Defence · GRC · Supply Chain Assurance
Writing
Eighteen years running naval logistics accounts gave me the practice. These essays are the research: tracing what that practice actually maps onto in supply chain assurance, third-party risk and AI governance, and setting out what I find so other practitioners can test it against their own experience. Each essay says who it is for and links to the evidence behind it.
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The Physical Assurance Gap in Third-Party Risk
Two 2026 KPMG surveys map where third-party risk management is putting its attention: data, AI, managed services. Physical verification barely appears in either, and the people already doing it have never been told that it counts.
For supplier-assurance and third-party-risk professionals: a practical way to find the physical dependencies that standard registers miss.
Related evidence: Closing Asset-Accountability Gaps
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The Convergence of Cyber-GRC and Physical Logistics
Why siloed supply chain assurance creates blind spots, where they form, and what happens to custody when nobody is holding the item.
For supply chain, trade compliance and GRC leaders: where cyber and physical assurance leave a gap, and what a regulator's findings show about it.
Related evidence: Building a Compliant Movement Capability
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Supplier Concentration Risk: Measuring It Tier by Tier
A supplier list with fifty names on it can still fail from a single point. How to measure the concentration that headcount hides, and what to do once you've found it.
For supplier-assurance and third-party-risk professionals: how to measure concentration that a supplier count hides.
Related evidence: Third-Party Risk, End to End
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Trade Finance and Assurance: Why Faster Rails Have Not Closed the Gap
Three years after arguing that decentralised finance would widen access to trade finance, the gap has not moved. A practitioner view of how de-risking, correspondent banking and assurance decide who gets financed.
For trade-finance, fintech and third-party risk readers: why infrastructure alone doesn't close a trust gap.
Related evidence: OSINT Supplier Verification
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The Enterprise Risk Management We Already Do
Corporate risk management is being rewired around decisions, dependencies and judgement. Operational institutions have worked that way for decades, under other names.
For GRC and internal-audit leaders: how operational judgement maps onto the enterprise risk approach PwC now describes.
Related evidence: Modernising Assurance Across Inspections
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Engineering Trust: Assurance When the Human Leaves the Point of Work
Naval logistics assurance and AI governance are converging on the same problem: what happens to accountability when no one is standing at the point of work.
For AI governance, internal audit and GRC leaders: what naval logistics assurance and two 2026 papers say about assurance built into the work.
Related evidence: Modernising Assurance Across Inspections
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A Ship's Mind, Before Anyone Could Govern One
Two Royal Navy admirals, two years apart, both reached for AI at the heart of a warship. The record corrects which one actually said it, and shows the capability arriving years before anything could govern it.
For AI governance and defence readers: what a 2017 Royal Navy ambition shows about capability arriving before the assurance to govern it.
Related evidence: The Three Lines of Defence: From Warships to AI
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Recognition Before Retraining
Why the Pan-Defence Skills Framework is the missing piece in service leaver transition.
For service leavers, resettlement advisers and employers: why recognising the level someone has already worked at should come first.
Related evidence: Independently Verified Skills Mapping
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Talent Should Flow Both Ways
The Pan-Defence Skills Framework as a Defence Industrial Strategy tool.
For Defence and industry workforce leaders: how the skills framework could move people between Service and industry in both directions.
Related evidence: Same Control, Two Vocabularies
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Dangerous Goods Training and a Foundation Degree, at the Same Time
Between December 2016 and June 2018, as the sole logistics point of contact for two Royal Navy units at once, I was delivering dangerous goods training to EOD personnel and finishing a Foundation Degree at the same time. The award citation names both.
For hazardous-materials and safety-compliance hiring managers: what delivering dangerous goods training alongside a degree involved.
Related evidence: Building a Compliant Movement Capability
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Five People, Every Deployed Platform
In 2019, the five members of the Fleet Stores Coordination Cell received the Herbert Lott Efficiency Award together. What we did at once for the whole deployed Royal Navy, and why the citation credits the team.
For hiring managers assessing team delivery: how five people supported every deployed Royal Navy platform at once.
Related evidence: Protecting a £5M Trial from Failure
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Study Shapes Practice, Practice Shapes Delivery
Study alongside service has repeatedly turned into delivered, checkable outcomes, and the MOD's 2026 attitude survey suggests development is a retention lever the Navy has not yet used.
For hiring managers weighing evidence: what a career of study alongside service produced, and why it matters for retention.
Related evidence: Identifying £2.4M in Misallocated Funds
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Building the Tracking System a High-Readiness Unit Didn't Have
In 2017, as the Logistics Specialist at a high-readiness Royal Navy unit, I completed a Foundation Degree in Logistics Management with the University of Lincoln. The work-based project installed a consignment-tracking system the unit didn't have.
For logistics and compliance leaders: how a unit without consignment tracking built a working system and tested it on a NATO exercise.
Related evidence: Building a Compliant Movement Capability
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A Dissertation About the Job I Was Already Doing
Between 2017 and 2019, while working in Fleet Operations at Northwood, I completed a BSc (Hons) in Logistics and Operations Management at Aston University. The dissertation was built around the job I was already doing.
For hiring managers assessing analytical ability: a fuel-forecasting dissertation built around live operational work.
Related evidence: Building Fleet-Wide Inventory Visibility
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The Course They Almost Didn't Let Me On
The Defence Logistics Staff Course is built for high calibre officers of SO2/3 rank. A Petty Officer's case for a place on it, and what five modules against real defence procurement problems actually taught.
For senior rates and staff-course applicants: making the case for a place on a course built for a higher rank.
Related evidence: Modernising Assurance Across Inspections
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Supply Chain Management Was Already a Discipline
MIT teaches this MicroMasters as an engineering discipline, housed inside the School of Engineering, and the Ministry of Defence has just signed a research partnership with the institution's UK research centre.
For logistics practitioners: why MIT treats supply chain management as engineering-grade, and what the curriculum actually contains.
Related evidence: Identifying £2.4M in Misallocated Funds
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