David McQueen

Better decisions
create better
options.

Advisory, speaking, and leadership development for CEOs and founder-owners navigating the decisions that shape what happens next.

David McQueen

Advisory clients include CEOs and founder-owners navigating scale decisions, capital events, and ownership transition at organisations from £10m to £250m+

  • BBC
  • Google
  • HSBC
  • Linklaters
  • Mercedes
  • Channel 4
  • Meta
  • Lloyds Bank
  • Bloomberg
  • BMW
  • Sky
  • Shopify
  • BNP Paribas
  • Accenture
  • Soho House
  • Octopus Energy
  • Aviva
  • Société Générale
  • Fidelity
  • Tate & Lyle
  • Virgin StartUp
  • Northern Trust
  • Crédit Agricole
  • Investec
  • Barclaycard
  • Barnardo's
  • RBS
  • Tokyo Marine Kiln
  • Octavia Housing
  • Oliver

We closed the round three months after David helped us reframe what we were actually selling to investors. He saw the gap between our narrative and our numbers before we did.

Founder-CEO, B2B SaaS, Series B raise

The board conversation we had been avoiding for two years happened in week three. Having an independent mind in the room changed what was possible to say.

MD, family-owned professional services firm, succession

I came in thinking our issue was around growth, David helped us to see it was about fixing our decision making framework. That reframe was worth more than any strategy document.

CEO, £80m energy business, scaling
"The quality of the
decision is the quality
of the outcome."
The Work

David McQueen works with CEOs and founder-owners on the decisions that shape the future of their organisations. The work spans three areas: advisory, speaking, and leadership development. All grounded in a single conviction: better decisions create better options.

He is the author of The BRAVE Leader and the creator of the BRAVE framework: a body of thinking on how leaders decide well when the stakes are high.

Focus Consequential decisions in scaling, capital, and succession
Clients CEOs and founder-owners, early-scale to pre-exit
Sectors Financial services, technology, consumer, professional services, third sector
Framework The BRAVE Leader: Bold, Resilient, Agile, Visionary, Ethical
David McQueen speaking
Speaking

Frameworks that stay in the room
long after the session ends.

Speaking overview →
B Bold
R Resilient
A Agile
V Visionary
E Ethical
Advisory

When the decision
matters too much
to navigate alone.

Most relationships begin in a room: a roundtable or mastermind. From there, the typical path is a Decision Review: a fixed-scope, three-week diagnostic that produces a written brief on the decision in front of you and a clear view of whether sustained advisory is the right next step.

Retained advisory follows for those where the fit is right. Three territories: scaling, capital, or succession.

Decision Review from £5,500 · Retained advisory from £4,500 per month

Scaling

For founders and CEOs navigating the decisions that determine whether growth compounds or stalls.

Capital

For leaders raising, deploying, or returning capital: and the conversations that precede each.

Succession

For boards and founders navigating transition: from family business to institutional, from founder to professional management.

The Book

The BRAVE
Leader.

A study of what leadership requires when certainty disappears, and the five characteristics that allow leaders to navigate complexity with clarity: Bold, Resilient, Agile, Visionary, Ethical.

The Quiet Work

Essays on leadership,
decisions, courage,
power, and legacy.

The Quiet Work is where the thinking behind the advisory and speaking work is made available. Published on Substack. Occasional. Worth the wait.

Start a Conversation

What are you
really deciding?

If you are navigating a decision that matters: in your organisation, your leadership, or your own thinking. That is where this work begins. Not a sales call. A diagnostic conversation.

Start a Conversation