About

Sharp strategic and creative thinking, grounded in how
people actually think.

I’m Toby. Little Vienna is my strategic and creative consultancy.

I’m a strategist, creative, and cognitive scientist with over a decade of experience in agencies, consultancies, and tech firms.

I work with clients who realise their marketing or creative strategy has stopped cutting through - even when it looks good on paper. The problem is almost always the thinking, not the execution.

The work I do about restoring edge, direction, and momentum. And increasingly, using AI to do it faster, better, and more creatively than was previously possible.

I’ve worked with FTSE100 businesses, small regional players, charities, founders, public figures, and entrepreneurs across a broad range of sectors.

  • I’m usually brought in when something just isn’t quite working.

    There might also be a challenge to navigate, or an opportunity to tap.

  • Strategy typically:

    • Doesn’t exist (yet).

    • Is full of options, with no real choices.

    • Is safe to the point of being ineffective.

    • Isn’t used.

    • Directly with senior teams — no layers, no junior handoffs. With candid appraisal of what’s actually happening. By making proper choices and accepting the trade-offs. And now, with AI running underneath the work wherever it makes the thinking sharper or faster.

  • Clients leave with:

    • Clear strategic choices.

    • Strategy that can be used.

    • Commercially effective creativity.

    • Confidence and momentum.

    • Where relevant: AI tools, workflows, or applications built to sustain the work beyond the engagement.

  • I’m not for teams who want standard thinking, wallpaper, or going through the motions.

  • Alternative to me, clients tend to hire an agency.

    That usually means more people, more process, and more ‘predictable’ outcomes.

    The way I work has fewer overheads, is faster, more direct, and takes clients to unexpected places.

    The way I work also brings something agencies can’t: genuine AI capability built in — from insight and research through to building tools and applications that make the strategy real.

  • We can start with a short conversation to establish whether we’re right for each other.

    If we are; the next steps is to get under the skin of your challenge.