Who owns the margin when software starts doing the work?
This is the third repricing of software I have worked through: licences became subscriptions, value was packaged into seats, and seats are now becoming work. 20+ years building and running the commercial systems on both sides of those shifts, across fintech, capital markets and B2B software.
Not model selection. Not technology consulting. Senior operator work for CEOs, CFOs, CROs and boards deciding what software may do, how it should be priced, and how it should be controlled.
Traditional software sells access to people. When software executes the work, commercial value moves toward whoever controls its identity, authority, limits, evidence and ability to be stopped.
I help software companies, boards and investors decide which work AI should perform, how to charge for it, and what rules must exist before software is allowed to act, then turn those decisions into pricing, controls and a practical 90-day execution plan.
When software starts doing the work, three things change.
Pricing changes
Traditional software is priced by user or licence. When software performs the work itself, charging by human seat may stop matching the value delivered. Pricing needs redesigning before customer seat counts begin to fall.
Authority changes
A tool waits for a person to act. Software agents can create records, contact customers, trigger payments and commit spending without waiting for anyone. Companies must decide where human approval is still required.
Margin changes
The strongest position may no longer belong to the company with the best interface. Value moves toward whoever controls the workflow, the permission layer and the evidence of what happened.
Every layer agents need is a place someone can charge rent.
The Agentic Margin Audit
Four weeks to map where agents change pricing, permissions and margin. A fixed-scope diagnostic for the CEO, CFO and board. The work is not to predict the future of AI. It is to identify which workflows change first, where pricing breaks, and what authority must exist before software can act.
Seven questions it answers
What the board receives
Engagements start with a conversation, not a form.
Book a working session →The centre of gravity is capital markets and fintech. The question is arriving everywhere.
Fintech and payments
Agents need identity, spend authority, settlement and compliance before they can transact. The question: who grants authority, which flows need new rails, and where the margin pools. This is home turf: brokerage, trading infrastructure, payments and market data.
ERP and vertical software
ERP remains the system of record; agents become the operating surface. The commercial question: what is priced by user, what is priced by work, and what must be governed before software can create vendors, purchase orders or invoices.
PE-backed software portfolios
Agents will expose which portfolio companies still price by access while value moves to work. The question: where seat models are exposed, which companies face usage-cost leakage, and which need a control layer first.
How RM Advisory works
What the work looks like in practice
Three ways RM Advisory helps.
The audit is the sharpest expression of a broader practice: commercial leadership and revenue systems that hold up when the business model changes.
Agentic Margin Audit
A four-week, fixed-scope diagnostic for the CEO, CFO and board. It maps which workflows agents will execute first, where pricing moves from seats to work, where spending can scale automatically, and what must be governed before agents can act. Full scope above →
Revenue Engine Programme
A 90-day structured programme to design and install your complete revenue operating system. Month 1: diagnose and design. Month 2: build and implement (stages, CRM, AI workflows, forecast model). Month 3: coach, transfer, and measure. I lead the engagement and bring in specialists for CRM architecture and AI implementation.
Commercial Leadership
For companies that need an operator in the business, or a commercially experienced voice at board level. Embedded leadership means I'm in the deals, in the CRM, in the room. Board advisory means commercial oversight for PE operating partners and founders working through growth, turnaround, or exit preparation.
The Operating Margin
Public thinking on who gets paid, who controls the rules, and where margin moves when technology changes the operating model.
The newsletter is where I develop the public version of the questions RM Advisory works on privately. The analysis is sourced, the assumptions are stated, and the opposing case gets its strongest version.
Written for operators, boards and investors, not for an algorithm.
Stablecoin economics and who keeps the float. Agentic pricing and permission. Revenue per employee and AI operating models. Platform economics. What happens to systems of record when agents become the operating surface.
New essays land on Substack first.
Read The Operating Margin →The agent narrative is everywhere.
The operating decisions are nowhere.
If your board is asking what agents do to pricing, spend and margin, that is an operating question, not a research question. I build systems, develop leaders, and stay accountable to the number.
Book a 30-min working session →Your portfolio company's revenue plan is underperforming. Now what?
Pipeline coverage looks healthy but conversion is poor. The CRO hire hasn't delivered. Stage definitions mean different things to different reps. The board gets a different forecast every month. Sound familiar?
Most commercial due diligence focuses on the spreadsheet. The real risk is in the system underneath it: stages, qualification discipline, coaching cadence, and whether leadership can actually operate the revenue engine at scale.
And a new one is arriving: many portfolio companies are adding AI features. Fewer have answered what happens when agents change usage, pricing, implementation cost and support economics. Seat-based revenue lines can erode before the next valuation prices it in.
Commercial assessment. Evaluate the GTM system, team capability, forecast reliability, and AI readiness. Board-ready findings within 2 weeks.
Agentic pricing and margin review. A board-level look at where agents change usage, pricing power and support economics in a portfolio company, and what must be governed before they act.
Revenue engine rebuild. 90-day structured programme to install stages, CRM architecture, AI workflows, operating cadence, and coaching discipline. Milestone-based, board-reported.
Ongoing oversight. Board advisory, quarterly commercial reviews, and portfolio-level GTM pattern recognition across fintech, SaaS, and capital markets.
Acquisition support. Commercial due diligence, revenue risk assessment, and post-acquisition GTM integration for fintech and B2B SaaS targets.
Full P&L ownership across two companies. 70+ AEs at Salesforce. Five regions. I think at company level, not function level.
Discuss a portfolio company →Two decades in the arena. From trading floors to global commercial leadership.
My career started on the CBOE trading floor in Chicago, then moved to EUREX in Frankfurt, where you learn fast that data without judgment is noise. From there I managed global accounts at Reuters (now LSEG), competing head-to-head with Bloomberg in the institutional data market, an environment where every deal is high-stakes, multi-threaded, and won on relationships, not slide decks. That principle has shaped everything since: scaling Salesforce's UK & Ireland commercial business with 70+ AEs, leading global GTM for blockchain infrastructure and Big Data fintech companies, and most recently running revenue execution and white-label GTM at a global multi-asset brokerage serving institutional traders and asset managers.
Along the way, I've held full P&L ownership across two companies: a PE-backed global software business and a multi-asset brokerage. Not just revenue, but cost discipline, margin management, capital allocation, and the operational trade-offs that come with running a commercial organisation at scale.
The through-line across every role: building the operating infrastructure that turns effort into predictable, repeatable revenue. Sales controlling, performance management, CRM architecture, pipeline governance. That is also why the agent question landed here first. I have seen both sides of the digital-asset story: the public-chain version is about money and distribution; the institutional version is about permission, privacy and workflow. The permission side is where I spent my time, and it is where much of the agentic economy will have to be made operational.
The public version of that thinking runs in The Operating Margin, the newsletter where I work through who gets paid, who controls the rules, and where margin moves.
Three steps to clarity
Fill in the form or email me. Three things: your company, your agent or AI roadmap, and the commercial question on the table.
We pressure-test one workflow, one pricing model or one live deal, and see if there's a fit. No pitch, just signal.
If there's a fit, I send a proposal for the right engagement model within 48 hours.
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