NatWest Group

Research Consultant

Noggin The Brain People

🧠 Noggin The Brain People 🧠

Sainsbury's Bank

Head of Research, Planning & Brand

Head of Propositions & Innovation

Head of Customer Insight & Innovation

The Marketing Society Scotland

Chair Of Marketing Society Scotland

Heineken UK

Head Of CMI (Consumer & Market Intelligence)

Category Insights Controller

PepsiCo Intl

Consumer Insights For All PepsiCo Portfolio Of Beverage Brands across Western & Eastern Europe

European Consumer & Market Insights Director

PepsiCo

Worked on creating new International Trademarks for PepsiCo to play in exciting growing Asian beverage categories e.g. Healthy Whites (RTD Soymilk/Drinking Yoghurts) in China, India, Vietnam & Thailand.

Asia Regional Innovation Insights Manager

Quorn Foods

Consumer & market insights for the Quorn brand.

Consumer Insight Manager

Procter & Gamble

Consumer & Product Researcher Working In Skin Beauty Care (Oil Of Olay).

Products Research

🧠 Noggin - helping improve the cognitive health of the nation 🧠 | P&G | PepsiCo | Heineken | Sainsbury's |

I have over 25 years of insight, marketing, and innovation leadership experience in FMCG and FS sectors, I know, I don't look THAT old.

I've enjoyed working for some of the world's leading brands in various categories (health & beauty, food & beverages & financial services) and regions, delivering impactful consumer and market intelligence, brand strategy, and product innovation. My time spent working on Oil Of Olay made me my mum's favourite son.

Currently, I'm a research consultant at NatWest Group, where I'm supporting the bank's customer, technology and data-driven approach to enhancing its products and services. 

I'm a co-founder at Noggin The Brain People, on a mission to improve the cognitive health of the nation & founding investor in Gutzy Organic which makes having a healthy, happy gut, fun and easy. Active investor in the technology & health & wellness arena.

I'm a former chair and current fellow of the Marketing Society in Scotland.

Mick Doran

'What we fail to notice quietly shapes what we fail to do.'


My latest What I Underlined book review The Marketing Society Scotland

https://lnkd.in/e8UKwjqZ

#discovery #useyournoggin #marketing

We need to anticipate better.



It was Drucker who said "The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday's logic"

And if we're honest, lots of us are doing just this. 

I have an ask / request .... 

What's shaped your thinking on this?

Books, courses, people to follow, tools you actually use for strategic foresight?

Drop them below. I'll compile everything and share it back.

Thank you in advance, please share as I'd like to get a diverse viewpoint. 🙏🏽


#StrategicForesight #FuturesThinking #UsingYourNoggin

Credibility is overrated. Seriously. 

#nofluff #training #2026goals

If work feels exhausting, it’s probably not because you’re working too hard.


But it might be because your brain never gets to switch off.

Most corporate work doesn’t tire people out with effort.

It tires them out with constant cognition. Think about it ....

Notifications.

Messages.

Decisions that feel almost too small to matter, but never stop coming.

We’ve seem to have built jobs that demand continuous attention without recovery, and then act surprised when people feel drained by mid-afternoon.

Our noggins didn’t evolve for that.

They work best in bursts .... focus, effort, rest, and ready to go again.

Work used to have more boundaries, but now it just leaks into everything.

Somewhere along the way, most also confused being busy with doing good thinking.

Fast replies.

Full calendars.

Visible responsiveness.

But clarity comes from giving the appropriate space to THINKING.

Many organisational systems are optimised for efficiency and scale. Not a bad thing mind.

However, let's not forget that human brains need context, meaning and recovery.

When those don’t line up, the system might keep running but the people absorb the cost.

Which is why so many well intentioned fixes fall flat.

We tell people to be more resilient.

We add wellbeing initiatives on top of overloaded days.

We introduce new tools that promise efficiency and quietly add another layer of 'mental noise'.

The organisations doing better are taking a different approach.

They’re reducing unnecessary decisions.

Protecting thinking time.

