Ben Stevenson
Strategic Advisor & Commercial Film Director
I help excellence-driven founders cut through strategic complexity to unlock growth. Fast.
When you're stuck between too many opportunities or paralyzed by competing priorities, I find the strategic unlock: the insight that makes your path suddenly obvious and gives your team clarity to execute.I design rapid experiments to validate what matters, build frameworks that create alignment without killing autonomy, and translate ambiguous challenges into clear operational direction.I work best with leaders who value deep thinking at high speed, bold moves over safe consensus, and frameworks that turn insight into momentum.
How I work
Every engagement starts with understanding where you're stuck, not with a predetermined framework.
Discover - Rapid interviews, founder sessions, market reality checks
Define - Strategic experiments, decision frameworks, growth hypotheses
Decide - Strategic experiments, decision frameworks, growth hypotheses
Typical timeline 1–4 weeks. Remote or in person.
Ways to engage
Strategic Clarity Sprint
Cut through competing priorities to find your decisive next move. Rapid diagnosis, strategic experiments, clear direction.
Growth Unlock Sessions
Stuck on a specific strategic decision? Focused sessions to find the insight that makes your path obvious.
Narrative & Positioning
Define the story that explains why you exist, what you stand for, and why anyone should care. Brand truth, positioning, messaging frameworks.
Founder Advisory
Ongoing strategic partnership for founders who need an outside brain for high-stakes decisions.
In Parallel: Commercial Film Direction
For 20+ years, I've directed cinematic documentary-style campaigns for global brands including Amazon, Tesco, and ExxonMobil across 50+ countries.I specialise in real people and authentic stories that connect on a human level. As founder of What Just Happened, I produce films end-to-end for brands looking to work directly.Both practices stem from the same skill: finding human truth that cuts through complexity and translating it into clarity that moves people to act.
Selected work
Persona Design
Strategic repositioning of an AI platform
Worked with the founding team to pivot from creative tool to strategic platform solving real business needs. Defined new value narrative and go-to-market positioning.
OUTBOUND
Purpose-driven brand strategy
Built a why-led narrative around making parcel sending frictionless for people whose days are disrupted by dispatch. Connected product convenience to human relief.
L.E.J
Founder narrative & values framework
Led a purpose discovery sprint to articulate the founder's core belief and translate it into marketing, partnerships and communications strategy.
About
I partner with excellence-driven founders and leadership teams to find the strategic unlock that makes growth suddenly obvious.My background includes founding and running a commercial film production company for over a decade, directing campaigns globally, and working inside the ambiguity of early-stage ventures. I've learned that whether you're stuck on strategy or story, the answer lives in the same place: human truth translated into clarity that creates action.I bring: 20+ years extracting insight from complexity, a bias toward rapid experimentation over endless analysis, and frameworks that create alignment without killing autonomy.
Contact
If you need strategic clarity or compelling film direction, let's talk.
