About me

I'm Simon Thornberry, a London-based operations executive with more than twenty years of experience scaling technology companies. I'm currently a full-time COO, having also worked in a fractional capacity advising B2B SaaS founders and investors navigating the hard parts of growth. Across my career I've led Operations, Customer Success, Customer Support, IT, Product, and Development teams.

Background

My career started in Cape Town at a leading digital print and retouching company, where I spent eight years managing operations across multiple departments. That role gave me a foundation in operational planning, process design, and building high-performing teams under real business pressure.

I then moved to London to join a global cybersecurity solutions provider as one of its first fifty employees. Over thirteen years I progressed from Sales Operations Manager to VP of Business Operations, helping the company scale through multiple phases of growth. I built and led the operational infrastructure, from revenue operations and go-to-market systems to team structure and executive reporting, that made that growth sustainable.

Since then I've worked with a range of scaling SaaS businesses as a fractional operator and advisor, focusing on the intersection of operational efficiency, team alignment, and strategic execution.

After that, I spent two years as COO at a martech business.

I'm currently COO at a cybersecurity and content protection business, where I lead operations covering everything post-sale: Customer Success, Customer Operations, Support, IT, and other teams. A major focus has been enabling efficient scale through process automation and introducing AI into the business, including developing and delivering an AI strategy built around three pillars, AI in the business, AI in engineering, and AI in the product, and building AI fluency across every function.

What I write about

This blog is where I think out loud about operations, leadership, and the practical realities of building a SaaS company. No frameworks for the sake of frameworks. Just observations and ideas from the work.

Get in touch

The best way to reach me is via email or LinkedIn. I'm also open to full-time COO and VP Operations opportunities, alongside select fractional and advisory work.