Simplifying priorities.

Rewarding clarity, not constant availability.

Because recovery shouldn't be an afterthought.

It’s a performance input really.

so this year, remember this ....

Burnout isn’t normally a failure of people, it’s a failure of systems....

and Tony Schwartz puts it's brilliantly

The no.1 enemy of performance is not stress. It’s the absence of recovery.

Look after your noggin, so it can look after you.

#productivity #useyournoggin #brainhealth #cognition

allpay Limited

Maintained internal Applications designed to handle financial transactions for bespoke products such as a General Spend and Direct Debts, Applications written using Blazor and C#.Net.

Software Developer

LJT Systems LTD

Delivered a MAUI C# (using .NET8.0) Application with a SQL Database back end to support warehouse operations such as picking items(rubber tyres) off a cart and dispatching them for delivery, Location Switching functionality was also possible. 
Developed Software using unstructured approaches and Testing Independently before moving onto live environment.
Developed Code First Service using Entity Framework Core 8.1 with a WEBAPI backend.
Developed a SQL Database using SSDT for tracking transactions and Dispatching. 
Developed a SQL Stored Procedure to report on the numbers of operators using Scanned Devices.
Created processing functionality to process and scan warehouse picks ready for dispatch.
Created a Uitlity to Resolve Internet Connectivity Failures.
Setup OCR Text to support adequate Barcode Scanning.
Developed a Windows background Service to Parse CSV Files via a mapped network drive for processing to be distributed via a Barcode Scanner with over 8 devices.

Senior Software Engineer

Voiceflex

Developed some Azure Functions using C# to help process job queue data to support scaling. 
Utilized Docker to aid development not for just application but also database development.
All backend Services are written in C# using .NET8 EF Core
Developed a Library in C# to help create docker images containers for various dependencies.
Developed and Constructed a powershell utility to support automated dockerisation of V3(API) Services.
Developed a SSDT project to support an azure sql database and an On-Prem TSQL Database. 
Exposed to AAD and OAuth2 based authentication to develop and maintain API services.
Utilized TeamCity for maintenance and development of CI/CD pipelines and roll out staging and production releases.
Tracked Code Changes using GitKraken(GIT).
Developed API functionality against a Message Broker system architecture in RabbitMQ. 
Developed Integration Tests to help integrate microservices and database layers successfully using HttpClient. 
Developed a Proof of concept demonstrating how Machine Learning can be efficiently utilised.
Utilized JIRA boards for sprints and workloads.

Developed and Maintained a SIP RTC based application to support dynamic phone calls.
Troubleshooted various legacy .net applications to gain an understanding of how legacy functionality works and how to replicate using modern structure.
Developed unit tests briefly which enabled development to be carried out using the mediator pattern.
Gained an indepth understanding of how to manipulate unique indexes and how to smartly use them to take away unnecessary application workloads.
Work was carried out using Sprints and delivered stories using the agile methodology.
Utilised GULP and how its build system on the javascript side to support efficent scaffolding.
Discovered and resolved front end memory leaks in javascipt utilizing chrome dev tools.
Performed Front End Roles using PHP/Laravel with a MySQL Backend including developed and tested pages to display data using chart js.

MandM Direct

Exposed to a wide range of technologies and helped maintain and build aspects of internal warehousing system within a range of applications, including legacy and greenfield projects. Learned how to effectively utilize and debug services in GCP Cloud Platform in partcular app engine services. Gained a good understanding of the Angular/Typescript framework and in particular understanding differences between using rx.js and in built framework functionality to resolve common issues such as race conditions. Other Responsibilties include:

