Peter Hill
Court Jester

 

Peter’s career spans nearly 50 years of aerospace and business innovation. Starting as an 18-year-old trainee at Rolls-Royce, he led numerous manufacturing breakthroughs, twice winning Rolls-Royce’s prestigious Engineering Innovation Award, and eventually became Chair of the Rolls-Royce Fellows.

In 2011, Peter left Rolls-Royce to become a self-styled ‘Court Jester’, founding his international consultancy, Right to Left Strategy Ltd, and supporting DMG MORI, the world’s largest machine tool solutions company. As Dr. Masahiko Mori’s External Chief Consultant in Radical Innovation, Peter has spent over a decade discovering step-change opportunities across every part of the business, all through curiosity, bold questions, and a playful, fearless approach.

  • A medieval court jester could speak truth to power, ask questions freely, and push boundaries without limitation, and Peter’s work follows the same spirit. His creative, radical thinking, love of exploring ignorance, and willingness to make mistakes have quietly transformed factories, teams, and projects across multiple industries.

    Peter lives in the UK with his family and remains fascinated by the art of the impossible. He continues helping businesses, people, and manufacturing find the transformations they need, always with more ignorance to explore, more questions to ask, and a sense of wonder at what’s possible.

 

A good medieval court jester had no official rank, but was allowed to listen, suggest, ask questions and give opinions on almost anything – directly to the king.

He was not limited by role descriptions, qualifications or expectations – he could be sanguine or ridiculous.

He could sail very close to the wind and say things that nobody else would dare say, but he had to be wise in not overstepping the mark.