WhiteSpace Solutions
Built a company that applied advanced algorithms, optimisation and AI to complex planning problems in oil & gas, healthcare, logistics and supply chains. Worked directly with leadership teams on portfolio decisions, field development planning, scheduling optimisation and the practical limits of AI in operational settings. Grew the business from concept to a recognised specialist in decision-support technology — and learned that the hardest part is never the algorithm; it's always the decision structure the algorithm is supposed to serve.
2026
Independent advisor
Now working across organisations and sectors as an independent advisor, without implementation dependency or commercial agenda. Combining two decades of operational and technical depth with a focus on the thing that matters most: helping leadership teams get the important decisions right, before they commit.
Thinking
On decisions, structure and the limits of digital.
Occasional notes on decision quality, planning complexity and AI in serious organisations. Written for practitioners, not for search engines.
Coming soon
Why most AI roadmaps stall before they start
On the upstream decision problems — unclear objectives, disputed ownership, unbelieved value cases — that block digital adoption long before the technology becomes the issue.
Coming soon
The planning meeting that never ends
Why planning fragmentation is rarely a process problem. More often it's a decision-ownership problem — and fixing the meeting won't fix the underlying structure.
Coming soon
Structure before speed
What good decision architecture looks like before you commit — and why the organisations that slow down to frame the problem correctly almost always move faster in the end.
Contact
Start with a conversation.
Most engagements begin with a short conversation. If you're facing a decision or planning challenge worth discussing, email me directly or use the form below.
Based in The Netherlands. Engaging internationally.
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