Hello! Who Am I?

I’m a business consultant, non-executive director, lecturer and public speaker who’s excited by and loves sharing ways that creativity and new technology can help businesses succeed.

With a technology background and over 30 years of experience starting and growing businesses, I bring a practical “been there, done that” approach aligned with academic integrity.

A Teaching Fellow at Coventry University since 2016, I lecture on entrepreneurship, innovation and marketing. I also deliver programs to business owners and leaders on behalf of the University, including “Made Smarter: Leading Change in Digital Transformation” (for the manufacturing sector) and “Help to Grow” aimed at high-growth SMEs.

I’m the founder and director of a digital marketing agency and a non-executive director of several SMEs, including FSB, Federation of Small Businesses, where I also serve as Deputy Chair of UK Policy and leads on Net Zero, regularly meeting with leading decision makers to develop policy solutions to create a better environment for SMEs to thrive as well as a regular on regional and national media as a spokesperson for small businesses.

Outside of work I’m a keen runner, cyclist and adventurer and an advocate of active travel, you can find out more on that side of my life and the adventures I enjoy with my two children on our “A Little Adventure” blog and YouTube channel.

I received an MBE in 2017 in recognition of services to the economy and community.

Ian ODonnell MBE portait

Why this blog?

It’s my musings on experience in all aspects of my life, from business leadership to wild camping and cycling with children.

Hope you find it interesting and I would love it if it inspired a reader to start a business, get more active or go on an adventure.

Starbucks and all that

I’m not a Starbucks drinker really, I’m an Urban Coffee Co fan, but much of the talk on that particular company (of the three) is very misinformed. Many of the Starbucks shops are paying Corporation Tax as they are franchises ie stand alone businesses, so a boycott...

Science makes God bigger, not smaller

Watching The Big Questions this morning I saw an example, yet again, of a straw man argument being setup to knock down. Their premise was that as science explains more of the vastness of the universe and the detail in the microscopic and sub atomic, that God is...

Language – expression of you

Just finished watching Stephen Fry’s Planet Word. A fascinating and whimsical, as only Stephen Fry can be, tour of language. Incredibly complex, except we learn it without even knowing how. Wouldn’t it be easier if we all spoke the same language? But I was caught by...

Real wealth, certain wealth

“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God.” (2 Timothy 6v17) In light of all the recent news of stock market crashes and credit ratings dropped, this is a...

Journeys of Whimsy – SatNav at its best!

I love driving. I love exploring. For me, the journey can be as important as the destination. Finding places unknown, the hidden gems which you often dash past in the rush to arrive. So where does SatNav come in? If you’re in no hurry to be somewhere just try changing...

The value of life

A weekend of tragedy, in Oslo, for Amy Winehouse and for Africa temporarily forgotten by the media but still suffering more than we can imagine. The unfortunate reality is that with rapid media and fast news churn stories like these will be forgotten almost as quickly...

Does anyone know the value of the world?

Is it me or is something very strange going on? If we seem to be heading to a situation where every country is borrowing money just to pay it’s interest and as each day goes by another country defaults on it’s debts, surely the overall monetary value of the world is...