Executive mentoring for technical B2B leaders
The right decision starts with the right question. Let’s explore your options.
I mentor founders, CEOs and senior leaders of technical B2B businesses. Together we find the question behind the question, challenge your thinking and explore the wider options, so you make decisions that fit your values and vision, and become a stronger leader with each one.
Complimentary, 30 minutes, no obligation
Early employee at Shazam · Director at Google · ILM Level 7 executive coach and mentor · Fellow, Association of Business Mentors · Techstars All-Star Mentor
Focus
What we can work on together
These are the areas leaders bring to me most often. Every programme starts from your own challenges, so if yours isn’t here, bring it to the discovery call.
Decisions
Strategic decisions
A sounding board for big decisions: testing your thinking, getting to the real issue, exploring the wider options, and choosing the path that fits your values and vision.
“I’ve changed my thinking on several important decisions as a result of our sessions.”
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What are the strategic benefits and risks of AI for us?
Does my thinking on this hold up?
Am I solving the right problem, or is there a deeper challenge underneath?
What other options haven’t I considered?
What are the likely risks and benefits of each path?
Which choice fits our appetite for risk, our values and our vision?
Sales
Go-to-market and B2B sales
Selling as a founder or senior leader, in your own style: from your go-to-market strategy to hiring a sales leader, running sales operations and managing a sales team.
“He has provided guidance and support for the business—for example, on go-to-market plans, product strategy and team growth.”
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What should our go-to-market strategy be?
How do I sell when I’ve never sold before, in a way that feels like me?
Which sales methodology suits us, and how do I make it my own?
When should I hand over founder-led sales, and what matters when hiring a sales leader?
What is sales operations, how should we run it, and why does it matter?
How do I manage a sales team and lift its performance?
How do I build strategic partnerships that work?
Leadership
Leading your team and your board
Building a team that performs as you grow, and working well with your board and senior colleagues.
“It has been rewarding to see how much the team has changed for the better.”
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Your team
Which hires should I prioritise, and what matters most in the hiring process?
How do I attract great people when I can’t match big-company salaries?
What does managing a team really mean?
How do I lift the performance of my team, and of each person in it?
How do I decide that someone isn’t right for the organisation?
Why does culture matter, what does it really mean for us, and what can I do about it?
Your board and stakeholders
How do I get the most out of my board?
How should I set up my board?
How do I engage with my board between meetings?
What do investors look for, and what should we achieve before our next round?
Alignment
Company-wide alignment
Getting engineering, product and commercial teams pulling in the same direction, with clear goals, KPIs and OKRs that drive performance.
“These changes have shaped how we work together, how everyone contributes, and how we connect our shared goals with each person’s growth.”
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Why do product, engineering and sales keep pulling in different directions?
How do I set goals the whole company understands and owns?
Which KPIs really matter for us?
How do we roll out OKRs without creating busywork?
How do OKRs drive performance, not just track it?
How do we set ambitious, 10x goals without burning people out?
About
Experience you can draw on
I’m Thomas Schreiber. I have spent over 20 years building, running, advising and investing in technology businesses.
What I learned, and how it helps you
Early employee at Shazam: startup life from the inside, and an engineer who learned to sell.
Leadership · Sales
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As an early employee at Shazam, I lived the fast-moving, often chaotic side of a startup, where roles keep shifting and you often work outside your comfort zone because nobody else knows how to do it either. I then saw the move from startup to scale-up. Shazam ultimately had a successful exit to Apple, but there were tough challenges on the way, including cash-flow struggles. That gave me the chance to move from engineering into sales, the start of 10 years in sales roles at Shazam and then Google. I’ve been the engineer who had to learn to sell. It taught me that good sales methodologies are worth leaning on, but you can’t fake a sales personality. Selling works best when it’s authentic to your own style. It’s also where I learned to hire for attitude.
Director at Google: accountable for a multi-billion-dollar business unit across EMEA.
Leadership · Sales · Alignment · Decisions
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At Google, I sold directly and held several sales management roles, including country sales director. Later, as Director of Strategy and Operations, I was accountable for a multi-billion-dollar business unit across EMEA, with 25 people reporting to me directly and indirectly, together with a cross-functional mandate. I learned that managing a team is only half the job. The other half is getting engineering, product, marketing, sales and legal pulling in the same direction, with OKRs, sales operations and strategic partnerships that work. Google is also where I learned first-hand how to make the 10x growth mindset work: how to create new product lines, set ambitious goals, and actually reach them.
