40 years in the room. Still learning. Still coaching.
The background that makes Rob different is not a CV. It is what he survived, and what he learned from it.
Executive Coach, Author
Saltant Ltd · Coach to CEOs and MDs of £3M to £30M businesses
Rob spent the first half of his career in big business. His last corporate role was at Tesco. Before that, a series of senior leadership positions across retail and supply chain that gave him a deep, practical understanding of what running something at scale actually means.
In 2013 he left corporate life and moved into MD and CEO roles in smaller companies. That transition matters. It is exactly the world his clients live in, without the hundreds of support staff, without the board infrastructure, without anyone above you to ask. He sat where they sit before he started coaching them.
After several years in those roles, Rob became an executive coach. He became a Business Coach, running peer advisory groups for business leaders. He also became a qualified Company Secretary, adding formal governance expertise to what was already deep operational experience.
"There is no school for MDs. Most are thrust into the role without any formal preparation. People assume if you're a CEO, you must know what you're doing. While many do, they are still figuring it out, still trying to get it right."
He wrote those words before 2021. Then everything changed.
A 7% chance of survival. 10 months in hospital. And a book that had to be written.
In 2021, Rob suffered a subarachnoid brain haemorrhage. Like many such events it came out of the blue with no warning. He had a 7% chance of survival. His wife called an ambulance immediately. It arrived in seven minutes. The time from the haemorrhage to the operating table was mercifully short, and with a brain haemorrhage, time is not your friend.
He spent 10 months in hospital, much of it on a ventilator. He woke up in December, weeks after the event. He was so close to death that the nurse who cared for him in ICU went on Christmas leave not expecting to see him alive when she returned.
During his recovery, Rob did something that may sound strange. He tested every principle he had been using with leaders for years, against the reality of fighting to survive. The ones that worked became The Action Gap. Not theory. Not borrowed ideas. Principles proven in the hardest possible conditions.
He is more aware of his mortality now. He has another 20 to 30 years if he is lucky, and he intends to spend them sharing what he knows and helping others. That is what drives his coaching today.
Not what most coaches do.
Rob has a clear view on the difference between a coach, a consultant, and a mentor, and he switches between them deliberately depending on what a client actually needs.
He asks the question you are not asking yourself
A pure coach's job is to help the client figure things out, not tell them the answer. Rob knows his job is working when a client says "I have never thought of that before" or "I have never said that before." That is the moment.
He is the peer you never had at the top
Leaders get stuck in their own heads because no one around them will tell them the truth. Everyone treats everything they say as brilliant. Rob's job, as both a 1-to-1 coach and a Business Coach, is to be the person who gently challenges. Including asking, do you think it might be you?
He is honest that it will be hard
Most learning content describes what to do but ignores the practical difficulties. Rob's style is different, he names the resistance, the pushback from the team, the temptation to give up. He tells leaders to be brave, bold, and persistent even when others say it is not worth it. Because if they give up after two weeks, nothing changes.
Every conversation we ever have is really with ourselves. It sometimes involves other people.
Heard enough? Let's talk.
30 minutes with Rob. No pitch, no script. Just a straight conversation about where you are and whether working together makes sense.