A name that shows the way

About Pathlight

Formerly Ocreus, Pathlight is a boutique advisory firm working in financial services governance, risk, regulation and compliance. John Higgins founded the company, having spent his career inside the machinery of financial services, managing custody and treasury for multi-billion-pound portfolios through periods of crisis, carve-outs and wind-downs.

As the business grew, he brought in colleagues from the Big Four professional services firms to expand the breadth and depth of their services. This included Maria Symeon, who works with clients at the intersection of strategy, people, power and behaviour, helping senior leaders navigate complexity across cultures and geographies.

Together, John, Maria and the Pathlight team help organisations move forward with confidence in situations where the path isn’t always obvious. The challenge? To create a name that reflected this: something credible in highly regulated environments, but not heavy or institutional. Clear and confident, yet distinctly human.

Opening up the process

Rather than disappearing to ‘come back with options’, we invited John, Maria and a couple of other team members into the naming process itself. Not to watch creativity unfold, but to help shape the constraints, trade-offs and decisions along the way.

We started by building a tight naming brief together – defining what the name needed to do, how it should feel and what it absolutely couldn’t be.

The name needed to strike a careful balance. It had to feel credible in regulated environments, but not heavy or overly institutional. Confident, but not cold. Human, without being soft. Defining the brief gave everyone a shared lens for evaluating ideas, rather than relying on personal taste.

Searching with structure

We then structured the search around a small number of clear territories – themes such as clarity, direction, protection, and momentum – to avoid random wandering and keep discussion focused and productive.

The sessions were open, honest and occasionally uncomfortable. There were false starts, discarded favourites and moments where nothing quite landed. But letting those moments happen in the room built trust quickly and sharpened the brief with every iteration. In fact, the process became something more than a naming exercise.

“Being part of the process made a real difference. It wasn’t just about landing on a name – it brought the team together around a new brand and a shared set of values.”

— John Higgins, CEO, Pathlight

From idea to identity and reality

As the list narrowed, one name kept resurfacing for its balance of warmth, confidence and practicality: Pathlight.

The idea was simple. This was a business that doesn’t just help clients plot a route forward, but illuminates it – giving them the clarity and confidence to take the next step.

We refined the name into Pathlight Associates, giving it the flexibility and credibility needed in a professional services context.

The name felt directional and reassuring, without overpromising certainty. It was distinctive, usable and legally viable. And it gave the founders room to grow meaning over time.

But getting from idea to reality required more than agreement in a workshop.

“Once we’d agreed on the name, bringing it to life was a really thorough process, from availability checks to design and trademarks. It takes time, but it gives you confidence that everything is robust and ready to launch.”

— Maria Symeon, Partner, Pathlight

Behind the scenes, aligning company registration, domain names and trademark clearance proved to be one of the most complex parts of the journey. Alongside lawyers and trademark experts, we were always on hand to help the team along the way.

A name that does its job

The strength of Pathlight lies in its clarity. It feels directional and reassuring, without overpromising certainty.

Importantly, it doesn’t need explaining.

“We actually had more questions about ‘Ocreus’, our old name. Pathlight is made up of two familiar words – people instinctively understand it. That’s probably a measure of success.”

— John Higgins

The result is a name that’s distinctive, usable and legally viable, with the flexibility to grow in
meaning over time.