About Felicity
Commercial judgement built across disciplines.
Felicity Southwell is the founder of FORGE. Her work sits between finance, operations, assets, propositions and execution rather than neatly within one function.
Felicity Southwell
Founder, FORGE
The recurring pattern
Understand what is really happening. Find what is being missed. Work out how to make the right idea real.
Felicity’s experience has been built over more than two decades working across businesses, property, investment opportunities and complex commercial projects—often in roles that sit between finance, operations, strategy and execution.
A recurring pattern has defined that work: understanding what is really happening, identifying where value or opportunity is being missed, testing whether the economics support it, and turning the strongest ideas into something practical.
Her background includes sourcing and evaluating property opportunities; development appraisal, planning and project delivery; business finance and operating systems; commercial negotiations; investor and transaction propositions; new ventures; revenue-model development; and the commercial repositioning of high-value assets.
She has taken property projects from initial opportunity through planning, cost modelling, development and interiors. She has rebuilt business processes and financial systems, negotiated contracts and supplier economics, developed commercial and investor propositions, and worked on opportunities spanning property, hospitality, technology, financial services, media and international trade.
Why that breadth matters
“I am not there to know more than every specialist. I am there to see the commercial picture across disciplines, ask the questions that expose what matters, and work out what is genuinely worth doing.”
Felicity’s role is to challenge the question being asked, separate evidence from assumption, identify connections others may have missed, establish what matters economically and operationally, and bring specialist expertise into the decision where it is genuinely required.
She is particularly interested in opportunities that sit between conventional functions—where revenue, assets, operations, technology and owner decisions intersect. Increasingly, that includes examining where AI, automation and better systems can release capacity and reduce unnecessary cost.
Selected experience
Evidence of a commercial pattern—not a conventional CV.
Property acquisition, development appraisal, planning, project management and asset repositioning
Commercial and operational management within established owner-managed businesses
Financial modelling, cost analysis and commercial decision support
Revenue-model and market-expansion opportunities for emerging businesses
Investor propositions, fundraising materials and transaction support
Commercial structures, partnerships, supplier negotiations and commission models
High-value residential and hospitality asset development and commercialisation
Process improvement, systems design and operational efficiency
AI and automation opportunities to improve capacity, cost and execution
Special projects where commercial, operational and strategic questions overlap
Why FORGE exists
Independent commercial judgement for decisions that deserve proper examination.
FORGE was created to formalise that way of working: independent commercial judgement for owners, founders and investors facing opportunities or decisions significant enough to deserve proper examination.
The objective is not to produce more strategy.
It is to work out what is worth doing—and help create a credible route to doing it.
See what FORGE doesA more valuable next move
The clearest opportunities deserve a closer look.
Begin with a confidential conversation about the commercial question in front of you.