After leaving the military, Ian spent almost 20 years working in the IT industry for a variety of multinational corporations including KPMG, Hewlett Packard, and Atos providing network support and software integration services in-house and to external clients including large multinational corporations such as banks around Europe, and government departments like Immigration and Justice in the UK. He left corporate work when his own children reached school age in order to become a schoolteacher. Qualifying at King's College, London, Ian taught in a number of secondary schools before becoming the Deputy Head in an independent primary school in London. Since then, Ian has worked closely with Saiyyidah providing technical support for projects and other work in the areas of coaching, diversity and inclusion and resilience.

Ian is also an accredited civil and commercial mediator and is about to complete (Sep 2021) an LLM in Dispute Resolution from City, University of London covering Mediation and Negotiation, Arbitration, International Commercial Arbitration, Civil Dispute Resolution and International Human Rights.

Due to his father’s military career Ian spent most of his formative years growing up abroad, constantly moving home and starting new schools usually in Europe and the Far East where he found himself as part of a minority group either due to language barriers or ethnicity. Through his work in the corporate and education worlds, Ian has worked with people from all levels, from young children in school to senior executives of multinational corporations across the public and private sector and this experience has helped him curate belonging and understanding.

As a teacher, team manager and mediator his lived and working experiences have enabled him to developed qualities and techniques that allow him to understand the realities of different people, of different ages and abilities and be able to reflect that understanding to others through active listening, the use of empathy and the reframing of problems if necessary in order to help people move forward.