For the last 12 years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024) I’ve written an end of year retrospective. This is, as I say every year, less about pushing my achievements and more about taking a step back to look at the shape of what I’ve done over the past year. I get the sense that many of my peers have found 2025 to be especially challenging, and it was certainly not without its challenges for me. But I count myself fortunate to have been kept busy with interesting work. When I interviewed the Head of People at Pinterest for my first book some years ago he told me about an all staff communication that they had at the company at the time called ‘highlights, low-lights, no-lights’ which was designed to share both successes and failures. I’ve always rather liked this idea, and so here are a few of my own highlights, low-lights and no-lights from the past year.
Highlights
Since moving my newsletter over to Substack I’ve found that the discipline of writing weekly short essays has helped me to think aloud much better. It’s a place where I work out what I think about what’s happening at the intersection of tech, AI, strategy and transformation as well as a place where I can sometimes just follow my curiosity. Each week is several hours of investment but it’s really worth it. It’s really helped me to work out some key principles and practices related to my work (particularly around AI), and the feedback I get from it has also been invaluable. The list has grown a lot this year and is now a community of over 13,000 people, which both humbles and energises me.
2025 was the year that Google Firestarters came to an end after 14 years of live events and podcasts. Google decided to head in a slightly different direction with what they were doing, which is fair enough and yes, I was sorry to see it go. I could easily put this news into the ‘lowlights’ or ‘no lights’ section but it’s here as a highlight because I count it as one of the great privileges of my career to have been able to speak to and hear from so many of the smartest minds in the industry (and beyond). I loved every minute of it. The episodes will remain up on the Think With Google channel so feel free to dip into some of the wisdom of my many and varied guests over the years.
I did 80 days of face-to-face workshops this year and a fair amount of Exec Education and I can honestly say that I loved it all. I met so many fascinating people. I worked with banks, education foundations, public sector leaders, telecoms and utilities businesses. I’ve done a lot more around AI (obvs) but the consistent themes have remained as change, emerging technology, strategy and performance. Some of my favourite engagements included a lengthy stint out in Muscat working with the national telecoms and utilities providers, teaching on the Imperial College Digital Transformation programme, and working with the BBC and Canon on integrating AI into their strategy work and processes. A chunk of the Canon work involved how their teams could use AI in ways that supported good critical thinking, which I think is a very forwards-looking way of thinking about integrating LLMs into workflows. There was also a lot of work around AI application with agencies, not least through my IPA courses (we launched the first IPA course on AI in Strategy and Planning in early December) but also working directly with some of the strategy teams at the big agencies (in particular, I loved working with the super-smart planning team at Adam&eveDDB).
Lowlights
My (book) reading suffered a bit this year – I think I read around 7 books all year. But instead I found myself reading lots of essays and Substacks, and listening to lot more podcasts. I don’t know why, and perhaps this will change in 2026, but what remains truer than ever is that my inputs shape my outputs, so I’m determined to stay intentional with my media inputs and to follow my curiosity.
There was a lot of work travel this year in 2025 which is fulfilling (different cultures, people, experiences) and challenging (home life, working on planes/trains, delivering workshops when your bone tired) in equal measure. Generally, I’ve loved it but I need to pay attention to the balance as I would in any other area of life.
After 20 years of being active on social media I think I’m getting less out of it now than ever before. The dominance of algorithmic feeds, the effective suppression of content shared by people I’m genuinely interested to hear from, the performative nature of LinkedIn which seems to breed it’s own kind of strange behaviours. I’m going to continue to post to LinkedIn and Bluesky as I know I have a network there, but I’m definitely getting more useful inputs from Substack.
No lights
I had one project in 2025 that I really didn’t enjoy (for a range of reasons I won’t go into), but it reminded me how important it is to guard against scope drift. Over 16 years of running my own business I’ve never had a bad debt issue but this year I had an ongoing payment problem with a particular business school that I did some work which is still not resolved. It’s a real shame. There’s really no excuse for large businesses failing to play nicely with smaller suppliers but sadly it happens all the time.
Added bonus…
Book of the year: an honourable mention here to Sangeet Paul Chowdray’s ‘Reshuffle‘, which deals with how businesses and markets will be fundamentally reorganised by AI. I liked his analogies, storytelling, and there was a lot of parallels with my own work in encouraging leaders to think about transformation, not just optimisation. But of the few books I did read this last year the one that stuck with me the most was James Rhodes’ ‘Fire On All Sides’. James is the renowned classical pianist who suffered terrible childhood abuse in early life. Half way through the year I happened to listen to his profoundly moving episode of This Cultural Life in which he talked about the psychological aftermath of his experiences which led me to read the book. It was a raw, visceral and very emotional read about the struggle to exist. For me, although written by a classical musician, it was the literary equivalent of punk rock.
Podcast episode of the year: Amol Rajan’s Radical podcast has had some great guests this year but the conversation with Dr Eliza Filby on generational differences rather stopped me in my tracks. It was such an enlightening hour of conversation about societal shifts that are already impacting multiple generations. Amazingly insightful.
Substack of the Year: I subscribe to a number of AI-related Substacks of-course which have been tremendously useful (Sean Bett’s Blueprint is a great weekly digest on AI developments) but a particular shout out should go to Dr Philippa Hardman’s newsletter which she describes as ‘connecting the science of learning & AI with the art of learning experience design’. I’ve also been really enjoying James Marriott’s Cultural Capital which has become a regular thought-provoking read on culture and ideas.
I’m not really one for New Years resolutions but as ever my focus for the coming year will be on following my curiosity, trying to be as intentional as possible with my attention, maintaining balance, and growing as a person and in my work. My best wishes to all of you for a happy and prosperous 2026, and thanks as always for reading.
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