Our Experience

Steve Dougan – Founder & Managing Director

Steve Dougan is the founder of MagWoods Consulting and an experienced product, commercial and strategy leader with more than 20 years’ experience helping businesses develop, launch and grow successful products.

Before establishing MagWoods, Steve held senior product leadership roles within international manufacturing businesses, including responsibility for an EMEA product portfolio worth more than $400m. His career has spanned product development, portfolio strategy, commercial transformation, sustainability and market development, working with teams and customers across multiple countries and industries.

Why MagWoods?

After nearly two decades working within large international businesses, Steve established MagWoods to bring that experience directly to businesses that don’t necessarily need – or want – the overhead of a large consultancy or a full-time senior product leader.

Throughout his career, Steve saw the same challenge repeatedly: businesses often have great products, capable people and plenty of ideas, but don’t always have the dedicated product management resource, market insight or structure needed to turn those ingredients into profitable growth.

MagWoods was created to bridge that gap.

Steve particularly enjoys getting under the skin of a business – understanding its products, talking to customers and teams, identifying where the real opportunities lie and then helping turn those opportunities into something commercially achievable.

Today, he works primarily with manufacturers and B2B businesses, providing flexible, hands-on product and commercial support. This can mean developing a new product, revitalising an existing portfolio, entering a new market, improving product management processes or simply providing an experienced external perspective when an important commercial decision needs to be made.

Packaging, Sustainability & Regulation

Packaging and sustainability have been a significant part of Steve’s career. He has worked extensively within the packaging industry, supporting the development and commercialisation of packaging solutions and helping businesses respond to changing customer, sustainability and regulatory requirements.

That experience is increasingly focused on the significant changes being created by the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and the UK’s packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR) regime.

Steve’s approach is to look beyond compliance and understand the wider commercial implications. Changes to packaging legislation can affect material choices, product design, costs, supply chains, customer requirements and ultimately the competitiveness of a product.

Through MagWoods, Steve helps businesses understand what PPWR and pEPR mean for their products and packaging portfolios, identify areas of potential risk or cost exposure, explore alternative materials and formats, and develop practical plans for adapting to the changing regulatory landscape.

A Practical Approach

With an engineering background and extensive commercial experience, Steve is equally comfortable discussing the technical details of a product, understanding what customers actually value and developing the commercial strategy needed to take it to market.

His approach is deliberately practical and collaborative. MagWoods isn’t about delivering a lengthy report and walking away. Steve works alongside business owners and their teams to understand the problem, challenge assumptions where necessary and help turn decisions into action.

“Good product management isn’t about creating more process. It’s about making better decisions about where to invest, what customers really need and where the best opportunities for growth lie.”