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Board
Advisory

Driving commercial focus and sustainable growth for B2B and service-led organisations at board level.

With 20+ years’ experience leading marketing and growth strategy across B2B, SaaS, professional services, B2C, and agency environments, I help organisations cut through noise, sharpen direction, and build marketing systems that support long-term commercial performance.

As a Board Advisor, I work with CEOs, founders, and leadership teams who need clear thinking, an external perspective, and senior-level challenge around growth, positioning, customer strategy, and marketing governance.

My approach blends strategic clarity, operational understanding, and practical commercial insight, giving organisations a trusted advisor who can pressure test decisions before they become costly mistakes.

Where I Add Value at Board Level

1. Growth Strategy & Positioning

  • Clarifying where growth will actually come from

  • Evaluating new markets, propositions, and competitive positioning

  • Helping leadership teams align behind a simple, effective strategy

2. Marketing Governance & Accountability

  • Ensuring marketing investment aligns with business goals

  • Strengthening reporting, KPIs, and strategic decision-making

  • Creating clarity between marketing, sales, and operations

3. Demand Generation & Pipeline Health

  • Reviewing pipeline quality, conversion points, and buyer journeys

  • Identifying growth bottlenecks and missed commercial opportunities

  • Advising on sustainable, long-term demand creation

4. Brand & Customer Strategy

  • Ensuring the brand reflects what the business actually delivers

  • Bringing the customer voice into leadership conversations

  • Aligning the business around a modern, credible brand narrative

5. Agency Governance & Supplier Performance

  • Reviewing agency relationships, value, and commercial alignment

  • Helping leadership make better decisions around external partners

  • Reducing wasted spend and improving marketing effectiveness

Typical Board Advisory Engagements

Quarterly Advisory

  • 1 board meeting per quarter

  • Pre-read analysis + post-meeting advisory notes

  • Ad-hoc support for CEO or CMO between sessions

Monthly Advisory

  • Deeper involvement in marketing performance, brand decisions, and growth planning

  • Ideal for businesses without a senior marketing leader

Typical Board Advisory Support Includes:

  • Monthly or quarterly board-level advisory sessions

  • One-to-one support for the CEO and/or Head of Marketing

  • Performance reviews and strategic recommendations

  • Marketing governance and spend oversight

  • Guidance on team structure, capability, and accountability

  • Objective assessment of agencies and partners

  • Input on major strategic decisions (pricing, markets, positioning, brand)

  • Emergency sounding-board support when needed

Strategic Projects

  • Brand repositioning

  • Go-to-market strategy

  • Marketing performance review

  • Demand generation assessment

  • Agency review / pitch process

Ideal Organisations I Support

Businesses typically £2m-£50m revenue or scaling fast, including:

  • B2B and professional services firms

  • Tech, SaaS, and digital-first organisations

  • Marketing and creative agencies

  • Manufacturing and industrial brands

  • Owner-led and PE-backed businesses

Senior-level clarity, challenge, and commercial support at the moments that matter.

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My Advisory Style

Boards choose me because I am:

  • Direct, commercially grounded, and calm under pressure.

  • No jargon. No politics. No 100-slide decks.

  • Just clear thinking, honest challenge, and strategic direction backed by experience.

I’m there to help leadership teams see things more clearly, make better decisions, and stay focused on what truly moves the business forward.

Examples of My Impact

  • Repositioned and relaunched multi-brand B2B organisations, consolidating legacy propositions into a single, clearer market narrative that supported £30m+ in client revenue (Paragon DCX) and £4.8m in new client revenue (Capita Learning).

  • Built and executed go-to-market strategies that directly generated pipeline, including £6m+ new business pipeline (1:23 ROI) for a PE-backed digital consultancy and £10m+ new business for an international digital agency.

  • Acted as a strategic advisor to founders and CEOs during periods of change, including rebrands, international expansion, and new product launches, providing clarity on positioning, sequencing, and investment priorities.

  • Established marketing governance and operating frameworks for scale-ups and agencies, covering GTM planning, KPI definition, CRM usage, pipeline tracking, and reporting to improve decision-making at leadership level.

  • Improved sales and marketing alignment by introducing shared GTM plans, campaign prioritisation, and clearer handover processes, increasing marketing-attributed revenue contribution in multiple organisations.

  • Led brand and marketing transformation in PE-backed environments, balancing speed, accountability, and ROI while operating within board-level expectations for commercial performance.

  • Built and mentored marketing leadership teams across multiple regions, strengthening capability while reducing reliance on ad-hoc external support.

  • Advised on international market entry and expansion (UK, US, EMEA, APAC), shaping messaging, channel strategy, and campaigns to reduce execution risk and wasted spend.

  • Introduced modern martech and data discipline (Salesforce, Hubspot, Pardot, Apollo, analytics dashboards, AI tools), improving visibility of pipeline, campaign effectiveness, and ROI for leadership teams.

  • Supported early-stage and scale-up businesses in moving from founder-led marketing to repeatable growth, including building CRM workflows, outreach playbooks, and sales collateral that delivered early pipeline.

  • Provided independent, external challenge to leadership teams, helping boards and CEOs test assumptions around positioning, growth channels, and investment decisions before committing resource.

What Results Can You Expect?

  • Clearer commercial direction

  • More confident, faster decision-making

  • Stronger alignment across leadership and marketing

  • Improved ROI and more disciplined resource allocation

  • Better accountability across teams and agencies

  • Reduced waste and duplication

  • More focus on long-term growth, not short-term noise

This is about equipping your business to grow with clarity, not chaos.

Fees

Board advisory work is offered on a simple, transparent retainer, offering senior input without operational delivery - for organisations that want strategic challenge without day-to-day involvement.

Quarterly Advisory - from £1,500 per month

  • Perfect for steady leadership support and strategic check-ins.

  • Quarterly board or leadership session (2-3 hours).

  • Pre-read and preparation.

  • Post-meeting actions & recommendations.

  • Ad-hoc access for strategic questions between session.​

Monthly Advisory - from £2,500 per month

  • For businesses undergoing change, growth, restructuring, or scaling rapidly.

  • Monthly advisory session.

  • Ongoing access for decision support.

  • Monthly strategic input on growth, positioning, marketing leadership.

  • Informal review of key initiatives as they evolve.

Both options include access to me outside formal sessions for urgent strategic questions.

For businesses combining board advisory with Fractional CMO leadership, custom packages are available.

 

Let’s Talk

For a confidential conversation, email me - huw@tight-lines.co.uk

Based in Sussex. Working nationally.

Hi, I'm Huw

Fractional CMO

I work with B2B companies and agencies across Sussex and beyond who feel their marketing isn’t delivering what it should.

​I provide senior marketing leadership on a flexible basis, helping you focus on what works, fix what doesn’t, and get more business from your marketing.

​I don’t just set direction and step away. I stay involved - working with your team, your agencies, and your activity - to make sure things actually move and deliver.


How can I help you?

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