Thirty years running businesses.
Now I help you run yours.

Richard Brooks. Consultant, builder, teacher. I work on sales, marketing and key account management, and I build AI that creates value for your customers, not just your slide decks.

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Cranfield Visiting FellowAuthorKeynote speakerAI builderBoard advisor

Advise

Fractional C-suite roles, advisory work, and coaching for people newly in a big job. Day rate or longer commitment.

Build

Bespoke AI built into your systems, a straight answer to “how can I use AI?”, and ongoing counsel in a fast-moving field.

Teach and speak

Cranfield's KAM programme, in-company training, AI masterclasses for exec teams, and keynotes from Rio to Manchester.

Advise

Some problems need advice. Others need someone in the seat, driving the solution. I do both: a day rate for a targeted piece of work, or an embedded fractional CMO or CRO role when the task is more complex. I've carried revenue and pipeline numbers in several businesses, so the work is commercial from the first hour: aligning the go-to-market team, tightening the customer value proposition, owning the number rather than handing over a strategy deck.

And I coach, one to one and discreetly: this is usually a leader in their first quarters of a high-stakes job, when everything is urgent, the scrutiny is intense, and unfiltered feedback is hard to find inside the company. I'm the independent sounding board for the decisions that can't be pressure-tested in the boardroom.

Build

“How can I use AI in my business?” Leaders I meet are carrying that question around; the answer starts with your process, not the technology. I've run these functions myself, so I look where an operator looks: find where the work slows down, fix that, then build the tool. Bespoke AI, built into your systems; not generic software forced onto a team.

Much of this is connected intelligence: agents that watch your market overnight, a custom wiki that becomes the team's second brain, and a readable dashboard in front of your sales team each morning. I've done this several times now; seven systems are live today.

Because AI moves faster than anyone with a real job can track, some clients keep me on after the build: the person who watches what's changing, filters the hype, and says which of it deserves your attention. A chief AI officer, without the headcount.

Teach and speak

I'm a Visiting Fellow at Cranfield, where I teach on the KAM Best Practice programme, and I run in-company workshops on sales leadership, key account growth, marketing strategy and commercial finance. Executive masterclasses on practical AI are the most requested at the moment.

On stage: memoQfest, SlatorCon, BLISS in Rio, the ATC in Manchester, and ELIA and ALC events across Europe and the Americas. Plenty of in-company rooms too, which nobody live-tweets. I've also organised events for the ALC and Cranfield, so I know both sides of the lectern. Every talk is built on first-hand lessons from running companies, which turns out to be rarer on a conference stage than it should be.

Live AI builds
7 and counting
A client, unprompted
“Reflected in our bottom line”
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Richard Brooks

Richard Brooks

I've spent my career running things. Manufacturing first, then technology, then an international agency that took me all over the world. I've been CEO, CFO, CRO and CMO. A Cranfield MBA along the way. I've completed a buyout of my own, been involved in several others on both sides, and put my own money into turnarounds.

The work now is broad and international: FTSE 100 accounts and ten-person teams, teaching at Cranfield, and management programmes I built myself. Author of AI Strategy for Sales Teams and Creating Customer Value Propositions with AI.

I teach from experience, not the handbook.

If any of this sounds like it'll help, write to me.

I reply to everything that isn't selling me something.

richard@brxconsults.comor find me on LinkedIn