About Southern Sky AI

I have always moved toward things that challenge me.

Growing up the eldest of five, I took responsibility for understanding things so others didn't have to navigate them alone. If a system affects me, I want to understand it. If a room is full of people speaking a language I don't yet know, I learn it. That drive has been with me as long as I can remember — not to outdo anyone, but because I have always believed that unnecessary complexity, used to maintain an advantage over people who haven't been handed the same vocabulary, is a quiet and damaging form of exclusion.

Seasickness was something I dealt with throughout my years at sea — particularly on Atlantic crossings and in service underway. I managed it quietly and got on with the work. The crew mentality suited me from the start — the lack of ceremony, the expectation that you show up and do what needs to be done, the way a good crew operates as a unit regardless of conditions. That was already how I operated. The sea just confirmed it.

I didn't study law to become a lawyer. I studied it because I wanted to know what the people in authority knew — and how to communicate like them. I'd watched capable, intelligent people go quiet the moment a conversation moved into legal or technical language, not because they weren't smart enough, but because the language had been designed to exclude them. I wanted to understand the system on its own terms, so it couldn't be used to silence me or the people around me.

What I found inside law confirmed what I'd always suspected. The gap between understanding and not understanding is rarely about intelligence. It is almost always about access. And plain language — precise, honest, clear — is one of the most powerful tools anyone can hold.

I started my maritime career in crew houses in Palma de Mallorca, working on a 30-metre sailing yacht for €1,200 a month, which felt like abundance. Over the years that followed I worked across Europe, the Caribbean, the South Pacific, and the United States — progressing from those early sailing yachts through to running the interior on 50+ metre vessels. It was a career built entirely from showing up, learning fast, and delivering.

I moved into yacht management, contributing to contract and risk discussions for some of the largest yachts in the industry — environments where compliance is non-negotiable, capital decisions are significant, and the cost of an assumption left undocumented can be severe.

What I became known for was clarity and getting it done.

I would read a contract until I understood it. I would ask the question others were quietly sitting on. I would take what sounded impenetrable and translate it into something leadership could actually use — without stripping out the precision, without pretending it was simpler than it was. Just making it accessible to the people who needed to act on it.