Skip to content

Search isn’t working? Let me help.

About me

With my unique approach, I can transform your search strategy.

I am a leading figure in the search industry, known for an honest, neutral and pragmatic viewpoint; I have held multiple roles including senior consultant, strategic advisor, project manager, sales & marketing director, conference organiser & speaker, trainer, writer & mentor. I am deeply connected with the business & technology of website and enterprise search engines with particular experience of small, high-value consulting companies. My past experience in software engineering gives me a highly informed perspective on search technology with a particular focus on open source platforms such as Lucene, Apache Solr, Elasticsearch and OpenSearch.  More recently I have helped several companies use modern AI techniques to supercharge search.

Read my story and contact me today to find out how I can help.

How I can help


With 25 years of experience in search, working with organisations across the world from startups to members of the Fortune 500, I am uniquely positioned to advise you. If I can’t help on my own, I can use my deep and wide personal network to find the people you need. If you can’t see what you need below, get in touch to discuss your requirements – I’m always happy to chat about search & AI!

Search Strategy Audit

Struggling to provide great results to your users?

Working with your team either remotely or in person, I will analyze your strategic approach to search & AI and provide specific and targeted recommendations to drive your business forward. I’ll identify blindspots, suggest better processes and patterns, show you how to build a great search team and discuss how you can measure your search quality.

Search Consulting

Need help from an experienced search expert?

I am also available for hourly or daily consulting on all aspects of search & AI. I can train you on search fundamentals, help you develop processes to measure and continually improve search quality, advise on technology choice, assist you as you create, build and upskill your search team and work with all levels of your business from engineering to executive.

Market Positioning

Want to promote your search & AI product or service?

Using my deep and long experience of the search sector, I will help you understand the world of search & AI, review your products, position your offerings for best traction, communicate your value and raise your profile. I’ll show you which events to attend and how to actively participate in the search community.

Event Expert

Planning a conference or event about search & AI?

As a well-known figure in the search community, an experienced and popular conference speaker and the organiser and host of many events including 5 years of Haystack, I can help you create and run events to inform, educate and inspire. I’m also available as a keynote or track speaker – watch some of my past talks below.

Watch my conference talks & podcasts

05

Testimonials

Charlie knows search and relevance…a unique perspective on search in all kinds of business domains and contexts.”
“…one of the most skilled professionals I’ve encountered in the field of information retrieval.”

“a knack for understanding the real requirements (both technical and organizational) and finding solutions for them.”
“..able to explain the parts I had been missing about techniques like RAG, and why to concentrate at least as much on the search part as the LLM, if not more so.”


From LinkedIn

Blog

Read my blogs from 2019-2024 here and earlier blogs here – get the latest and greatest below!

Hacking Quepid to test search relevance on any website

If you know your search is broken (often because lots of users and colleagues are complaining about it) the first step i…

Bridging the moat – why open source AI is a disruptive business strategy

We still don't know what we mean by open source AI, but many are playing fast and loose with the term to disrupt the AI …

Don’t look for one ring to rule them all in enterprise search

Can AI help us build better enterprise search? The AI giants are coming – can they understand the people problems we nee…

Speak your users’ language with search & AI

To solve user problems with search & AI we need to speak their language; how do we translate between their needs and our…

Contact