Senior ecommerce leadership for ambitious outdoor brands.
Fractional and interim Head of Ecommerce support for outdoor, sport and endurance businesses that need stronger commercial ownership of ecommerce, without another permanent senior hire.
Jason Millward. Head of Ecommerce at Naturewall and CafePod, and five years in ecommerce trading at inov-8.
Ecommerce gets harder when nobody owns the whole picture.
Paid media may sit with an agency. CRM with one person. Trading with another. Development has its own roadmap. Everyone is busy, but the commercial priorities are not always clear.
Scale and Summit brings senior ownership across the ecommerce operation, connecting growth, trading, retention, conversion, customer experience and P&L into one commercial view.
More activity is rarely the answer.
Most established ecommerce businesses already have plenty happening. Campaigns, agencies, site changes, CRM, product launches and reporting all compete for attention.
The harder job is deciding what matters commercially, what can wait and who should own the result. Scale and Summit exists to bring that senior judgement into the business.
What senior ownership changes.
- A trading plan and an ecommerce P&L that someone senior answers for
- Acquisition spend judged on what customers are worth over time
- Conversion and retention work ranked by what it is worth commercially
- The team and the agencies briefed against one set of numbers
- Platform and international decisions made before they become expensive
The exact remit depends on the business. The specialists and agencies keep doing the work they are good at. What changes is that one senior person decides what matters, in what order, and holds the result.
Bring in the level of leadership you need.
Three ways in, depending on whether the business needs continuing leadership, cover through a change, or a clear view of the opportunity first.
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Fractional Head of Ecommerce
Ongoing senior ecommerce leadership without the commitment of a permanent hire.
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Interim Head of Ecommerce
Experienced leadership through recruitment, transition or a period of change.
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Ecommerce Growth Review
A focused commercial review to identify where ecommerce performance is leaking and what deserves attention first.
I also take on a small number of focused projects, such as retention and subscription strategy, trading and promotional planning, or international expansion, where senior judgement is more useful than another agency retainer.
Results from roles I held in house.
These come from my own career before Scale and Summit, with my name against the target. They show the operator behind the business. They are not client case studies.
Across those roles the constant was commercial ownership. I held the ecommerce P&L at Naturewall, and I am now Head of Ecommerce at CafePod. I led ecommerce trading at inov-8, built and led teams, and took brands into new international markets.
Each role came down to the same judgement: which few things were worth the most, and in what order.
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£1m
inov-8's first one million pound net trading month, from the Black Friday trading I led.
inov-8, Ecommerce Trading Manager
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56
Countries opened to direct ecommerce through Global-e, with dedicated storefronts in five of them.
inov-8, Ecommerce Trading Manager
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8
People in the ecommerce team I built from scratch, alongside ownership of the P&L.
Naturewall, Head of Ecommerce
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+30%
Revenue year on year, alongside forty-six percent more traffic.
RH Smith and Sons, trading as Smiffys, Ecommerce Manager
Led by someone who has done the job.
I am Jason Millward. My career started in web design and front-end development, then moved through digital strategy and ecommerce trading into Head of Ecommerce roles with responsibility for teams, growth and P&L.
I spent five years inside outdoor brand inov-8, built an eight-person ecommerce team at Naturewall, and am Head of Ecommerce at CafePod.
Outside work I am an ultra runner and the founder of Trail Running Planet. The outdoor specialism comes from being part of the industry and the community, not from choosing a niche from a spreadsheet.
Built for established brands with something to optimise.
Scale and Summit is most useful when ecommerce is already meaningful: there is traffic, data, a team or agency structure, and enough complexity that better decisions create material commercial value.
It is particularly relevant to outdoor, running, hiking, cycling, climbing, camping, technical apparel and adjacent active consumer brands, usually led by a founder, chief executive or commercial director who needs stronger senior ownership of ecommerce.
Need senior ecommerce leadership without another permanent hire?
Tell me what is happening in the business and where ecommerce currently sits. If Scale and Summit is a sensible fit, I will explain how I would approach it. If it is not, I will point you towards what would fit better.