Today
Founder & Principal, Auchenglen
Principal-led support for consequential work: stalled transformation, high-stakes execution, operating model change, and embedded operating leadership.
Working where strategy, execution, and uncertainty meet.
James Vivian is a former management consultant and senior operating executive who is sought out when organizations need to move before every answer is clear.
James Vivian, Founder & Principal
10 yearsRunning business operations and transformation at Dow Jones
$1B+Global division leadership across data, media, news, and events
17%Year-on-year EBITDA growth, with every business line profitable
7,000+Employees across an enterprise-wide modernization program
The through-line
The person leaders call when important work has no owner, no map, or no momentum.
Across consulting, operating, transformation, and business leadership roles, James’s work has often started in the same place: a consequential business need, no established playbook, fragmented ownership, and a leadership team that needs progress before the organization has fully worked out how to deliver it.
At Dow Jones, he combined strategic interventions with the operating machinery required to make them land. His work ranged from the first major investment in a flagship product for a decade and the firm’s global Covid response to enterprise modernization, integration, and a new approach to the legacy newspaper.
That consultant-executive combination matters. James brings commercial discipline and a flexible toolkit, but also the relational judgment of someone who has owned difficult work inside large organizations, where priorities compete, teams are overloaded, and good strategies stall unless someone creates the conditions for execution.
Auchenglen was built to apply that experience directly: senior, hands-on support for moments when something important needs to happen but the organization does not yet have the structure, plan, capacity, or confidence to make it real.
Career timeline
A career spent making difficult work move.
Consulting discipline, executive accountability, and direct operating experience.
10 years
Dow Jones & Company
SVP, Head of Business Management for a $1B+ global division; enterprise transformation leader across 7,000+ employees; and strategic operating roles spanning the Office of the Chief Executive, a new consumer division, integration work, and major business interventions.
London & New York
Principal Consultant
Advised senior executives across media, financial services, and construction, and helped launch a U.S. consulting business from zero, building the client base, delivery team, and operating momentum.
Background
Law, leadership, and community
Bachelor of Laws from the University of London, SOAS. President and board member of a community rugby club since 2020.
Operating principles
Structure, alignment,
and momentum.
Auchenglen is built for moments when important work is under-structured, cross-functional, and exposed. The work starts by creating the conditions for progress.
Senior judgment applied directly.
Auchenglen is built around experienced, principal-led work. You get a senior operator in the room: diagnosing the issue, shaping the path, creating the cadence, and helping the team move.
Structure before motion.
When work is ambiguous, speed alone is not enough. We clarify the problem, the decisions, the ownership, the trade-offs, and the measures of progress so the organization knows how to move.
Momentum that survives handoff.
The goal is not dependency. We build the operating rhythm, governance, and confidence required for internal teams to carry the work forward after the engagement ends.
Confidential conversation
Working through something consequential?
No mailing list or sales handoff. James reads every enquiry personally and replies within one business day.