About
Richard
Richard Geary · Founder, Flo HQ I'm Richard Geary. I run Flo HQ, an AI advisory practice for service businesses between roughly 10 and 50 people.
Before this I spent twenty-five years leading customer-focused teams in SaaS. Salesforce. NetSuite. SeatGeek. EVP level for the last seven of those years, running teams across customer success, enablement and professional services. Working with brands across sport, entertainment, hospitality and FMCG.
I started Flo HQ when it became obvious that the businesses I cared most about, mid-sized UK service companies, were getting the worst of the AI conversation. Loud vendors at one end. Vague consultants at the other. Very little useful guidance in the middle.
So that's where I work.
People first. Process second. Technology last.
AI is a tool. A genuinely interesting one. But like every tool before it, it only earns its keep when you've mapped it onto real people doing real work.
I use a framework called PPT. People, Process, Technology. It's not new and I didn't invent it. Decades-old organisational design thinking, applied carefully to a noisy new technology. Most AI advice gets this backwards, leading with the tool and hoping the process catches up. That's usually why it fails.
The job I do is to slow that down. Get clarity on who's doing what, why, and how. Then look at where AI fits. The answer is sometimes everywhere. Often somewhere specific. Occasionally nowhere yet.
All three answers are useful. The expensive mistakes happen when nobody's allowed to say the third one.
Tell,
show,
tell.
When I run training, the structure is simple. Tell people what they're about to learn. Show them what it looks like in practice. Then tell them what they just learned, and what to do with it on Monday.
No theory dumps. No "AI for everyone" generalities that fit nobody. Every session is built around the specific business, the specific team and the specific job they actually do.
I learned this from running enablement teams, not from a training certificate. It works because it respects the audience.
Background.
- ▌ 25+ years in customer-focused SaaS leadership
- ▌ EVP-level team leadership at SeatGeek, leading customer success, enablement and professional services
- ▌ Earlier leadership roles at Salesforce and NetSuite
- ▌ Industry experience across sport, entertainment, hospitality, FMCG and media
- ▌ Main-stage Salesforce speaker
- ▌ Certified AI Trainer via AI for Non-Techies
I mention this not because credentials matter on their own, but because the question I get most often is "have you actually done this stuff." Yes. For a long time. At scale. In businesses where it had to actually work.
Doors I didn't
know
existed.
Early in my career, someone gave me a chance I hadn't earned yet. Opened doors I didn't know existed. That decision changed the next twenty years for me.
AI is going to reshape a lot of work, and most of the people it affects are not the ones being trained for it. The owner-operator running a 30-person agency. The MD of a hospitality group. The head of ops at a media company. These are the people I want to help. Practical, no jargon, no fear-mongering, no upselling.
That's the work.