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For the wine lovers in the community:
Hi all – I’m Benedict Johnson, founder of Ourglass Wine. After 20 years in strategy at Ogilvy, AKQA, BBH and Publicis Sapient, I left to build the club I always wished existed.
We work with small producers who make wine with character and story, and share them with clear, useful notes/videos/articles that help you taste, learn, enjoy as you go. Decanter named us Best Wine Club, and the Drinks Retailing Awards shortlisted us for Specialist Online Retailer 2026.
We’ve also launched Taste Decoded – a series on how people from different fields who understand taste think about it. Contributors include Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland, Oxford’s Charles Spence, Rankin, the FT’s Tim Hayward and others: https://ourglass.wine/
If you’d like something special for Christmas – for yourself, a client or a team – drop us a note and we’ll pull something together: [email protected]
Happy to chat wine, tas…
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This article is going to be bookmarked for me to refer to whenever I’m stood in the wine aisle! https://ourglass.wine/blog/wine-price-value-sweet-spot-rory-sutherland
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Totally agree. £10–50 is where quality and price work together. Wine can surprise you, if you know where to look.
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Tagging some of our wine lovers Nelly Ward Alina Listopad Guy Denison-Smith Frank J Cotroneo Andy Dougan Carolin Greiner Duncan Leask Marta Lopez John Glazewski Adriana Ci Tristan Dugmore Alex Messianu João Felizardo Amanda Doueihi Abby Brosgill Abigail Keene-Babcock Alex Issakova Alison Fleming Carole Howard Charlotte Beyer Colin Sharp Dave Ladbrook Cynthia Vanzella Dimitris Protogirou Sikta Marina Lukyanova Jonathan Simpson Tarling John de los Santos Richard Trinder Pete Domican Nick Makin Geoffroy Bauer
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Hello everyone. Does anyone here have difficult conversations they need to have with staff or team members? I’m in the middle of building an AI powered coaching app based around our unique coaching framework. We have built out a single use-case at the minute, focused on ”difficult conversations” and now I need people to use it to see if the output is actually helpful. If anyone here is interested in giving it a go, let me know.
Here’s what it does:
🧩 Preparation: Helps you diagnose the real issue, gather facts and clarify your outcome (including your part in the picture).
💬 Conversation: Provides structure, coaching prompts and a path to a clear, collaborative agreement.
📋 Follow-up: Builds accountability with actions and timescales.
🔍 Insights: Offers feedback on how you handled the situation and what to work on next.
Thanks
Niall
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A cool tool, Niall! Is this designed for HR/People professionals or anyone that manages people? Or perhaps just for anyone that deals with humans in their day to day
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It’s designed for Managers who manage a team of people. The current use-case is applicable to a wide range of scenarios, though. Anyone who has a difficult conversation they need to have should find it useful. It’s been built with an eye to managing Gen Z specifically, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used with other age groups.
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Does anyone want more clients in 2026?
(I know… so clickbait, sorry 😅)
For fractionals, warm referrals are usually the fastest, easiest, and most natural way to win work.
I’ve built a platform called Orbit that gets people you already know to introduce you to new clients, without any awkward asking or chasing.
From January we’re opening the beta to more users, and for TPC members we’re offering 6 months free (there is still a small success fee if you win work).
I’ve attached a quick overview deck, as well as a very short demo here:
If it sounds like it could be useful, or you just want to know more, drop me a line.
Jacob
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Very cool idea, Jacob – we’d love to hear how it goes with your beta testing! And great to hear that you are still encouraging human oversight in an AI tool – so important when it comes to relationships
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Hello Community,
I am officially a trustee!!
First order of business, donations!! I’m supporting Arts for Dementia in the Big Give Christmas Challenge fundraising campaign this week – they do great work and I’m very proud to be a Trustee. From 2 Dec – 9 Dec, if you could donate it will be DOUBLED, helping to inspire and empower people living with dementia through the arts.
