Ben Perreau

Applied Humanity Inc.

We're changing the way that humans lead through science-backed AI.

Building Parafoil ✨

Google, BBC, NBC Universal, Pottermore (J.K. Rowling), The Daily Telegraph, Paypal.

- CxO advisory, vision and strategy
- Product strategy and development, go-to-market
- Organizational and digital transformation, innovation, business strategy, content, growth, development and culture change

Product and Strategy Consultant

SYPartners

SYPartners is the consulting firm started by early Apple employees that works alongside the world's leading CEOs, leaders and their teams to use systems, product and design thinking to set purpose, vision and strategy, build the culture required to deliver, and design the experiences that bring these ambitions to life.

- Product and Portfolio Strategy
- New Product Development
- Vision and Strategy
- CEO Advisory
- Culture and Operating Model
- Leadership Alignment

From Fortune 50 to venture backed startups. Clients included some of the world’s largest tech companies, consumer brands, fintech companies, banks and healthcare.

Principal

Strategy Director / Engagement Leader - Management Consultant

Synkio

A two-sided software marketplace for Music Licensing used by agencies, film-makers and producers around the world.

- Product Lead / Organizational Leadership of a startup from zero to profit
- Fundraising and Board/Advisor development

Founder & CEO

Product Lead (fixed term) on special projects for BBC News, Television and Radio.

- Leadership
- Growth
- Social Media
- Content and Editorial
- Strategy
- Engagement
- New Product Development
- Recruitment

Product Management Lead

Global

Global Radio, owner of Capital FM, Heart, Classic FM, XFM, LBC, Choice FM and Gold is the UK's number one commercial radio business.
 
- Leader of a cross-functional (Product, Content, Data, Marketing, Engineering) organization and P&L consisting of 60+ people. Matrix of 150+ across the country.
- Product Strategy. Create and explore opportunity and execute digital strategy across multiple platforms (Web, Mobile, TV, Radio etc).
- Editorial Director. Operational leadership of each brand team.
- High growth digital products.
- Social Media, Editorial, Product & Proposition.

- Top 10 Music App (Capital FM) and Top 5 Social Media Brands in the UK (CapitalFM.com).
- Launch of CapitalFM.com, Heart.co.uk and ClassicFM.com.

Director of Digital Content / Acting Dir. of Digital (SVP, Digital)—UK’s #1 Audio Co.

Various - The Guardian, The Independent, Wired Magazine, The South China Morning Post, The Times etc

Journalist/Writer for various newspapers & periodicals.

Journalist/Writer

Gigulate

Gigulate used natural language processing and machine learning to find, aggregate and make meaning from content in order to build a new homepage for every topic, in real time.

- Product management, vision and strategy
- Fundraising
- Go-to-market
- SEO

Founder / CEO & Product Lead - ML news product

Strategy, Product and Content at Europe's leading entertainment company. Fast and efficient development, launch and ongoing management of Sky's digital brands whilst providing general product/content consultancy and innovation across the business.

- Product/Proposition Development
- Product & editorial strategy & Leadership
- Leadership, coaching and development
- Budgetary responsibility
- Content commissioning
- Subscription Business

Product & Strategy Lead

End to end redevelopment, to envision and build the world's biggest music website.

- Product Vision and Strategy
- Product Development
- Digital Transformation
- Editorial & Content
- Go-to-market
- SEO
- Data, analytics and product insights
- User experience design

Lead two editorial teams through the redevelopment, relaunch, growth and day-to-day running of both NME and Uncut magazine's digital businesses primarily in the form of NME.COM and uncut.co.uk.

Projects included digital development of the NME Awards, the summer festival season (Glastonbury, Coachella), Club NME, NME Tours, NME's expansion into the USA and key innovations across IPC's music businesses.
Launch Editor for other brand extensions, including NME Mobile, NME Radio and R&D/Strategy for music and non-music projects across the business.
Key brand representative within the music industry and media; speaking appearances at both publishing, music and web industry conferences.

Product & Editorial Lead

Building something new ✨ | Product Management Leader | General Manager | Founder

Hi, I’m Ben. I’m a left and right-brained founder, general manager, product management leader, and business strategist with proven international experience at startups, scale-ups, and multinational corporations.

My background includes 0-1 entrepreneurship (I enjoy doing what needs to be done, whether it’s the work deep in the weeds or shaping vision and strategy), product management, operations, and strategy alongside Fortune 50 CxOs. I’ve led the development of new products, shaped vision, strategy, culture, go-to-market, and spearheaded large-scale organizational change projects.

I began my career as a journalist, which set me up well for the majority of my career—building cross-functional teams of product managers, engineers, designers, and more. Before I embarked on this latest adventure, I spent 7 years at SYPartners, where I worked with some of the world’s greatest CxOs to help them shape their organizations for the future.

