Neil spent ten years as Apple’s Head of Music in UK & Europe, helping grow iTunes into the world’s biggest music retailer and co-founding and curating the iTunes Festival. He was ranked #4 in The Guardian‘s Music Power 100.
He then spent six years as Head of Apple Services for Southern Europe, managing a billion-dollar business across App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV+, Fitness+, Apple Arcade, Apple Books, and more.
Prior to Apple, he was Europe Editor-in-Chief for Rhapsody, the world’s first music streaming subscription service, and Creative Director of Garageband.com, a Bay Area music start-up working with Sir George Martin (The Beatles) and Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads).
Neil began his career as a journalist writing about videogames. He launched and was editor-in-chief of NEXT Generation, described as ‘the best games magazine, by far’ (Marketing Week) and ‘one of the ten best video game magazines of all time’ (The Guardian). He was a regular co-commentator on the TV show GamesMaster.
With humour and candidness, Neil's talks draw on his experiences at the very top of Apple, with insights from iTunes' growth to dominate the music industry and how it in turn faced disruption. In an increasingly complex and confused world, Neil's core messages around simplicity, leading customers through change, and building and managing teams have never been more relevant for business leaders and their companies.
His book Simplify: Lessons from Apple will be published in 2026 by Macmillan Business
Suggested Talks:
Keep it Simple: Lessons from Apple. Steve Jobs said ‘Simple can be harder than complex, but once you get there you can move mountains. Neil leads an exploration of how Apple succeeds through keeping it simple, and how you and your organisation can do it too.
Leading customers through change: Lessons from Apple. Apple has grown into the world’s most successful company by convincing billions of customers to embrace change. How do they do it? Neil shares key lessons from Apple to help you bring your customers on a journey of transformation.
Steve Jobs, The Beatles, and Team Management. Steve Jobs said ‘My model for management is The Beatles.’ Neil spent 16 years building and managing teams at Apple and believes Steve Jobs was right. In this entertaining talk he explores how Apple and The Beatles share best practices all team managers can emulate.