About

Built by operators.

Langford Digital Advisory exists for one reason: boards, founders and investors deserve counsel from people who have run digital commerce at scale, not just studied it.

The firm

LDA is a boutique advisory firm focused on digital commerce. We work with a small number of retailers, brands, the businesses that sell into retail, and the investors who back them, on the questions that matter most: growth strategy, channel economics, marketing and media, marketplace models, technology and team capability.

Our advice comes from having done the job: scaling revenue, improving margin and building new business models inside large, complex retailers.

What we believe

Digital is a P&L discipline, not a department.

The businesses that win treat online economics with the same rigour as store economics.

Marketplaces are operating models, not bolt-ons.

Curation, returns economics and brand relationships decide whether third-party revenue creates or destroys value.

The hard part was never the technology. It's the choices.

Advice is only worth having from people who have carried the consequences of those choices themselves.

Leadership

Stephen Langford — Founder

Stephen founded LDA after 25 years running digital commerce in UK retail, most recently as Director of Online, Omnichannel & Partnerships at M&S. There he grew M&S.com from £800m to more than £2bn, lifted online EBIT margin from 2% to 8%, and built the Brands at M&S marketplace from zero to more than 200 brands.

Before M&S he grew George.com from £20m to £250m between 2011 and 2019, and was Commercial VP and Co-Managing Director of George at Asda, leading merchandising, supply chain, online and stores. He started his career at Tesco.

Work with us

We take on a limited number of engagements. If your board, business or fund has a digital commerce problem that matters, we'd welcome the conversation.

Get in touch