The engineer. The MD. The owner.
I started as an apprentice electrical engineer and spent over ten years on the tools, designing, programming and commissioning machinery control systems in the UK and overseas. In 2021, I co-founded an engineering group and, over three years, acquired four specialist businesses serving nuclear, defence and energy customers. I dealt with what every owner deals with: quotes, audits, cash, recruitment, customers who needed it yesterday, and too much resting on too few people. Including me.
I sold my shareholding in 2026. Now I work with owners who are where I was.
The why
I started Roman Roads because I enjoy building businesses, the hard parts included.
After four acquisitions in three years, taking a group from nothing to a multi-million-pound turnover, and then selling my shareholding, the biggest thing I learnt was that the right advisers compress years of expensive trial and error into a fraction of that. The wrong advisers, or no adviser, cost in ways not seen until years later (or too late).
Owner-managers and entrepreneurs, the people taking the risk, should get to choose their own destination. A business should work for its owner, not the other way around.
Building on my own scar tissue, Roman Roads exists to help and support business owners through the lens of an experienced owner-operator-builder.
Things I learnt the hard way
Your biggest customer can be your worst one. Check the margin before you check the turnover.
The answer is usually in the customer list, not the sales pipeline.
Systems should fit the business you are, not the corporation you read about.
When everything’s going wrong, find the next step to keep moving through it. Calmness is a skill.
Everything is temporary.
Repeated justifications are a warning sign. The evidence is in what people do, not what they say.
Avoiding difficult conversations only compounds issues.
The right people will make your life much easier, and the business much better. Look after the right people.
A business should work for its owner, not the other way round.
The right adviser saves you years.
Every Roman road started with knowing where it needed to go. The rest was engineering.
The what
Roman Roads provides advisory and support services to engineering, manufacturing and technical businesses in three stages:
Destination: where you actually want to take the business, not what you say in a networking room. Yours to define, not mine. It might be a sale, a succession, a specific number, getting your time back or just enjoying it again.
Route: the plan to get there.
Paving: the work, block by block with foundations before surface, always.
Specific sector experience
General engineering, industrial manufacturing and niche technical businesses.
Machine building and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).
Machinery control and automation systems.
Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) and inspection, specifically industrial radiography.
Food and beverage (FMCG), specifically the snacks industry.
Metal decorating; printing presses.