Overview
Steven Prebble is a three time CEO, global business leader, and growth transformation executive with approximately four decades of experience across retail, retail technology, SaaS, consumer analytics, loyalty, CPG, and technology enabled services. His career spans North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, where he has led organizations through growth, integration, repositioning, acquisitions, and operational transformation. Steven combines deep retail and consumer expertise with executive accountability for P&L, organizational design, product strategy, technology modernization, go to market execution, and investor readiness.
His leadership experience includes serving as CEO of Extu, a private equity backed global technology enabled services company, where he integrated an acquired business, reshaped product and growth strategy, strengthened the organization for future investment, and revamped the GTM strategy and Sales function structure. Previously, as President and CEO of Appriss Retail, Steven led a global retail SaaS organization through transformation, acquisition integration, technology modernization, and sustained growth.
Earlier executive roles with Catalina Marketing, EYC, Aztec, Tesco Lotus, Albertsons, Shaw’s Supermarkets, and Sainsbury’s built his expertise in retail, analytics, CRM, loyalty, customer strategy, marketing, technology, and international operations. These experiences gave Steven a practical understanding of business from frontline commercial execution through enterprise strategy and global leadership.
Today
Steven is President of Growth Readiness Leadership, LLC, where he works with CEOs and founder led companies that have achieved meaningful traction but are encountering the organizational complexity that often accompanies growth. Through his READI Growth Framework™, he helps leadership teams identify constraints, assess strategic and operational readiness, establish clear priorities, and build stronger execution systems and governance. Steven is also a Strategic Advisor to Merciv, a consumer intelligence AI platform serving major brands and retailers by synthesizing massive unstructured data sets with an agentic research layer.
He is particularly interested in working with growth stage organizations across retail technology, retail, grocery, food and beverage, CPG, consumer technology, SaaS, and adjacent technology enabled sectors. His experience is especially relevant to companies preparing to scale, professionalize their operating model, accelerate growth, pursue strategic transactions, or strengthen investor readiness.
How I Can Help You
Steven brings the perspective of an operator who has personally led businesses through many of the challenges CEOs, founders, investors, and boards face as organizations scale. He can help leadership teams identify what is constraining growth, align strategy with execution, strengthen organizational structure and governance, improve commercial performance, integrate acquisitions, modernize technology and product strategies, and prepare businesses for investment or strategic transactions.
His board and advisory value comes from combining strategic perspective with practical operating judgment. Having led private equity backed businesses, global teams, acquisitions, integrations, and a strategic sale, Steven understands how to challenge assumptions while remaining focused on achievable outcomes and long term enterprise value.
Character
Steven brings discipline, resilience, accountability, and a strong sense of responsibility to leadership. He approaches organizations as a long term steward, balancing the interests of customers, employees, investors, and leadership teams while maintaining high standards for execution and integrity.
Knowledge
Steven’s expertise spans retail, retail technology, SaaS, analytics, CRM, loyalty, CPG, product, marketing, sales, M&A, organizational design, and global P&L leadership. His decades of operating experience allow him to understand both the strategic forces shaping a business and the practical realities that determine whether a strategy succeeds.
Strategic
Steven excels at identifying the underlying constraints that inhibit growth and turning complexity into clear priorities and executable roadmaps. His experience integrating businesses, repositioning products, modernizing technology platforms, and preparing companies for investment enables him to evaluate strategy through both a commercial and enterprise value lens.
Communication
Steven communicates with the clarity and credibility developed through decades of leading organizations through consequential decisions and periods of change. He is effective at aligning boards, executives, employees, partners, and customers around shared objectives while turning complex issues into focused, actionable conversations.
