# An operator at the desk, a chairman on the shelf

> Who runs Barking Cat Advisory: Steve Webster, 27 years running retail and ecommerce P&Ls across the UK, EU, US and GCC, and Casper, the chairman, who does not attend client meetings.

Source: https://barkingcat.ai/the-chairmans-office/

## The chairman’s office

Steve Webster, the operator at the desk.

The chairman, mid-declaration.

Barking Cat is Steve Webster, a commercial operator running retail and ecommerce P&Ls since 1999: UK, EU, US and GCC markets, apparel and footwear, consumer electronics, homewares and publishing, from fast fashion to premium heritage brands, in start-up, founder-led, PE-backed and PLC ownership. He has run the build rather than observed it, in a market with a good deal of advice from people who have never traded a P&L through a bad quarter. The employers, roles and numbers are set out on [Steve Webster’s record page](https://barkingcat.ai/the-chairmans-office/steve-webster/).

Barking Cat is a commerce advisory practice for retail and consumer businesses: strategy, proposition and the commercial operating model behind them. The work starts by reviewing what is already built, meaning the platforms, the agencies, the roadmap and the spend, and helps you get more from the investments you have already made before choosing the next ones.

The chairman is Casper. He sits above the operation, declares loudly and often, and is compensated in freeze-dried chicken hearts, a rate he negotiated up from Dreamies and has never discounted since. The firm’s pricing policy is modelled on his example. He does not attend client meetings. He does, however, appear on this page, mid-declaration, because a practice named after an impossible cat should at least introduce you to the possible one.

The chairman, listening for a bark.

## The name

Expecting an institution to behave against its nature is expecting a cat that barks. Half a century after Milton Friedman coined the image, we still do the same to our businesses. We demand digital outcomes our operating model cannot produce by nature, then wonder why the investment never quite pays back. Our customers are no more obliging: they will not change how they buy to suit how we sell, a lesson the Eisenbergs put on the cover of a book twenty years ago. That is the diagnosis this practice is built on.

The guy you call when it’s not working

For boards that want standing challenge on ecommerce rather than a single engagement: [Steve Webster as independent board adviser on ecommerce](https://barkingcat.ai/independent-board-adviser-ecommerce/).

## Contact

steve@barkingcat.ai

Barking Cat Advisory Limited. Registered in England and Wales, company number 17338003.