Experience in rooms where the wrong answer has consequences.
My name is Brendan. I’ve spent my career at the intersection of data, technology, and leadership — in the rooms where the decisions were hard, the stakes were real, and the wrong answer had consequences.
I was Head of Data at Pantheon, one of the world’s largest private equity fund of funds. Before that, Shawbrook Bank — a PE‑backed lender navigating rapid growth across a complex technology landscape. Big 4 background. Sectors that don’t forgive expensive mistakes.
I know what a bad technology decision looks like before it happens. More importantly, I know what the executive carrying it feels like when they’re making it without the right partner in the room.
There’s a particular kind of isolation at the top of a mid-market business. You have a board above you and a team below you. Vendors want the contract. Your team needs your confidence. Nobody in that environment is positioned to simply tell you the truth.
Most executives at this level are too large for boutique firms to serve as strategy clients, and too small to justify the engagement fees that unlock senior talent at the big consultancies. They exist in what I call the Sub‑£100k Strategic Void. And they navigate it largely alone.
I’m currently completing an MSc in Servant Leadership, with primary qualitative research on generational dynamics in the modern workplace. I’m also an advisor to The Athlete Place. I sit, simultaneously, at both ends of the generational divide — coaching the leaders who are managing Gen Z, researching Gen Z directly, and helping shape that generation before they arrive.
In 2023 I ran 220 kilometres across the Jordanian desert. I’ve completed multiple Ironman events. The executives I work with are all doing something unreasonable — carrying a decision they weren’t fully trained for, in an environment that moves faster than the playbooks cover. I understand what it takes to show up for something like that anyway.
My philosophy in this work is what I think of as the caddie approach. A caddie walks alongside the player. Reads the course. Offers the right club at the right moment. But never plays the shot. That’s always the player’s call.
Corbelle works with a small number of clients at any one time. That’s intentional. What’s being offered here is not a packaged service or a standardised report. It is a thinking partnership — and thinking partnerships require presence, attention, and continuity.
Engagements begin with a conversation, not a contract. The first thing we do together is work out whether this is the right fit. I turn away work that isn’t right for this model. What I take on, I take seriously.