Here’s the link to donate: https://donate.biggive.org/campaign/a05WS000005bxcYYAQ
Anyone in this community who has links to the arts or connections to dementia organisations, please reach out to me – Big thanks!
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What a fab initiative! Thanks for sharing, Gary
And congrats on the trustee position!
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Alix Picard posted in the group Life Sciences Professionals
Hello, I’m Alix, I am a fractional lawyer. I have created this space for the life science experts within TPC to meet and share. I’ve been working within the service provider sector to the pharma/healthcare for 20+ years, so I know a lot about winning and servicing pharma and healthcare clients. And if I don’t know the answer to a question myself I usually know the name of someone who does. So feel free to ask away and if I can help I will!
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Great idea, Alix! Tagging some members who might be able to make good use of this group: Isaac Bailey, Jake Hoban, Alec Hirst, Corrina Kane, Noelle Reno, Savva Kerdemelidis, Bhavika Patel, Paul Agapow, Henni Granzow, Brett Smithard, Jeff Wellstead, Lester Mak, Rachel Francis, Ramune Le, Charlotte Gregson, PhD, Sophie Lenoir, Dr. Apul Parikh, Kazim Hasnain, Jennifer Bainbridge, James Craig, BRANDON TURK, Sophie Treillard, Tari Matanga, Ray Jetha
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Good idea Alix! We life science people often feel like outsiders in any networking. Or maybe it’s the preponderance of introverts …
By way of introductions, I’m Paul, and I solve biological problems with data, stats, AI – whatever it takes to help make a better decision. I’m based across Cambridge and London, working with a number of pharma and biotechs. Connect to me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-agapow/
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Thanks Alix. Great idea.
I am a strategy and transformation consultant working in healthcare (amongst other sectors) and a large part of my work has been with pharma/biotech and with the NHS.
My LinkedIn is https://linkedin.com/in/lestmak
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Hey everyone 👋
I’m looking for a developer to help me build (and maintain) an interactive surf-tourism platform online. Ideally someone who’s great with maps, APIs, and clean mobile-friendly UX.
For any overseas developers you’ve worked with before:
• Who do you recommend?
• Who should we avoid?
Preferably someone you know and trust!
I’m also looking for a UX/UI designer to help turn the concept into something intuitive, simple, and beautiful.
I’ve spent far too long getting the ”idea” from my head on Lovable, Glide etc but really now need to turn to a professional!
This is paid, but looking for someone to support me with an interest in ocean conservation and/or watersports etc as opposed to a random agency asking for lots of money!
Thank you!
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Fun project, Charles
Thanks for sharing!Tagging some devs & UX/UI peeps who might be able to help out: Tes Macpherson, Mohymenul Islam, Dan Lester, Will Helliwell, Mark Woodhall, Jesmarie Vargas, Pratham Sharma, Gillian Rosen, Val Miranda, Mahmoud Zareef, Jack Irwin-Smith, Lorène Levavasseur, Anna Bashynska, Eva 🔮 Glitch Witch 🕯️ Sands, Macdonald Anyanwu, Ola Podgorska
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Hi Charles,
Your project looks great, really exciting!
I’m a UX & UI Designer and would love to have a chat about how I could support you and bring value to your project. Let me know if you’re still looking for someone. I’d be happy to help.
Wishing you a lovely day, and I hope to speak with you soon.
Lorène
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He’s not a TPC member, but can competely vouch for https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-christopher-johnson/
Apart from being an indedible developer, he’s very focused on helping you build the right thing as quick and cheap as possible. Definitely worth a chat
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Hi there! One of the companies in our portfolio, StirlingX (www.stirlingX.io) is looking for a fractional HR person. We’ve not fully designed the requirement yet, and we’re looking for someone that could not only do the job, but also help us design the requirement.
Please comment here if interested in disucssing?
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Thanks for sharing, Chris!