COO in robotics, with a PhD in Computer Science: business decisions grounded in your technology, including AI.
Decisions · Leadership
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As COO of Franka Emika, I held a full operating role across the business and saw how closely technology and business decisions depend on each other. With a PhD in Computer Science from The University of Edinburgh, and keeping up with the state of the art in AI, I can help you take a deeper strategic view of where AI can benefit your business, and of the widest strategic threats it poses.
Chair and non-executive director: how to get the most from your board.
Leadership
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Sitting on boards as a Chair and non-executive director has shown me what a board needs from its CEO, and what helps a CEO get the most from their board. So I can help you set up your board and make it work for you. In practice, that’s stakeholder management: understanding what each board member and investor cares about, keeping them close between meetings so there are no surprises, and drawing on their experience and networks, so the meetings themselves can focus on the decisions that matter.
Angel investor and angel syndicate co-founder: what investors actually look for.
Leadership · Decisions
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Investing in 30 companies, and co-founding the award-winning Korra Ventures angel syndicate, has shown me what investors actually look for. So I can help with more than the pitch and the deck: with the goals you need to reach to be ready for your next round.
Fellow (FABM)
Association of Business Mentors
Level 7 Certificate for Executive and Senior Level Coaches and Mentors
ILM
All-Star Mentor
Techstars
PhD in Computer Science
The University of Edinburgh
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I have mentored founders and leaders since 2014, including at Techstars, Google for Startups, the UK government’s Help to Grow programme and the NHS Leap programme. Alongside mentoring, I am a non-executive director at Serve First CX and Hatch Enterprise, sit on the advisory board of Arc Simulations, and co-founded the Korra Ventures angel syndicate.
Qualifications and recognition
Fellow of the Association of Business Mentors (FABM): I work to the ABM Code of Conduct.
ILM Level 7 Certificate for Executive and Senior Level Coaches and Mentors (qualification 8589-21): a postgraduate-level qualification in executive coaching and mentoring.
Techstars All-Star Mentor: awarded for mentoring founders on the Techstars programme.
Recommended Startup Mentor, London Startup Ecosystem Report.
PhD in Computer Science, The University of Edinburgh.
Approach
Is mentoring for me?
Having a mentor isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of strength.
Mentoring with me works best if you are:
a founder, CEO or senior leader of a technical B2B business
facing a stretch of growth, change or hard decisions
feeling you need to spend more time working on the business, not just in it
curious, and keen to keep learning and growing as a leader
honest with yourself about your strengths and the areas you want to work on
open to challenge and feedback, and ready to act on it between sessions
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Many of the hardest topics are awkward to raise with your team, or even with your co-founders. They look to you for leadership, and it isn’t easy to show doubt. Mentoring gives you a confidential, psychologically safe space to explore those doubts openly, look at the alternatives and get honest feedback.
Many of the most successful leaders have a mentor. At Google, Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sundar Pichai all worked closely with the coach Bill Campbell. Bill Gates has learned from Warren Buffett for decades, and Richard Branson credits Sir Freddie Laker’s mentoring for shaping his whole approach to business.
How we work together
A discovery call
A complimentary 30-minute conversation about where you are and what you want to change, so we can both judge whether mentoring is the right fit.
A six-session programme
Six one-hour sessions, usually every two weeks, in person or by video call. You set the agenda and the goals, and we review progress as we go. I bring questions, constructive challenge and my own experience of high-growth technology businesses, so you see the challenge from different perspectives and reach a decision you own.
Progress between sessions
Each session typically closes with one or two experiments to try in your day-to-day work, so progress builds on what actually works. Between sessions, a quick email or call is fine when something comes up.
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What the discovery call covers: your role and business, the challenge on your mind, what a good outcome would look like, and the first goals a programme could focus on. It’s also a chemistry check: a chance for us both to see whether we’d enjoy working together.
A typical session: we agree a clear goal for the hour. Complex decisions rarely have one right answer, because the best path depends on your preferences, your style and your values. That is why much of the session is driven by my questions, helping you look at the challenge from different perspectives. Those questions are often shaped by my own experience, and where it helps, I share what has worked, and what hasn’t, in the businesses I have worked in and advised. The aim is to help you reach the decision that fits you, and to grow as a leader along the way. We agree specific actions with dates, and close with your quick feedback on the session itself, so each one improves on the last.
