Alisdair set up The Innovation Zone, a facilitating, training, coaching and consulting business, in October 2000 with the sole aim of helping people to create an Innovation Organisation - a place where innovation is a way of life. In the last five years, he has worked with organisations including the BBC, the Daily Mail Group, News International, Roche, Boots and Ernst & Young.  He has created a series of publications including: "Welcome to the Innovation Zone!", "Rapid Innovation™", and "Innovation Trade Secrets".  He has also designed a series of psychometrics including: the ILQ™ (Innovation Leadership Quotient™); the ICQ™ (Innovation Culture Quotient™); and the I2Q™ (Individual Innovation Quotient™).

Prior to The Innovation Zone, Alisdair ran a general management consultancy called the Bowman Group, which he set up in 1988 with a number of his old colleagues from his four years in Coopers & Lybrand. His early career was spent in Operations Management roles, laterally with the Mars Corporation.

He is an energetic and enthusiastic individual, especially with regard to his work in the innovation arena. His guiding principle is to make everything he does a real experience for those involved. When not working, he divides his time between his base in West Yorkshire, England, and his second home on the Isle of Harris, off the Northwest coast of Scotland.