Tagging some members who might be able to help: Liz King, Amanda Doueihi, Sandeep Khanna, David Tait, Hannah Batchelor, Elaine Kimber, David Blackburn, Eva Phillips, Christina Taylor
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Hi Chris, happy to have a chat to see what you need and whether I’m the right person to help. Feel free to book time with me at: https://calendly.com/christina-learntogrow/30-minute
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Hi Chris, I am not sure if you have already filled this position, but I would welcome a chat if not – I should be able to help. Ed
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Hi Chris, I am a fractional HR professional who is used to creating the scope for the role and delivering. If this opportunity is still available it would be great to chat.
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Allan Kelly
posted in the group I'm looking for.. .Can anyone recommend a ”personal CRM” ? – not sure if that is the right term, maybe ”Contacts manager” is a better one.
I’ve been look at my contacts – always the best source of work. It occurs to me that its not that I need more new contacts but I need to make the most us of the ones I’ve got.
But with 2,000 on a mailing list, 5,000 LinkedIn connections, 6,000 LinkedIn followers, god knows how many GMail contacts where do I starr? Obviously there is massive overlap but I don’t know where to start!
So can anyone recommend a system that could suck all these in, match them, and help me manage & mine them in future?
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Hi Alan
A good question! I’ve heard people talk fondly of Pipedrive and Airtable, while those of a certain brainpower prefer Notion. With some discipline a Google/Excel sheet can definitely do the trick, which might be the most cost effective solution to start with. When it comes to products that can combine data from different existing sources, I’d definitely be interested to hear what others have to say!
Tagging some technically minded members who might be able to help: @w…
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My post was after a few hours Google’ing – Pipedrive looks like overkill, Airtable and Notion require work: as an ex-coder I could do it but I also know that it will be far more work than is sensible.
At the moment I’m stuck with Excel which again, I have the skills to work miricles, but I also know there must be a better way
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We also have a partner who might be able to help! Dex is a contact management software that allows you to connect to multiple sources
You can check them out here: https://getdex.com/Pioneer members get $25 off their 1st year subscription, so it might be worth upgrading your membership with us to access this (+ lots of other) benefits! If you’re interested, you can find out more via the ’My Membership’ section of your Dashboard. Shout if you need any help with this!
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I didn’t know that, thanks
Dex was one of the options that came up when I was searching the other day, Nimble was the other one, will have to look more closely
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Allan Kelly I was going to mention Dex…I have been using in the last 9 months and it is superb for Portfolio Career Professionals. I love it
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I’ve also just remembered this previous post on the CRM topic that you might find helpful: https://portfolio-collective.com/collective/activity/p/156355/
A few more names to add to the mix!
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Thanks to everyone who replied, a new question for you
I went for Dex – quite cheap I think at a bit over £100 for the year.
Its sucked up my LinkedIn connections and my Google Address book which is impressive.
But now I have a second question….
Anyone know where to start sorting the wheat from the chaf? – I’m now staring at nearly 5,000 contacts and apart from searching ”CEO” or ”Founder” I’m at a loss
Is there a book or some…
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Allan Kelly I don’t know of a book, but from my experience, I’d start by defining the types of people you want to be connected to: customers, partners, vendors, etc. Then you can start organising your contacts in these broad groups. Most CRMs can add tags or categories to contacts.
From there, I’d look at what characteristics are important for each of these types. For example, what demographic information do you need for customers? Make sure that information is in the CR…
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This is probably not a good time to say only use LinkedIn as your address book, so every contact you have met in person first, you know what they do and how they do it – and they know you. I’ve been doing it since 2011 and can teach you. This prevents the situation of having thousands of useless connections who will never engage with you as you are just a number. Stop being a number, stop wanting to look popular with your numbers. Yes, interacting with humans in person is stressful &…
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I used to follow that policy (only adding people I actually knew) but it was hard to turn people down who said they’d read my book.
Over time I came to see LN as a marketing channel but to market you needed them there in the first place – this may have been before Follows came to prominence.
Its tempting to go through and cull those useless connection but even that would take time!
Thanks for the advice
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Love to see our members chasing their dreams and passions
thanks for sharing Benedict!