---
title: "Joined-up thinking: John Phelan on the cover of Better Business"
seo_title: John Phelan on the cover of Better Business | In the press
description: Advise Co-Founder John Phelan is the cover story of the Small Firms Association's Better Business magazine, on his move from animation to data analytics.
slug: /news/john-phelan-better-business-cover
template: article
date: 2026-05-13
category: In the press
author: Advise
schema: NewsArticle
tags: [company]
---

# Joined-up thinking: John Phelan on the cover of Better Business

Advise Co-Founder John Phelan is the cover story of the Spring 2026 issue of *Better Business*, the magazine of the Small Firms Association. The interview, "Joined-Up Thinking", follows John's route from animation to data analytics, and what it taught him about building a business.

![John Phelan on the cover of Better Business, Spring 2026](/img/news/better-business-cover-john-phelan.jpg)

*Better Business, Spring 2026, the magazine of the Small Firms Association.*

## From animation to analytics

John started out painting cels at Sullivan Bluth Animation Studios on films including *All Dogs Go to Heaven* and *The Land Before Time*, and later worked on *Space Jam*. He went on to run his own animation studio in London and to chair Animation Ireland. In 2025 the Irish Animation Awards gave him its Outstanding Contribution to Industry award.

An MBA at Smurfit took him into start-ups and early-stage investment, and to the role of all-island Director at the Halo Business Angel Network, where investment grew to €33 million across 88 deals.

## Why Advise

Advise grew out of services work for companies like Mastercard. Working with consumer goods brands, John and Kevin McCarthy saw the same problem everywhere: retailers send their sales data back to brands, but nobody was putting it all together. The fix was a unified data platform that automates the work, launched in the first week of March 2020.

> "Putting all those data sources together might sound simple, but actually a huge amount of technical data modelling is required."
> John Phelan, Co-Founder, Advise

Today Advise's clients include Carlsberg Britvic, Tayto, Coca-Cola, Birds Eye and Dr. Oetker. The article covers Advise's growth in the UK and its first steps into the US. John's closing point is about people:

> "AI has its place but fundamentally, I think it all comes back to people. Building trust, building relationships and partnerships, that's what creates a successful business."


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