Jonathan Waddingham

Turn AI ambition into shipped products and stronger teams.

I work with mission-driven founders and leadership teams to shape the product strategy, align the team, and get useful AI work into real hands.

  • £100m+ raised on products I led
  • 4,000+ organisations served at scale
  • 20 years building digital products that matter
Jonathan Waddingham
Track Record
£100m+
raised through JustGiving Crowdfunding
4,000+
organisations served through Lightful
20+
years building digital products that people actually use
>100%
net revenue retention on BRIDGE
Selected Work

A track record in scale, AI, and growth.

01 — Scale

Building JustGiving Crowdfunding

JustGiving had the brand and the platform, but no crowdfunding product. I led the strategy, team, and delivery from zero and built it into the UK's category leader for personal fundraising.

Part of a platform that has raised £100m+
02 — AI

Leading the move to AI at Lightful

Before AI became impossible to ignore, Lightful had no organised capability to move on it. I recognised the potential early and built and led the first cross-functional AI Squad, turning that urgency into shipped product work.

Deployed across 4,000+ organisations globally
03 — Growth

BRIDGE - From Promising to dominant

BRIDGE had real potential but it was not yet driving the business. I refocused the product around retention and expansion, built the measurement discipline to back it up, and made it the company's primary revenue engine.

>100% net revenue retention on BRIDGE
How I Help

Strategy, delivery, and the work in between.

Whether you need executive product leadership, hands-on AI delivery, or both, I help teams make sharper bets and turn them into working product.

01

AI Strategy

Clarify where AI creates real advantage, where it does not, and what is worth building first.

02

Responsible GenAI

Ship AI features with the right product thinking around trust, adoption, measurement, and governance.

03

Growth & Retention

Build the loops, experiments, and product habits that turn early traction into durable growth.

04

Team Alignment

Give leadership, product, design, and engineering a shared plan clear enough to execute.

Working together

Ways to work together.

I work either as a senior product leader inside the team, or as a focused partner for organisations that need senior product thinking, hands-on AI delivery, or both.

Full-time

Senior product leadership

CPO · VP Product · Head of Product

I'm open to the right senior product role - one where product is genuinely central to the business, there's real ownership over strategy and outcomes, and the mission is worth caring about.

  • Leading product, design, data, and engineering
  • Owning strategy, execution, and outcomes - not just the roadmap
  • Strongest in AI-enabled products and mission-driven organisations
Fractional and consulting

Senior support without a full-time hire.

For organisations that need senior product thinking, hands-on AI delivery, or both - without a full-time hire.

01

Workshops

Hands-on sessions for product and innovation teams.

  • Move from ideas to tested prototypes quickly
  • Frame problems clearly before reaching for the tools
  • AI-assisted prototyping to validate desirability faster
  • Formats from two hours through to multi-day bootcamps
02

Advisory

Focused support for specific product, AI, or growth challenges.

  • Product strategy, roadmap development, and discovery
  • AI opportunity assessment and responsible delivery
  • Growth, conversion, and team capability building
  • Practical help when the barrier is uncertainty, not ambition
03

Fractional

Part-time senior product leadership where a full hire isn't the right move yet.

  • Strategic direction and hands-on delivery in the same role
  • Lead product, design, and engineering through change
  • Build product culture and healthier ways of working
  • Right for mission-driven organisations at Seed to Series B
04

AI adoption

Help organisations move from AI experimentation to practical change.

  • Map where AI creates real value in your workflows
  • Build confidence through structured experimentation
  • Redesign ways of working around what actually shifts behaviour
  • Strategy, capability, and culture - not just a slide deck