Over the years, I’ve developed a deep passion for leadership and organizational development. I’ve guided teams through significant transformations, focusing on empowering individuals, fostering innovation, and leading with empathy. My approach combines strategic vision with a human-centered focus, ensuring that leadership and management practices drive both business success and team fulfillment.

Specialties / buzzword bingo words include: Product management, vision and strategy, operational leadership, change, scale-up and 0-1 projects, organizational & digital transformation, P&L and general management, culture, content, data and insights, user experience design, go-to-market, and leadership development.

Don’t let the serious face put you off, I’ve been told I’m fun to work with. If you’ve got this far, you might as well find out :)

Dear HR: Brace yourself. There’s a leadership crisis coming your way.

Managers are being given larger teams and (as HR well knows) there are plenty of “accidental managers” who were never properly trained. They’re making it up.

As companies de-layer, the scaffolding of middle-management drops away, and those gaps in leadership will widen. Meanwhile, many green managers will default to the “player-coach” role. They’ll give up on real leadership and try to do the work themselves. A toxic result.

We need a new playbook. Another leadership workshop isn’t going to cut it.

What we need from HR is a scalable, data-driven system for real leadership development. No more team-building theater. No more sticky-note brainstorms. We need something far more concrete.

For starters: HR can bake micro-learning and just-in-time advice into the workday of every manager. We also need vibrant peer networks where human wisdom is shared on the daily.

HR, you’ve got a crucial role to play: you’ll be defining and supporting a whole new class of leader.

Sincerely, a reformed Accidental Manager

Building Parafoil — Leadership Intelligence powered by AI and cognitive science | Founder & CEO | ex-SYPartners, NME, BBC, Sky

Every time I open my feed, there’s another cynic rolling their eyes at startups—especially the ones building with AI. And I get it: for years I worked as a music journalist. It was my job to assess, to critique, sometimes to add a little snark.

Criticism has a role to play. But there’s a gulf between commenting and doing. I keep thinking of that Teddy Roosevelt line: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”

Today, the “arena” is starting something new—often using the rapid advancements in AI—where risk-taking, imperfection, and even failure are necessary parts of genuine progress.

I’ve stepped into the arena three times. I know how humbling a startup can be. So when researchers at MIT suggested most generative AI pilots are failing, I was actually inspired. The real story isn’t the failure; it’s the doing. Besides, we all know those failures are usually about readiness. Culture and adoption are where most new technologies falter, not the tech itself.

I thought about all those teams jumping into the arena, trying something out when the ROI was far from guaranteed.

Still, the armchair critics went off.

There’s another MIT study they might want to consider: researchers found companies that experiment outperform those that stay in “planning” mode and refuse to try something new.

The cynics think “daring greatly” is about running toward failure. Those of us in the arena know it’s about refusing to let failure stop you on the way to a win. I admire anybody who’s willing to put down the megaphone and roll up their sleeves.

I’ve worked with some of the world’s greatest leaders. After studying them for decades, I realized… none of these bosses are bossy. Instead, they have the mindset more akin to a coach.

Failing managers think it’s their job to enforce compliance, shout about shortcomings, and bully results out of you. Emperor Palpatine vibes.

We all know that Yoda—a consummate coach and teacher—is more effective in the end. But new managers often forget that their core job is to develop talent, to grow capacity, and not just to squeeze employees for short-term output.
Gallup consistently finds that “command-and-control” styles are failing—and AI will only accelerate that collapse.

Dark-side choke-holds won’t make AI finish tasks any faster, for starters. And, meanwhile, humans are remaking their roles to emphasize traits like creativity and problem-solving, traits that respond best to mentoring.

Long story short: the future doesn’t need bosses nearly as much as it needs coaches.

In the day-to-day that means:
- Ongoing and approachable conversations about performance
- Custom-made maps for individual development
- Prioritizing trust over authority, every time
- Bosses dominate you. Coaches elevate you.

The difference matters more now than ever: AI is forcing us to evolve. And only the Yodas can guide that evolution.

Admit it.

Most companies treat mission or purpose statements as a branding exercise. And guess what? We don’t believe them. What’s worse, those inauthentic missions offer their employees no direction.

And then there are rare gems like Yvon Chouinard—the founder of Patagonia, who turns 87 today.

Chouinard delivered a mantra that mattered. “We’re in business to save our home planet.” And then he did something radical. He acted as though he meant it.

Remember the “Don’t Buy This Jacket” campaign? On Black Friday, 2011, Patagonia ran a full-page ad in The New York Times asking readers to stop shopping.

The message was clear: Patagonia is the opposite of fast fashion. If you must buy something, buy a durable product that leads to less shopping in the long run.

A decade later, Chouinard transferred ownership of Patagonia to a nonprofit so that Mother Nature could be the only shareholder. He’s consistent with his mission no matter the personal cost.

How many founders can say that?

As a birthday nod to Chouinard, I’m encouraging every leader to ask themselves: Is my mission truly non-negotiable?

Do you pass the Patagonia Test?

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