From Co-Driver to Architect

Evolving My Definition of Success

For over a decade, I sat in a rally car beside someone with extraordinary instincts. Richard Burns was more than a great driver — he was a master tactician, a thoughtful competitor, a loyal friend and colleague. He demanded precision and rewarded performance, setting a standard that lifted everyone around him. My job wasn’t to match his speed — it was to bring structure to the storm. Inside that role, success was immediate. It was binary. A result on the board. A line on the spreadsheet. An entry in the archive. But the longer I did it, the more I started asking a different question. What makes a result repeatable? What makes performance sustainable?

That question followed me into the second half of my career. And slowly, what had started as a technical pursuit began to take on the shape of something more enduring. It wasn’t enough to win. It mattered how we won, what stood behind it, and what remained afterwards. I became less interested in the stage time and more drawn to the scaffolding around it — the systems, the environment, the invisible things that made the visible possible.

When I left the co-driver’s seat, I didn’t leave the world of performance. I just stepped back far enough to see how fragile it really was when the right frameworks weren’t in place. Whether it was talent development, team culture, or governance at the highest level, I kept seeing the same truth emerge. Performance isn’t an outcome. It’s an architecture.

That’s as true in boardrooms as it is in paddocks or service areas. The most effective corporate teams I’ve worked with aren’t the ones chasing short-term wins — they’re the ones who move from firefighting to foresight. Who build environments where people can think clearly, act decisively, and grow consistently, even under pressure. Just like in sport, it’s the system that enables the individual.

In rugby, the best teams aren’t defined by individual brilliance alone — they’re shaped by systems that allow instinct to thrive within structure. Players trust in the shape of the game, in patterns rehearsed under pressure. The chaos of the breakdown is met with preparation, not panic. That’s where performance becomes sustainable — and it’s not so different from building in motorsport, or anywhere else.

But there’s something more personal underneath all of this. Stepping into system design wasn’t just a professional pivot. It was an inner redefinition of what success looked like for me. When I was younger, I found purpose through precision. My role was to minimise ambiguity. Now, I seek out complexity — not to eliminate it, but to give it shape. I’m less interested in the right line through the corner, and more focused on building the road itself.

That change didn’t happen overnight. It took time to realise that creating something sustainable often means letting go of the things that once defined you. I loved competing. I loved the rhythm of it, the urgency. But in hindsight, I see it as training. Not just for performance, but for perception. That’s what I carry forward now — the instinct to notice how systems behave under pressure, and the desire to make them better.

These days, my measure of success is quieter. It’s found in whether a young driver has the right environment to thrive. Whether a team culture supports clarity instead of confusion. Whether leadership decisions are guided by values, not just politics or momentum. My time within the structures of global sport has only reinforced this. When systems are built around individuals, they struggle. But when they’re built around purpose, they hold.

People sometimes ask if I miss it — the adrenaline, the noise, the rush of the fight. The answer is that I still feel it, but in different places. In designing a programme that gives someone their first real chance. In shaping a policy that outlives a political cycle. In holding space for something better to take root. That, to me, is what architecture is. It’s not about control. It’s about creating conditions where the right things can happen.

The thing is, I never really bought into the idea of pressure in the way people talked about it. When they’d ask if I felt it in the car, I’d always say: “Pressure is what they put in tyres.” But real composure comes from somewhere else — from the systems behind the moment. You could see it last week in the URC quarter-final between Munster and the Sharks. After finishing level at full time and going scoreless through extra time, the match went to a place-kick shootout — the first time that’s ever happened in the competition’s history. Not something teams typically train for. Yet the Sharks went six from six. That doesn’t come down to luck. It’s preparation, clarity, and a culture where even the rarest scenarios are met with conviction. You see the same thing in McLaren’s recent F1 resurgence — strong team culture, two competitive teammates pushing each other, and performance that looks instinctive but is actually engineered.

I used to define success by how fast we got there. Now I define it by what we leave behind.

Next week, as FIA Member Clubs gather in Macau for the General Assembly, I’ll be sharing a more reflective piece — not a manifesto, but a quiet provocation. What if governance wasn’t just about control or compliance, but about coherence? What if we built systems that don’t just perform, but breathe? As conversations unfold around leadership, governanace and structure, it feels like the right moment to step back and ask: what are we really building, and who are we building it for?