We find where AI pays.Then we build it with you.
For businesses that don't know where to start with AI, boards that can't cut through the noise, teams that have stalled, and leaders who need things built rather than described. AI only counts when it moves revenue, cost or cash — that's where we start, and it's how we measure results.
Transformation doesn't fail in the technology. It fails in the seam between the technology and the people who have to use it.
Every stalled programme we're brought into has the same shape: capable people, credible tools, and nobody who understands both sides well enough to make them work as one system. Boards get sold AI strategy by consultants who've never shipped a product, and turnaround plans by advisers who've never made payroll. The result is decks, not delivery.
MarLuc works on that seam. We've carried the P&L, so we measure change the way you do: revenue, cost, cash, and whether it's still working six months after we've gone.
“The business has stalled, not knowing where to start or cash is going the wrong way.”
Revenue flat or falling, costs creeping, board patience thinning. You don't need another strategy review — you need the problem located, evidenced, and fixed. So we work the same way we tell you to adopt AI. Assess first: the free SEAM Check and the £495 SEAM Report show where value is leaking and where leadership and delivery disagree. Evidence next: SEAM Consultancy — priced to the findings, typically two to three weeks — verifies what the fix is worth against your numbers, not ours. Then implement: we step in as interim leadership — revenue rebuild, cost architecture, leadership alignment, investor communication. And measure throughout: every gain tracked against a baseline and banked, not just reported. Defined outcomes, typically 3–9 months, then we hand back a business that works.
“We know AI matters but we can't separate signal from noise.”
Every vendor claims transformation; your team is drowning in pilots that go nowhere; the board wants an answer. We tell you where AI genuinely changes your cost base or revenue model, what to ignore, and how to adopt without creating governance, compliance, or vendor-lock exposure. We're building AI platforms at both ends of this problem — governance infrastructure that makes AI safe to deploy, and applied AI inside one of the UK's most traditional industries, where data is messy, margins are thin, and theory dies fast. We know what works because we're shipping it.
“Our sales channels haven't changed in a decade — and our customers have.”
B2B heritage, distributor dependency, no direct line to the end customer. We've run this pivot from the inside: taking a heritage manufacturer from pure B2B into D2C and B2C by building the e-commerce stack, connecting it to marketplace platforms, and rebuilding the commercial model around the new channels — pricing, fulfilment, margin, and the team to run it. Digital change measured the only way that counts: new revenue from channels that didn't exist before.
“We don't need another report. We need the thing built.”
The case is made, the deck is written — and nothing exists. We assemble the team to build it: rapid prototype to prove the case, then engineering delivery through our network of senior developers, architects, and product specialists — scaled to the engagement, stood down when it's done. Build capability without build headcount.
“We're about to invest, exit, or intervene — and we need eyes we trust.”
Pre-investment commercial due diligence, portfolio company intervention, exit readiness. We've sat on every side of the table: founder, operator, acquired company through trade sale, and non-executive. We know what the numbers hide because we've been the people producing them.
Every engagement starts with evidence.
You hold: your value position and the biggest constraint
You hold: the compiled truth: evidenced vs claimed value, leakage, opportunities, and the decisions — scale, fix, investigate or stop
You hold: verified numbers, redesigned workflows, decisions delivered
You hold: the delta is your evidence
Most organisations stop at step 2 — the report is built to be enough on its own. Consultancy exists for findings that justify it, and the report will tell you honestly whether yours do.
A senior principal, a specialist bench, no permanent overhead.
Every engagement is led by a principal who has run businesses, not just advised them. Around that we draw on a trusted network of engineers, architects, data specialists, and commercial operators — assembled for the engagement, accountable to one lead, dissolved when the work is done.
Outcome-defined.
Every engagement starts with a statement of work: the problem, the deliverables, the exit criteria. No open-ended body-shopping.
Right-sized.
One interim leader, a two-person diagnostic sprint, or a full build team — the structure follows the problem.
Direct.
You get verdicts, not workshops. If the plan is wrong we'll say so in week one, not month six.
Typical structures:
interim mandates (2–4 days/week), fixed-scope diagnostic sprints (2–3 weeks), prototype builds (4–8 weeks), retained board advisory.
Scaled and exited:Commercial leadership at Syft through to its acquisition by Indeed.
Enterprise foundations:BT, Sun Microsystems, Oracle — platform and marketplace businesses before they were fashionable.
Digital channel transformation:Took a heritage manufacturer from pure B2B into D2C and B2C — e-commerce build, marketplace platform integration, and the commercial model to make the new channels profitable.
Strategy–technology alignment:Full business review and strategy–technology realignment for a major national organisation (confidential).
Building now — AI governance:A platform that enforces AI compliance at the architecture level rather than inspecting it after the fact. Deep, current expertise in AI risk, regulation, and safe deployment.
Building now — applied AI in industry:A construction intelligence platform integrating design, cost, and supply-chain data through a proprietary classification system — AI doing real work in a sector that punishes hype. Rapid prototyping through to production systems: exactly the capability we field for clients.
We don't advise on things we're not doing.
Board experience:NED and advisory roles across energy, housing, and technology.
Mark Pittaway
One thread runs through Mark Pittaway's career: connecting people and technology to improve how organisations perform. It's there in the platform work at BT Labs, Sun Microsystems, and Oracle; in building learning-technology businesses that changed how workforces develop; in scaling a labour marketplace through to its acquisition by Indeed; and in the AI governance and construction intelligence ventures he's building today.
The common denominator isn't the sector — it's the discipline of understanding how a business actually runs, then making the human and technical systems pull in the same direction. Practical results, measured in commercial outcomes, not transformation theatre.
Mark leads every MarLuc engagement and personally assembles the team around it.
Based in Suffolk. Working UK-wide and internationally.
If you have a business that needs fixing, scaling, or a working AI solution rather than another strategy deck — the first conversation costs you nothing but thirty minutes, and we'll tell you straight whether we're the right fit.
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