Martin McCourt
Many founder-led companies have a brilliant product and no idea how to take it global without losing what made it work. Scaling kills more good businesses than competition does. The hard part is building the commercial machine around the inventor without smothering the invention.
Martin McCourt is the former CEO of Dyson who spent 15 years turning a single-product British engineering company into a global brand operating in more than 60 markets.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Martin McCourt
- He has run the playbook most boards are still arguing about: taking a single-product, single-market business into more than 60 international markets while protecting the founder’s creative engine.
- He grew Dyson profits past £300m and crossed £1bn in revenue in 2011, with 80% of the business coming from outside the UK by the time he left.
- He is one of very few British CEOs who has personally established subsidiaries in the US, Japan, Switzerland, Austria and Germany, and won market leadership in most of them, including the US.
- He chairs Joseph Joseph and COMPO and sits on the board of Weber, which keeps him close to live boardroom decisions in the design-led consumer and homewares businesses he spent his career scaling.
- Named UK Business Leader of the Year at the 2010 National Business Awards, recognised for running a company described as the standout performer of the recession.
Biography highlights
- CEO of Dyson for 15 years, leading the move from a single-product UK operation into more than 60 international markets.
- Took Dyson revenue past £1bn in 2011, with profits above £300m and 80% of revenue from outside the UK.
- Established Dyson subsidiaries in the US, Japan, Switzerland, Austria and Germany, winning market leadership in most including the US.
- Earlier senior commercial roles at Mars, Duracell, Toshiba and Pelikan across more than 40 years in manufacturing, design, sales and marketing.
- UK Business Leader of the Year, 2010 National Business Awards.
- Currently Chairman of Joseph Joseph and COMPO, a non-executive director of Weber, and a Visiting Professor at Aston Business School.
- Earlier chair and board roles include Glen Dimplex, the world’s largest electrical heating manufacturer, alongside Tharsus, Lightfoot, Pure Electric, FreeFlow Technologies and Learning Curve Group, several taken through to successful exit.
Biography
Dyson was a British engineering business with one famous product and one home market when Martin McCourt joined as CEO. Fifteen years later, 80% of the revenue was coming from outside the UK, profits had passed £300m, and the company had crossed £1bn in sales for the first time in 2011.
That outcome did not happen by accident. McCourt designed and ran the international strategy that took Dyson into more than 60 markets, building subsidiaries from scratch in the US, Japan, Switzerland, Austria and Germany and winning market leadership in most of them. He moved manufacturing to Asia while increasing skilled UK jobs, and he kept the commercial machine running so that James Dyson could stay focused on inventing.
The career underneath that work matters. Before Dyson, McCourt spent more than two decades in senior commercial roles at Mars, Duracell, Toshiba and Pelikan, learning how branded consumer businesses scale and where they break. That history is why he can speak to the practical mechanics of growth, not just the headline outcome. In 2010 he was named UK Business Leader of the Year at the National Business Awards, recognised for running what was described as the standout business of the recession.
That work continues at board level. In September 2025 he became Chairman of Joseph Joseph, the British design-led homewares brand, having advised co-founder Richard Joseph in the company’s early years. He also chairs COMPO, the European organic gardening business, sits on the board of Weber in Chicago, and holds a Visiting Professorship at Aston Business School.
Key speaking topics
- International scaling of product-led businesses
- Building consumer brands across multiple markets
- The CEO and founder relationship
- British manufacturing and global competitiveness
- Innovation-driven growth
- Leadership through rapid expansion
- Clean-technology and industrial investment
Ideal for
- CEOs and boards of founder-led or product-led businesses planning international growth
- Chief Commercial Officers and international MDs scaling consumer brands
- Industrial and manufacturing leadership teams considering global market entry
- Leadership programmes for senior operators in product, design and engineering-led companies
Audience outcomes
- A clear-eyed view of what it actually takes to move a single-market business into 60-plus markets
- A working model for the CEO and founder partnership in inventor-led companies
- Specific lessons on entering and winning major international markets, drawn from the US, Japan and Europe
- A sharper sense of where British manufacturing competes and where it does not
- Boardroom-grade thinking on innovation, capital allocation and long-horizon growth
Talks
A talk on the realities of British manufacturing and where the country can credibly compete on the global stage.
Key takeaways:
- Why the “made in Britain” label is less commercially useful than the design and ideas it represents
- How Dyson handled the move of manufacturing to Asia while growing skilled UK jobs
- What British industrial businesses should compete on now
A talk on holding entrepreneurial culture intact as a company scales internationally.
Key takeaways:
- The practical disciplines that keep a fast-growing business from drifting into corporate inertia
- How to protect the founder’s creative role as the commercial operation expands
- Where most scaling companies lose their edge
A talk on the role of failure in product-led businesses and how leaders should treat it.
Key takeaways:
- Why iterative failure is built into innovation-led growth
- How to design a culture that absorbs setbacks without losing pace
- The difference between expensive failure and useful failure