Principals

Principals are custodians of the standard.

Bearing & Course is principal-led because serious work depends on judgement, continuity and accountability. The people matter because they protect the standard, not because the institution is built around personalities.

Combined capability

Direction, delivery, assurance and adoption held together.

The principals bring different operating orientations across strategy, governance, process, controls, technology, data and change. Clients get a lead principal accountable for the work, supported by a leadership group able to test judgement and bring adjacent experience where it matters.

David John

Clear direction and the right foundations help organisations close the gap between ambition and what they are genuinely capable of sustaining.

David works in environments where growth, governance, privacy, technology and operational maturity need to align under real executive accountability. His focus is ensuring leadership intent translates into structures, systems and operating conditions that remain credible as scrutiny, scale and complexity increase.

His experience spans large transformation, operational and assurance environments where decisions carried legal, financial and reputational consequence, and where institutional trust depended on the responsible handling of information, systems and operational risk. That work has shaped a practical judgement around sequencing, trade-offs and the conditions required for meaningful progress to hold beyond strategy or announcement.

David brings a steady and disciplined approach to direction and delivery, helping organisations strengthen operational confidence, institutional trust and the foundations required for sustainable growth under real conditions.

Debbie Marshall

Confidence is built through governance, assurance and standards that remain reliable under pressure and defensible under scrutiny.

Debbie works in regulated, operational and supplier-facing environments where accountability must be visible, evidenced and capable of external review. Her focus is ensuring controls, assurance processes and governance structures reflect how work is genuinely performed rather than how it is described on paper.

Her experience spans governance uplift, supplier assurance, operational maturity and certification readiness across environments where weak controls, inconsistent evidence or poor operating discipline carried commercial, regulatory and reputational consequence. That work has shaped a disciplined and practical approach to governance grounded in clarity, proportionality and operational realism.

Debbie brings rigour without unnecessary complexity, helping organisations strengthen credibility, maturity and trust through controls and assurance that consistently hold in practice.

Amit Padhiar

Sustained progress depends on leadership, operations and people moving with clarity, cohesion and shared direction under pressure.

Amit works in complex enterprise environments where competing priorities, fragmented ownership and operational demands can prevent strategy from translating into coordinated action. His focus is aligning governance, operations, process, technology and organisational direction around a practical path that leadership teams and delivery environments can genuinely sustain.

His experience spans transformation, operational improvement and enterprise coordination across environments where delivery momentum, stakeholder alignment and execution discipline materially affected organisational confidence, culture and performance. That work has shaped a measured and systems-oriented judgement grounded in root cause, organisational clarity and the practical conditions required for change to hold beyond programme activity.

Amit brings enterprise perspective with disciplined execution focus, helping organisations move forward with greater alignment, operational clarity and confidence across the whole operating environment.

Ash Marshall

Performance holds when systems, operations and delivery discipline are designed to remain reliable under changing conditions.

Ash works in operational and technology-enabled environments where continuity, resilience and implementation quality carry real commercial consequence. His focus is ensuring organisations can introduce automation, AI, robotics and other emerging capability without compromising reliability, adoption or day-to-day performance.

His experience spans significant operational environments where technology, systems and data needed to integrate cleanly into live operations and where sequencing, operational readiness and disciplined execution materially affected outcomes. That work has shaped a practical and measured judgement grounded in what performs reliably beyond pilot environments, vendor demonstrations or implementation plans.

Ash advises organisations on the operational realities surrounding automation, AI, robotics and emerging technologies, helping leadership teams distinguish between capability that is impressive in concept and capability that can genuinely hold in practice.

Ash brings a steady operational focus to delivery, helping organisations apply innovative capability in ways that are measurable, sustainable and trusted by the people responsible for the work itself.