Where sessions happen: in person or by video call, whichever suits you. You can share materials beforehand, and I may suggest some light preparation.
Fees are usually paid by your company, and we can discuss them on the discovery call.
Everything you share is confidential. I work to the Association of Business Mentors Code of Conduct and hold professional indemnity insurance.
What the programme includes
Six one-hour, one-to-one sessions, usually every two weeks, in person or by video
Agreed experiments after each session to try in your own work
Goals agreed at the start, reviewed regularly and refined as things change
Clients
Leaders I’ve mentored, in their own words
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![Henry Qu, Head of Technologies, Allsee Technologies Ltd]()
“Across our nine mentoring sessions, we worked together on KPIs and OKRs, introduced one-to-ones, and made team meetings more open and participatory. We also focused on understanding what motivates each team member, finding better ways to encourage them, and supporting their individual development and growth.
It has been rewarding to see how much the team has changed for the better. These changes have shaped how we work together, how everyone contributes, and how we connect our shared goals with each person’s growth.
Thomas’s thoughtful questions and practical perspective helped me reflect on my approach and turn our conversations into action. I’m grateful for the positive impact his mentoring has had on both the team and me.
I’d happily recommend Thomas to anyone looking to grow as a leader and develop their team.”
Henry Qu, Head of Technologies, Allsee Technologies Ltd
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![Sajeel Abrar, Founder & Director, SAHA]()
“His combination of senior executive experience, strategic thinking and technical understanding has been particularly valuable as we navigate growth, technology and the realities of building and scaling.
Thomas doesn’t simply tell you what you want to hear. He brings perspective, constructive challenge and clarity, and I’ve changed my thinking on several important decisions as a result of our sessions.
I would highly recommend Thomas to founders and senior leaders looking for an experienced strategic sounding board who can challenge their thinking while helping them develop as leaders and build stronger businesses.”
Sajeel Abrar, Founder & Director, SAHA
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![Nathan Blackmore, CEO, WAY Trustees Limited]()
“Thomas has been a fantastic mentor to me throughout the Help to Grow leadership course. Our regular sessions became a real sounding board where he challenged my thinking in all the right ways. His constructive questioning, together with the insights he shared from his own experience, genuinely helped shape my development as a CEO. I’m hugely grateful for his guidance and would recommend him to anyone looking for thoughtful, practical leadership support.”
Nathan Blackmore, CEO, WAY Trustees Limited
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![Raewyn Sleeman (DBA), CEO & Founder, Stratagease Ltd]()
“His ability to quickly understand complex issues, ask the right questions, and offer direct, practical advice made a real difference. He was thoughtful, honest, and always focused on what mattered most—moving the business forward in a sustainable way.”
Raewyn Sleeman (DBA), CEO & Founder, Stratagease Ltd
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![Michael Armenakis, Co-Founder & CEO, Arc Simulations (ARC)]()
“We met Thomas through the Techstars program and feel so lucky to have him as our mentor. Disruptive thinker, passionate, quick to spot an opportunity or get to the heart of a problem, an empath and all round great human being.”
Michael Armenakis, Co-Founder & CEO, Arc Simulations (ARC)
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![Nick Smith, Founder, Rombo]()
“Thomas has been an instrumental mentor for Rombo throughout the Techstars program. He has provided guidance and support for the business—for example, on go-to-market plans, product strategy and team growth. Beyond this advice, Thomas has kept me accountable as a founder, but also provided support during difficult times. If you have the opportunity to work with Thomas, in any capacity, you absolutely should!”
Nick Smith, Founder, Rombo
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![Harriet Scriven, Founder & CEO, Alterdd]()
“Thomas was one of our lead mentors during the Techstars’ accelerator. Diligent, dedicated and full of great practical and strategic advice and encouragement, we not only greatly benefitted from working with Thomas but thoroughly enjoyed the experience.”
Harriet Scriven, Founder & CEO, Alterdd
What’s the big decision on your mind?
Tell me about it on a complimentary call, and we’ll see whether mentoring is the right fit.
Complimentary, 30 minutes, no obligation
Not ready to talk yet? Follow me on LinkedIn.