Who IS SIMON JAY?

Believe it or not, at 16 — with long black hair, a side parting, and pierced ears — I was in an emo/rock band. Yep. I was the guitarist and booked our shows, and we somehow found ourselves touring the UK, selling out venues, and having crowds sing our lyrics back to us. Genuinely thought that was me set for life. I even started a music promotion agency on the side, booking shows in our town (think Enter Shikari, Don Broco, Frank Turner…).

Then the band split up, totally out of the blue, and like most 18-year-olds with crushed dreams and a questionable haircut, I suddenly had no clue what I was doing. I gave uni a go, but depression hit me hard and I left after the first year to focus on getting better.

After that, I fell into recruitment — literally. I couldn’t find a job, so I walked into a recruitment agency… and they offered me one helping other people to find jobs. It took me a moment to get my head around the irony. 

I started as a resourcer on £14K a year, worked hard, and ended up a senior consultant within 18 months. It was a baptism of fire but it gave me a thick skin, a strong work ethic, and a crash course in human behaviour (and that even the most senior people in very important roles can still lie about their dog dying 3 times in the space of 4 months… The same dog, by the way.)

I got headhunted a couple of times to build out new teams, then eventually launched my own company with an investor. Within 18 months we were profitable and preferred suppliers to some of the UK’s biggest private hospital groups. Biggest lesson? Always do due diligence on who you agree to go in to business with — not everyone’s values match the buzzwords on their LinkedIn profiles.

During that time, I was recruiting consultant psychiatrists (as you do), and one of my clients — a medical director — rang me out of the blue and said he was leaving to build a mental health tech startup. I joined as the first employee, became Commercial Director, and took on everything from sales and go-to-market to client success and partnerships.

The next six and a half years were wild. We went from nothing, no product market fit, no CRM, no employees, no processes, etc to multi-millions in revenue, grew a commercial team of 40, and scaled the business to around 100 people. I had 18 direct reports at one point — never a dull day. I learned loads: how to hire (and when not to), how to scale sensibly, how to bounce back when things break, and how to build something you’re proud of.

Since then, I’ve joined three more SaaS companies, all at different stages of maturity. I helped them shift away from consumer or government-only revenue models and into more traditional B2B, growing multiple millions of revenue in the process and hiring countless salespeople along the way.

I’ve also sold into 25+ countries — from the UK and US to Australia, the Middle East, parts of APAC, and a lot of Europe. The cultural differences in sales are real. (Pro tip: don’t pitch the same way in Germany as you do in Australia — unless you want to be ghosted and insulted.)

Some businesses I’ve worked with were heavily clinical and regulated, others were fast and loose. But the fundamentals of good selling were always the same: be curious, be structured, and don’t be a d*ck.

On the personal side, I’ve got two amazing boys (six and one), I’m engaged to the love of my life, and I care for my mum since my dad passed away seven years ago from cancer. He was a Detective Chief Inspector in the Met — ended up played by Danny Mays in a Netflix documentary called ‘Des’. I even make a sneaky appearance in episode two if you squint hard enough. 

My dad taught me the value of honesty, integrity, and sticking up for people who don’t have a voice. That’s stuck with me in every job I’ve ever had. People have often said I’m different in sales — that they trust me, feel like I listen, remember the small things. I was once told that I won a client just by remembering the name of a flower she had planted and asking about it (amongst other things). Silly on the surface, but that’s the stuff that builds trust. But training that authentic curiosity is hard. 

I’ve done most roles in sales — SDR, AE, sales manager, commercial director — and led functions across sales, marketing, partnerships, and customer success. But the thing I love most? Watching other people succeed. Coaching and mentoring gives me actual joy (and no, not the fake LinkedIn kind).

That’s what led me to start Ethical Revenue Circle.

I’m doing it one day a week alongside my current Commercial Director role (which I also love). It’s a focused 1:1 coaching business for SaaS salespeople/managers that want to develop and scale without turning into a pressure cooker.

I don’t believe in snake oil, or coaching people to sell in ways that feel grim. I do believe in being honest, strategic, and building sustainable revenue that you’re proud of – and your clients are proud of, too.

If we end up working together, we’ll need to be aligned on that. I’ve no interest in helping someone squeeze prospects through some aggressive funnel they wouldn’t fall for themselves.

If you’ve read this far — firstly, well done. Secondly, feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to chat, especially if you’ve had your own moments of "What the hell am I doing with my life?" along the way. You’re not alone, trust me.