Open to new opportunities

Lee Brown

I build |

Operational transformation leader. 15+ years across the RAF, startups, and global enterprise — building the systems that make organisations actually work.

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Lee Brown
$15M+
Projected savings identified via hands-on asset tagging pilot at IWG
40%
Data duplication removed — 11,000 product lines consolidated to 2,500
75%
Strategic initiative completion rate across 50+ programmes at VeUP
$50k
Monthly AWS savings unlocked via Cloud Operations Competency
2mo
MENA expansion — entities in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh established from scratch
12k+
Assets personally tagged across London offices to validate a business case
90%
Internal buy-in achieved rescuing a failing internal platform at VeUP
10yr
Royal Air Force career — operational tours, leadership, pressure

Career

Not a straight line.
A deliberate one.

From military service to startups to global enterprise — every move was about finding harder problems to solve.

2025 — Present
Global Implementation Manager
IWG · London
Leading Project BuildOS — a formal Business Transformation Programme and the operating system for IWG Design & Construction. Authored the RFP to Notion for its design and build. The system replaces 74+ individual spreadsheets, email chains, PowerPoint catalogue decks, and Kahua (IWG's construction PM tool) with a single governed Notion platform across seven pillars: People, Product, Process, Platform, Partnerships, Prices, and Performance — managing 10–50 active fit-out projects across 120+ countries in one connected system. Also delivered CleanList+, consolidating 11,000+ product lines across 74 spreadsheets into 2,500 clean, validated catalogue entries. Built the $15M+ asset tagging business case through a hands-on pilot — tagging 12,000+ assets personally to find what the consultants missed.
Systems DesignProcurement OpsNotionVendor StrategyData Governance
2023 — 2024
PMO Lead — Strategy Office
VeUP · London
Founded the internal Strategy Office from scratch. Coordinated 50+ strategic initiatives in six months (75% completion rate), launched MENA expansion in two months, delivered SOC2 Type-1 certification independently, doubled the AWS technical discount ($50k+/month savings), and rescued a failing internal platform to 90% internal buy-in.
PMOSOC2MENA ExpansionAWSChange Management
2021 — 2023
Head of Operations
HELPFUL · London
Joined as Project Manager to launch a sustainable debit card. Built into Head of Operations — managing operational P&L, establishing a Mastercard partnership, building a pan-European development team, and delivering two products to market. The role that taught me the most: two founders who were humble, genuinely trusted me from day one, and showed me what good leadership actually looks like.
OperationsProduct LaunchFintechP&L
2017 — 2020
Implementation Specialist → Project Officer
Impellam Group · London
First commercial role after the military. Implemented Salesforce CRM across multiple recruitment brands — physically embedded with the people doing the work. Quickly learned that management's view of how things should work and how they actually get done are rarely the same thing. That lesson has shaped everything since.
SalesforceCRMImplementationRecruitment
2006 — 2017
Various Roles
Royal Air Force, HM Forces
10 years of military service including multiple operational tours overseas. The discipline, standards, and pressure tolerance I built here underpin everything I do now. I dealt with situations as a young man that were more intense than anything the commercial world has thrown at me since — which makes context of a lot of things that others find stressful.
LeadershipOperationsTraining DeliveryPressure

How I work

Principles, not policies.

The things that don't change regardless of industry, company, or job title.

🎯
Outcomes over outputs
Not how many meetings happened or documents were produced. The only question that matters: what actually changed? Every piece of work gets evaluated through that lens.
🔧
Show, don't tell
Most people in transformation think you can tell people how to get out of a problem. I think you have to show them. That's why I tagged 12,000 assets myself rather than delegating it.
⚡
Reality before ideology
Theory has to survive contact with reality. I distrust frameworks that haven't been tested, strategies that look good on slides but fall apart on the ground, and consultants who haven't done the work.
🧠
Simplicity is the work
Anyone can make something complex. Making it genuinely simple — in a way people actually use — is the hard part. That's where I spend most of my time.
🤝
Trust, not control
Micromanagement signals poor hiring, poor communication, or ego. Hire capable people, give them clear direction, and trust them to get there. That's the only leadership approach that scales.
📈
Always improving
I'm obsessed with being a better version tomorrow than I am today. Not from insecurity — from a genuine belief that the work of becoming is never finished. That applies to the job, the leadership, and the person.

Ask Lee

Skip the small talk.

This chatbot answers from 100 questions I've worked through. Ask me about my career, how I work, what I think, or anything you'd normally ask in an interview.

LB
Lee Brown
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LB
Hi — ask me about my career, how I approach transformation, what I think about AI, or anything else you'd ask in an interview. I'll give you a straight answer.
What is BuildOS?
Why did you leave the RAF?
What's your leadership style?
How do you use AI?
What are you looking for next?
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