Portfolio Chair & NED for SMEs. Professionally qualified Non-Executive Director, Certified Chair, and Managing Director of MAXFR — a board, strategy and management consultancy supporting high-growth and impact-led ventures.
Max became chief executive of a £10m+ design and manufacturing business at twenty-seven, leading more than a hundred staff within a multinational group. The years since have been spent applying what that teaches — about cash, people, customers and pressure — to other people's boardrooms: advising and serving boards across the manufacturing, services, B2C, IT, design, construction and investment sectors, strengthening governance, structure and strategy for founders and investors.
Today he holds a deliberately small portfolio. He serves as Non-Executive Chair of MW Equipment, a machinery manufacturer designing innovative products for the construction and site-work industries, and as Advisory Chair of Unsigned Research, a proprietary trading firm specialising in medium-frequency, systematic strategies in the digital-asset markets — alongside leading MAXFR's chair, NED and advisory engagements.
The throughline is practical, results-driven governance: helping boards build clarity, discipline and scale — combining hands-on operational experience with forward-thinking board leadership and a working command of digital, e-commerce and AI.
Non-Executive Chair of a UK machinery manufacturer building excavator-compatible site equipment for construction and site work. Governance for a business that makes real things.
Advisory Chair of a proprietary trading firm running medium-frequency, systematic strategies in digital-asset markets — where models, risk and governance meet daily.
The consultancy itself: chair, NED and advisory engagements for SMEs and startups, plus the network of specialist non-executives behind them.
| Role | Organisation | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Non-Executive Chair | MW Equipment Ltd — machinery manufacturing for construction & site work | 2026 – |
| Advisory Chair | Unsigned Research — systematic strategies in digital-asset markets | 2025 – |
| Managing Director | MAXFR — board, strategy & management consultancy | 2022 – |
| Head of Strategic Development | Huckleberry Home — handcrafted furniture | 2024 – 25 |
| Board Member | Hook Norton Community Land Trust — affordable community housing | 2023 – 24 |
| Board Member | Hook Norton Low Carbon — community energy, transport & housing | 2023 – 24 |
| Commercial Director | Natalia Miyar Atelier — luxury interior design | 2023 – 24 |
| Commercial Director | Finite IT — IT hardware, software & maintenance | 2023 |
| GM, then COO | Create Equity — social-enterprise investment fund | 2021 – 23 |
| CEO | Plain English Design — £10m+ design & UK manufacturing, multinational group | 2018 – 23 |
| Managing Director | British Standard by Plain English — e-commerce & UK lean manufacturing | 2016 – 23 |
| CEO & Co-Founder | BlockSmith Capital — blockchain research, investment & analytics | 2018 – 22 |
A career across the executive seat, the investor side and the board itself — including community and impact organisations, where governance is done for its own sake.
Board roles carry legal duty and other people's livelihoods. The training and the professional communities are treated accordingly.
Max engages actively across a broad range of learned societies and professional networks — international, national and local — uniting governance, the humanities and science in what he calls a "Modern Enlightenment" approach to leadership: lifelong learning and serious CPD treated not as compliance, but as the job.
It shows up in the work. Philosophy and economics at LSE trained the habit of asking what a claim would have to be true to mean; running a manufacturer trained the habit of checking. An avid reader and reflective thinker, Max's professional interests centre on design, sustainability and technology as drivers of cultural and organisational evolution — which is, in the end, what a good board exists to steward.
The practical promise to clients is simpler: a chair who keeps learning is a chair whose questions stay sharp.
Five questions if you want structure. One email if you'd rather talk. Either way, a straight answer about what your board needs.