Former public-company CEO, sovereign-scale transformation leadership, rapid commercial turnarounds, judicial discipline and principal-level governance.
I enter where the boardroom map no longer matches the operational territory: establish what is actually happening, recover authority and execution, protect what remains valuable and release what is genuinely recoverable.
I find out what’s actually happening from the person doing the work, not from the deck built to reassure me.
Reality → Recoverability → Execution → Timing
Four routes. Each begins with the condition confronting the owner, Chair, board or sponsor.
Recover control, restore performance and reopen the route to value before options close.
Positive EBITDA restored within 100 days in a regulated turnaround. Explore enterprise intervention → 02 · Programme & Transformation When delivery must be recovered, integrated or assured.Make fragmented delivery visible, governable and executable as one operating system.
£18.6bn · 81 organisations · 23,000 people · 54 sites. Explore delivery recovery → 03 · Chair/NED Independent oversight and governance.Strengthen judgement while the board still has time and optionality to intervene.
Public-company, principal, audit, risk and thirteen-year judicial formation. Explore board judgement → 04 · Special Situations Judicial experience applied to capital, governance, operations, institutional behaviour, risk and stakeholder incentives.Establish reality when no single professional map describes the whole problem.
Evidence, authority, incentives, recoverability and executable action. Explore special-situations advice →Appointments are made between people, not abstractions.
Steven is direct, usually informal and uninterested in executive theatre. He arrives early, clears the immediate decisions and then walks the floor. Coffee and doughnuts can reveal more than another formal review. Capable people are expected to exercise judgement, challenge assumptions and say early when the evidence no longer supports the plan—including a plan he has devised.
Away from formal mandates, life divides between St Albans, London and Wales. He reads widely, plays chess badly and remains interested in history, old buildings, theatre, ballet and good food with friends. His two adult children matter more than the curriculum vitae. In Wales, Fforde—a rescue spaniel with more velocity than judgement—often supervises. Gardening is avoided wherever operationally possible.
Read Brad Counter’s A Life in the Day →“Steven brings tremendous value to our board. Whilst having very deep experience of business, Steven is a highly focused executor, who gets straight to the bottom line in a conversation.”Jean-Philippe Perraud
“He was pivotal in drawing up the outline and then the detail of the initial programme [the £18.6bn Defence Training Rationalisation programme] using a combination of critical analysis, innovative thinking and hard work.”Fred Church
“Steven and I served together in Iraq where he spearheaded efforts at a national level to unify the government. He is a strategic visionary of the highest order and exceptional leader.”Curtis A. Carver Jr.
Primary documents, exact public recommendations and formally assessed performance are separated from editorial interpretation. Review the controlled evidence record →
The operator and the institution perform different work.
Steven is Principal and Director of Windmill Family Office Ltd. This site establishes his personal executive record and availability; WFO establishes the separate family institution within which long-term stewardship, governance and succession responsibilities are held.
External mandates are accepted selectively so that direct attention, authority and execution remain proportionate to the consequence entrusted.
Review mandate fit →Public evidence supports initial assessment. Confidential material and referee access are provided proportionately after identity, purpose and fit are established.
Begin a controlled discussion →