Orion Independent Ltd.
Orion Independent Ltd. (dba Sarah Baker Perfumes) is an award-winning independent fragrance brand based in London, operating across wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels in 64 countries. The founder and CEO is also an internationally exhibited contemporary artist, so brand identity, product launches, and trade exhibits regularly cross the line between art and commerce.
I'm the brand's sole operations and data lead, which in practice means I'm the person who makes the numbers make sense. I work directly with the CEO and CFO. I built the core data infrastructure from startup through global expansion — when I came on, sales data lived across three platforms (Xero, Shopify, Wix) with duplicate records, date-format errors, and channel data that didn't match up. I designed a master data architecture that resolved it, and consolidated nine years of sales from all three platforms into a single reconciled workbook of 9,400 transaction lines, covering 86 wholesale partners in 40 countries across seven regions and direct-to-consumer sales to 57 countries. I set the currency conversion method and standardized the SKU keys so that revenue reconciles line by line to source invoices.
Most of what I do now is decision support. The CEO and CFO come to me for the analysis behind third-party logistics agreements, wholesale distribution terms, and where the brand puts its next market. I build the models, write the executive summaries, and deliver the presentations and multi-year projections that shape growth strategy — including the distributor concentration risk I flagged, which reshaped the U.S. expansion plan.
I also build the systems underneath the reporting. The wholesale order system is mine, as is the SKU registry that keeps product records consistent across every channel. And I shipped a live, interactive sales dashboard using Claude Cowork that replaced a cycle of ad-hoc spreadsheet requests with always-available business intelligence — the CEO now uses it for real-time monitoring at trade shows and stakeholder meetings, with filtered views across channels, regions, and SKUs. Month to month, I run reconciliation with currency conversion and multi-source validation and keep the product data current. Separately, I served as writer, editor, and artist advisor on the brand's 2019 collaboration with Versace," linked to the Baroness page.
ROLE
Business Operations & Strategy Consultant
DATES
2017—present