I fix what corporations
get wrong.
Wing Commander (Retd) RAF · Gulf War Veteran · Chief of Staff $10BN EMEA
Individuals · Organisations · Investors
Built from forty years of experience at both extremes.
Carl McCann spent nineteen years in the Royal Air Force, loading nuclear weapons during the Cold War and commanding over 250 people on an operational Tornado squadron through the Gulf War, leading where failure had real and immediate consequences.
He then spent twenty years in senior corporate leadership across EDS, HP and DXC Technology, progressing from Account Manager to VP, Sector Leader and Chief of Staff for a $10BN EMEA region spanning 30+ countries and 60,000 employees. He led five global transformations, closed multiple $100M+ strategic deals, turned around three failing accounts and managed sector leadership across 40+ accounts in manufacturing, defence and aerospace.
He also burned out. He knows what the corporate machine costs people, personally, professionally and financially, and he built The Icarus Manoeuvre so that you do not have to learn it the hard way.
I know why. Because I have lived every one of these problems.
I know why transformations fail
Because I have delivered five from $500M to $3BN. I know what goes wrong on day one and exactly what needs to happen in the first thirty days to prevent it.
I know why forecasts keep moving to the right
Because I have sat in hundreds of account reviews where the same conversation happened month after month. I know why leaders hide the problem and what changes the culture of honesty around the numbers.
I know why leaders do not speak out
Because I have been in the rooms where speaking out felt career-limiting and staying quiet felt safer. I know what creates that culture and how to build the confidence that changes it.
I know how to prevent burnout
Because I suffered it at the highest level. I know the early warning signs, what causes them and the specific changes that break the cycle before it breaks the person.
The corporate world has a problem.
Actually it has many.
No career plan
Most people drift rather than decide. Weeks become quarters, quarters become years, nothing has changed.
No sponsor
Only mentors who can give advice but cannot actually move a career forward. The promotion equation has five terms. Most people only work on one.
No financial literacy
Landed in a P&L conversation with no preparation. The financial accountability arrives faster than anyone tells you.
Invisible to decision-makers
Doing excellent work that never reaches the room where the promotion decision is made. Results without visibility is invisible excellence.
Burnout risk
Going above and beyond with no framework for when to stop. The corporate world will take everything you give it.
Not knowing their market rate
Accepting what is offered rather than negotiating what they are worth. Each underpaid role sets the benchmark for the next one.
The gap between before and after is not mysterious. It is a preparation gap. And it has a measurable financial and human cost that almost every organisation is absorbing without ever naming it clearly enough to fix it.
I fix what corporations get wrong.
Most leadership development is built on theory. Frameworks written by people who studied organisations rather than ran them. Courses designed to satisfy a training budget rather than change commercial outcomes.
What I offer is different. Forty years of operational experience in a cockpit, in a boardroom and in every difficult room in between, translated into practical knowledge that closes the gap between the leadership organisations have and the performance they need.
I work with individuals who want to accelerate their careers, organisations that need stronger commercial leadership, and investors who want to protect the value of their portfolio.
For Individuals
Career acceleration, promotion readiness, financial literacy, political navigation.
See the Accelerator →For Organisations
Closing the leadership capability gap before it shows up in targets, transformations and attrition.
Enquire →For Investors
Protecting portfolio value through leadership assessment, founder development and pre-exit performance.
Enquire →Ready to start the conversation?
Whether you are an individual looking to accelerate, an organisation closing the leadership gap, or an investor protecting portfolio value. The first step is a conversation.
carl@icarusmanoeuvre.com · +44 7973 496400