Built and Tested(using TDD approaches) App engine services using Pub/Sub and .NET 6 written using C#. Expectations were to raise events and write services to subscribe to them and perform standard behaviour.
Services were written using a Pub/Sub ecosystem in a microservices architecture which consisted of loosely coupled services and communicating with one another using protocols such as HTTP
Learned and utilized distributed databases such as Google Cloud Spanner to perform database operations as well as learned about Command Query Segregation.
Developed and Maintained Angular/Typescript applications by writing existing functionality and writing jasmine tests to complement that functionality.
Developed solutions to various problems in the form of Jira Tickets and publishing code reviews to ensure the reliability and robustness of the solution.
Learned how to use CI platforms such as Bamboo to monitor builds and troubleshoot failing builds using logs and analysis.
Gained more of an appreciation of clean code with design patterns taking a centre stage for that understanding.
effectively learned how to troubleshoot bugs and defects using GCP services such as logging functionality as well as postman, also understanding of the cost implications behind certain areas of implemented code.
Briefly investigated legacy applications which consisted of MVC3 and TSQL components to gain an understanding of the behaviour of backdoor processes.

Premier Software Solutions

Hired as a .net Developer to help develop,maintain, debug and understand t-sql stored procedures using tools such as Sql server managment studio and visual studio. Learned how to effectively debug and identify issues and bugs that occur in database objects such as stored procedures. Gained an understanding of how to use the SQLCLR in order to integrate Assemblies. Gained an efficient understanding of the vue js javascript framework to accomplish front end development and ensure razor views are maintainable in future projects. Other Job Responsibilites Listed Below:

Restructured a .Net Core Web Application to use a web api backend and consuming a microservice architecture
Implemented a sql database project to help publish various versions of a production database and support team collaboration
Maintained and Understood a windows forms application architecture, to use in other areas such as the web application and gained an appreciation of the model view presenter convention
Implemented reusable vue components to be used across different projects by using a wide range of vue concepts such as the Two Way Binding, emitting events, parent and child component communication and watcher methods
Actively worked on Software support tickets to identify bugs and resolve them using a waterfall like approach to move the ticket into peer review and later testing.
Actively used Jenkins to monitor and trigger Application Builds as well as Jira for tracking bugs and work items.

Software Engineer

Technology Management (Midlands) Ltd

Hired as a junior .NET developer to help develop, maintain and test web applications using tools such as selenium for front end web ui testing. Learned how to integrate and utilize unity and IoC concepts to ensure a code base is unit testable and maintable throughout the application lifecycle. Learned how to develop code using the Xamarin Framework and implementing code which does not have a negative impact on the UI Thread to enhance the user experience of the application. Other Job Responsibilities Include:
UI Testing for Xamarin Front End applications for automated testing.
Implemented and Assembled Continuous Integrations Pipelines using Azure DevOps for Xamarin forms and Asp.Net Applications.
Utilizing Azure Functions for performing proof of concepts to help schedule jobs for performing tasks such as removing duplicate images from a customers live server.
Adding Dynamic Sql queries to generate CRM Reports aid reportability on a customers sales figures.
Helped Build an Automated Test Web Service which would obtain data from Microsoft Dynamics NAV to push into a web application for testing.
Ability to Efficiently use docker to help build images by writing docker files to help build base images for specific applications to help ease of setup and ensure effortless development.
Gained a clear and thorough understanding on a multi-tiered architecture and how to utilize separation of concerns to help aid unit testing and help with scaling out an application.
Understanding of objects being created on the stack and Heap when instantiating classes and structs.
Usage of Lambda Expressions in LINQ Queries to make queries readable.
Attaching visual studio remote debugger when troubleshooting websites.
Writing Unit Tests that follow triple a pattern and SOLID convention.
Guarding against Sql Zombie Transactions.
Writing C# Interfaces to support unit testing and reusability.
Re-developed a Web Api Gateway to host in an azure app service/azure function.

Dotnet Developer

Friend Media Technology Systems Ltd.

Operations Analyst

HESA: Higher Education Statistics Agency

Exposed to a wide variety of legacy systems written in classic asp as well as .net based applications. Gained an appreciation of the SOLID design principle which provided a good foundation to implement a 1st line win forms application for a final year university project

taplio

The Battle

Mick Doran

Akash Paul

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreMick Doran's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Mick Doran

Akash Paul

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Mick Doran's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreMick Doran's LinkedIn Performance