45 Years. Six Businesses. 800 Meetings.

Bob Bradley has led six companies, including three with 100+ staff, and facilitated over 800 confidential peer group workshops, helping more than 300 SME leaders navigate high-stakes decisions.

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I've Led from the Front

Across six businesses — from startups to scale-ups, boards and advisory — I've navigated cash flow, growth, culture and delivery. I don't just talk the talk. I've done the hard work with the full stack and brought big outcomes.

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I've Listened Behind Closed Doors

One‑to‑one work with operational leaders has surfaced patterns that most teams never voice. I bring that context — and practical moves — to your unique situation.

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I Share What Actually Works

Simple, tested frameworks that reduce friction, improve cadence and create space for strategic work — not theoretical models, but tools leaders actually use.

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Experience, ideas and track record

About Bob Bradley

Bob Bradley is a UK business coach, mentor, workshop facilitator, speaker, stage interviewer and author. He works with leaders of adolescent businesses: companies of roughly 50 to 500 staff that have outgrown startup habits but not yet built mature structure. His tagline: Provoke Thought. Motivate Action.

Quick facts

Full name	Bob Bradley
Trading names	bobbradley.co.uk, Bob On Business (BobOnBusiness.co.uk)
Based	Witney, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
Services	Business coaching and mentoring, workshop and awayday facilitation, keynote speaking, stage interviewing
Client profile	MDs, CEOs, founders and owners of commercial businesses, typically 50 to 500 staff
Businesses led	Six, as GM, MD or CEO; three with 100+ staff and revenues up to £50M
Peer group meetings	800+, with 300+ different business leaders (MD2MD, 2004 to 2022)
Boards served	21 (10 commercial, 11 not-for-profit)
Education	BSc (Eng) First Class Honours, Imperial College London; MBA, Cranfield School of Management
First session	Free, and not a pitch session

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What Bob does

Coaching and mentoring. One-to-one work with operational business leaders. Bob works as a peer sharing what he learned from painful and successful experience, without a sales agenda.
Workshops and awaydays. Board and leadership team facilitation covering strategy, team performance and growth.
Speaking. A toolkit speaker, not a motivational one: practical tools rather than abstract theory.
Stage interviewing. Drawing out what business leaders have learned, for the benefit of the audience.
Author. A prolific author with hundreds of posts published through LinkedIn newsletters and Substack, Bob has also written numerous eBooks, published two books of tips for business leaders and contributed a chapter to the Global Speakers Federation book Expert Insights into Leadership.

The four ideas Bob is known for

Adolescent business. The stage between startup and corporate, roughly 50 to 500 staff, where founder-led habits stop scaling.
Growth plateau. The point where a previously fast-growing business flattens despite the leader working harder than ever.
Accidental business leader. Someone running a whole business because they were brilliant at something else. Nobody taught them the top job.
Entrepreneur Syndrome. The behaviours that made the leader successful at startup are the same behaviours capping the business at scale.

Track record

Led six businesses as General Manager, Managing Director or Chief Executive. Owned two.
Three of the six had revenues up to £50M and 100+ staff. In each case he was appointed to address declining or slowing revenues and restore growth: one corporate subsidiary, one AIM listed, one family business.
Led business integrations following six mergers. Completed two acquisitions from inception to completion as Chief Executive.
Founded and ran MD2MD, the peer group organisation for MDs and CEOs, from 2004 to 2022. Facilitated over 800 confidential meetings and hosted more than 500 workshops with over 200 professional speakers.
Served on 21 boards across commercial and not-for-profit sectors. Created and chaired three trusts, including an employee ownership trust.
Currently Chair of Cogges Heritage Enterprises and a trustee of Cogges Heritage Trust.

See what clients say on LinkedIn and below.

Books

Play Your Business Leadership Cards Right, Deck 1 52 Thoughts, Tips and Tools to Lead and Grow Your Business View on Amazon

Play Your Cards Right in Your Critical First 100 Days as a Business Leader Early wins, clarity and rhythm for new business leaders View on Amazon Global Voices Shaping the Future (Chapter 4) Contributing author — Expert Insights into Leadership, Teams, and Future Readiness View on Amazon

See all titles on Bob Bradley’s Amazon author page, or explore the Books page for previews and free downloads.

Underneath the CV

The person behind the business leader

Bob showed his colours as a leader early: starting a school tuck shop whose cash-and-carry runs filled the minibus, and later as the most senior non-sabbatical student leader sitting alongside the great and good on the governing body at Imperial College. He later gave up a corporate career with Accenture to join a 20-person typewriter sales business in his home town, a deliberate swerve that shaped everything since.

Away from work, you will usually find him with his family, travelling the world or swimming, often in open, wild and cold water. He even holds a Guinness World Record as an ice mile swimmer. Read the fuller story on Bob’s Substack.