Jonathan Hendry · Commercial leader · Builder
From major procurement decisions to enterprise sales, pricing, margin, growth, and AI-enabled propositions. I’ve bought, sold, negotiated, built teams, fixed commercial systems, and taken new ideas to market.
About
My commercial foundations were forged in hospitality, from prestigious events to Walt Disney World, where standards are visible, service is immediate, and small details have a disproportionate impact on the experience. It taught me early that commercial performance and customer experience are rarely separate problems.
From there, I moved to the buying side, managing significant spend and commercial decisions in foodservice before crossing the table into sales, client leadership, and ultimately company-wide commercial responsibility.
Most recently, as Head of Sales & Client Director at Expression for Growth, I was accountable across a £3m revenue base, leading sales performance, forecasting, pricing, margin, enterprise growth, and commercial planning.
That mix matters. I don’t look at growth purely through a sales lens. I think about what the customer will actually buy, where value is being created, what makes a proposition credible, where margin disappears, and what has to happen operationally to deliver it.
Curiosity is the thread that connects all of it. I tend to question the default, pull apart how something works, and look for a simpler or more commercially useful route. AI is now part of how I work every day: researching, analysing, prototyping, automating, and testing ideas faster. I’m less interested in AI as a label than in what it lets you remove, improve, or do that wasn’t practical before.
Where I add value
Revenue growth, strategic accounts, pricing, forecasting, and commercial leadership, alongside developing the people who have to deliver it. I’ve created mentoring initiatives that strengthened commercial capability, confidence, and progression into management roles.
When growth stalls, margin leaks, the proposition is unclear, or commercial activity isn’t translating into results, I like getting underneath why, challenging the assumptions, and simplifying the route forward.
New proposition, revenue stream, or early-stage idea: get it in front of customers quickly, use AI where it removes labour or accelerates learning, and invest further only when behaviour justifies it.
Selected experience
Delivered 10% revenue growth in a flat market while improving gross margin by 1.5 percentage points.
Expanded the strategic multinational client base from 11 to 15 while maintaining 100% strategic client retention throughout my Client Director tenure.
Introduced stronger pricing discipline, forecasting, client-performance standards, and margin controls while leading the commercial workstream of a CRM and operating-system migration.
Moved an AI-enabled proposition from prototype, through client co-development, and into enterprise pilot with Carlsberg.
Created a multi-location community platform that grew to 3,500+ users and more than 100 events, with partnerships and multiple commercial revenue streams.
Built & building
Some ideas belong inside established businesses. Others are worth backing yourself to explore. These are a few I’ve taken from an initial thought through testing, building, learning, and into the market.
The modern job hunt can be challenging, fragmented, and unclear about what to do next. CV Chaos started as a 60-second game, then evolved into a free practical tool and the online home for my redundancy field guide and job-search resources.
Epic Places Co reflects my passion for travel, culture, and experiencing places properly. It’s a first-person travel project built around journeys, places, and experiences I’d genuinely want to discover myself — with the destination, rather than the creator, as the focus.
A multi-location community platform I built from scratch to 3,500+ users and 100+ events, creating partnerships and multiple commercial revenue streams alongside a full-time career.
Turning a problem into something useful
When I found myself navigating redundancy, I did what I tend to do with messy problems: broke it down, built a system, tested it, and looked for a way to make it useful beyond me.
That process first became CV Chaos and a free job-search check. I then turned the deeper operating system; evidence, positioning, AI, routes to market, pipeline management, interviews, and decision-making, into a practical field guide for other experienced professionals facing the same uncertainty. From problem, to system, to product, to something that can help someone else move forward.
Contact
There are three conversations I’m particularly interested in:
Senior commercial, sales, or growth leadership roles where I can own a meaningful commercial outcome.
A defined growth, proposition, sales, or commercial problem where experienced commercial judgement could help unlock the next move.
Businesses, products, or opportunities where there may be something worth creating, testing, or scaling together.