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JOHN GUTCHLUMIA

Experience

Strategy that survives contact with delivery.

More than twelve years building products, reshaping organisations and leading complex change across FTSE 100 businesses, international portfolios and founder-led ventures.

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12+

years leading product and transformation

£18m

product and innovation budget owned

85

person product, design and engineering organisation

8

international markets launched

Leadership proposition

Direction, ownership and enough detail to make it real.

Executive product strategy and portfolio prioritisation

Digital and AI transformation grounded in commercial outcomes

Customer journeys, platforms, data and workflow modernisation

Organisation design, executive alignment and delivery recovery

Venture building, partnerships and product-led growth

Senior decision support for boards and leadership teams

Executive career

Built across products, platforms and transformation.

Livensa Living brand and property experience montage
2025–PresentProduct & Transformation Director (Contract)

Livensa Living

Create one digital experience from two established brands.

Leading product and transformation across the customer journey, platform, target architecture and digital operating model following the combination of Nido and Livensa.

Impact

Established the direction and delivery structure for a complex multi-brand platform transition spanning web, booking, CRM, PMS, data and digital operations.

  • End-to-end digital customer experience
  • Platform consolidation and legacy transition
  • Product, technology and operating-model leadership
BT Tap to Pay product design montage
8 monthsFounding Partner & Fintech Director, Etc. at BT Group

BT

Create new revenue beyond broadband and mobile.

Built and led BT Digital's fintech incubation capability across payments, fraud and embedded finance, bringing product, design and engineering together around new commercial propositions.

Impact

BT Tap to Pay moved from concept to market in eight months, alongside a modern payments capability ready to support £15bn+ in annual transactions.

  • Built an 85-person product, design and engineering organisation
  • Owned an £18m innovation budget
  • Led product strategy from incubation through market launch
Vodafone connected product interface and device montage
3 yearsGlobal Head of Product, Vodafone Smart Tech

Vodafone

Turn connectivity into products people actually want.

Defined and led Vodafone's connected product approach across hardware, apps, platforms and service design, aligning global teams around a consistent customer experience.

Impact

Launched an award-winning family of connected products across eight international markets and helped reposition Vodafone from connectivity provider to product brand.

  • End-to-end ownership across hardware and software
  • International launches across eight markets
  • Red Dot, iF Design and GLOMO recognition
Hive connected home product and hardware design montage
6 yearsHead of Product, Hive

Hive

Build the UK's leading smart home brand.

Led product strategy and delivery across Hive's connected home portfolio, spanning devices, applications, data and the field operation needed to support customers at scale.

Impact

Helped scale a category-defining connected home platform while enabling more than 10,000 engineers through a major product and supply-chain transformation.

  • Global product leadership across the UK and US
  • Connected thermostat, diagnostics and leak-detection products
  • Named inventor on connected-home design patents

2025–Present

Founder & Product Advisor, Lumia Group.

An independent product and transformation practice supporting organisations through growth, leadership gaps, digital change and venture building.

  • Executive product and transformation strategy
  • Fractional CPO and board-level counsel
  • Operating-model and leadership design
  • Productised services and rapid venture builds

Startup & venture work

Still close enough to the work to build at speed.

These products use an AI-assisted development approach: product judgement, customer flows and commercial decisions are translated directly into working software, with AI accelerating the build rather than replacing the thinking.

SolarTyle product and operations dashboard montage
AI-assisted product development

Product and AI venture build

SolarTyle

Translated an urgent founder brief into practical tools for quoting, catalogue management, pipeline visibility and customer-facing solar design, using AI-assisted development to move directly from product decisions into working software.

Created a working product direction and usable operational tooling in weeks, giving the business something tangible to test rather than another AI strategy document.

Pik Club sports prediction app interface montage
AI-assisted product development

Founder & CPO

PikClub

Founded, designed and built a flexible sports prediction product using an AI-assisted development approach, replacing the spreadsheets, group chats and manual scoring used to run private competitions.

Moved the concept into a functioning multi-sport platform with group management, automated scoring and a clearer path to repeatable use.

Foremates golf product interface montage
AI-assisted product development

Founder & CPO

Foremates

Shaped and built an integrated golf experience spanning play, groups and club interaction, using modern AI development tools to accelerate prototyping and implementation.

Took the proposition from concept into a coherent mobile product and operating direction within three months.

Recognition

Work recognised beyond the organisation.

Awards, patents and speaking connected to products and transformations delivered across the career.

Red Dot Design winneriF Design — CurveMWC GLOMO winnerConnected-home patentsMoney20/20 speakerFinTech Magazine

What happens next

A role, a mandate or a difficult product decision.

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