Our People, Blue Alumni consultant profiles

Our people are all successful management consultants with a minimum of ten years experience, of which at least five years will have been with one of the leading Management Consultancies. All of our consultants are members of the Institute of Management Consultancy - the sole UK professional body regulating the consultancy profession.

Frank Ashton   |  Roger Bartley   |  Nigel Bell   |  David Bird   |  Ian Craven
Mike Crosswell   |  Linda Crotty   |  Graham Edmondson   |  Rob Garner
Phil Hunt   |  John Lancashire   |  David Mansell   |  David Mason
Paul McLintic   |  Jocelyn Mathews   |  Alan Penswick   |  Gareth Phillips
Roger Read   |  Simon Slater   |  Richard Surgett
Sue Thompson   |  Paul Turner   |  Gerry Wood

Frank Ashton

Frank has over 15 years experience in private sector consultancy and 4 years in engineering, working in the UK, Europe and the United States for blue-chip and global companies. He specialises in Business Transformation allied to Performance Improvement and Performance Management and has extensive experience delivering Operational Due Diligence for private equity houses. He has worked in the following environments:

• Strategy definition and alignment using KPIs and shareholder value
• Product and service profitability analysis including activity based costing
• Cost reduction and process re-engineering
• Structured software development

He has lead teams in these sectors: Manufacturing, Aerospace and Defence, Consumer Products, Pharmaceuticals, Financial Services and Utilities.

David Bird

David has over 17 years of professional consulting experience with PricewaterhouseCoopers and as an independent consultant, working in the UK, Europe and the USA. He specialises in leading and supporting complex, multi-faceted assignments for major national and global companies as an organisation change consultant and programme manager.

He has worked at all levels - from coaching shop floor teams to advising boards of directors - in implementing solutions to improve organisational performance. He has particular expertise in change management, training design and delivery, cost reduction, performance management, process and organisation design and implementation.

David has supported and led teams in change programmes in both the public and private sectors, including police, manufacturing, aerospace, automotive, publishing, construction, telecommunications and power (generation, distribution and supply).

Mike Crosswell

Mike has over 20 years experience in Europe and the USA of helping clients to improve Customer Value and decrease costs by improved marketing and customer management processes. His particular passion is helping clients to listen to the “voice of the customer” and using this insight to drive truly differentiated offerings.

Prior to consultancy, Mike worked in senior positions at Mars and United Technologies. He started his consultancy career at PwC Consulting before setting up Customer Management Solutions Ltd.

Mike has led change programmes both in public and private sectors, including manufacturing, consumer goods, aerospace, financial services, technology and energy sectors. An experienced manager and business consultant used to managing and working with multi-cultural teams in complex organisations.

Linda Crotty

Linda specialises in business transformation and supply chain assignments. She has over 20 years' experience in purchasing and strategic sourcing in a variety of sectors including utilities, financial services, manufacturing, travel, hospitality, and government agencies.

Linda has managed a wide range of assignments including procurement transformation, strategic procurement reviews, e-procurement, training, organisation design and implementation, stakeholder and programme management, and business transformation.

Linda worked for Price Waterhouse and Ernst & Young before becoming an independent consultant. Prior to consulting, Linda was a manager within the European purchasing and supply function of Ford Motor Company.

Graham Edmondson

Graham has over 15 years experience of consulting, gained essentially within a large firm environment. He has worked for Price Waterhouse (UK and US) and Ernst & Young (US).

Graham's experience centres around the areas of learning /development and human performance improvement. His recent project work has focused on the design and development of integrated learning strategies, combining learning needs analysis with effective classroom and e-learning solutions.

Graham has expertise in meeting facilitation and instructional design as well as course design and delivery.

For the past six years he has worked extensively in the United States as well as Europe, working for clients in aerospace, manufacturing, telecommunications, distribution / logistics, financial services, chemicals, pharmaceutical and the public sector.

Rob Garner

Rob specialises in the management of organisational change. He has 15 years' consultancy experience, initially with Price Waterhouse. Prior to being a consultant, Rob was a line manager for 10 years working in Sales, Training and HR.

Rob's specialist skills are:

As a consultant, he has supported change programmes in publishing, oil field services, manufacturing, financial services, construction, engineering, energy services, facilities management, government, aerospace, automotive, power generation, advertising, police, RAF and the Health Service.

Phil Hunt

Phil is an HR, outsourcing and change specialist with 8 years management consulting experience gained predominately within PricewaterhouseCoopers and 5 years line management experience. He has worked mostly within the telecommunications, financial services and government sectors, and worked on UK, pan-European and North American assignments.

Phil has undertaken programmes in HR shared services, e-HR, business process improvement, business process outsourcing (business case through to implementation), organisational development / design and organisational change. Phil also has experience of running communication programmes engaging staff from board to first-line customer contact levels.

Phil is fluent in Spanish and French, and also offers a unique music and recording-based service which provides clients with a different take on aspects of team building, team working, leadership and creativity.

John Lancashire

John has 15 years management consulting experience in project and programme management, business transformation, business process re-engineering and change management working primarily on operations redesign, systems implementation and outsourcing programmes.

He has a strong track record in banking and investment management with clients such as JP Morgan Chase, National Australia, Mizuho, UBS and Citigroup. He has proven skills in systems development, the selection and implementation of packages and the implementation of complex systems and processing infrastructures in large organisations.

John is a chartered accountant with 5 years line experience at board level. He has worked for both Price Waterhouse and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young before becoming an independent consultant.

David Mansell

David is an experienced programme manager specialising in the management of major projects in:

He is a chartered engineer with 17 years management consultancy experience and a further 10 years of project management experience.

For the last six years David has specialised on working within the eHR and shared services area, delivering successful projects for a wide range of organisations in a variety of business sectors, including Media, Communications, Construction, Transportation, Pharmaceuticals, Professional Services, Public Sector and Utilities, both in the UK and throughout Europe

David Mason

David has over 20 years experience in both the public and private sectors, working with many large public sector organisations. During the late 80s and early 90s he worked with Price Waterhouse on assignments in the UK, Australia, Hungary and Denmark running teams of consultants for assignments across a wide range of clients.

He is both a Chartered Management Accountant and an IT specialist. He has particular expertise in business transformation and change management.

David has worked extensively in the education sector where he has conducted national and international policy evaluation and development assignments.

He has managed several multi-disciplined projects at a national level and is a specialist in public sector management and administration. His latest work has been in customer relationship management for Birmingham City Council where he prepared the detailed business case for this £140million programme.

Paul McLintic

Paul McLintic consults in human resources, organisation development and change management. He has extensive experience with major national and multi-national organisations across many business and public service sectors. Paul's management experience is in human resources and he has made a speciality of human resources function effectiveness and e-HR and shared services.

Paul is currently a director of KoKo Union, a specialist supplier of HR process designs, user documentation and electronic staff handbooks.

Paul was formerly principal consultant with P-E Consulting Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers and his line experience was with the Distillers Group where he was personnel manager.

Jocelyn Mathews

Jocelyn has 12 years consultancy experience, including 6 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, in change management, culture change and human resource management (HRM) and has worked extensively in the public sector (central and local government) and financial services.

She has particular experience in:

Jocelyn is also an experienced trainer, having designed, developed and delivered a range of courses, including on coaching and management development.

Alan Penswick

Alan has 15 years consultancy experience in operational performance improvement, change management, project management and training. His assignments range from focused business process transformation to the management of global change programmes.

He specialises in supply chain assignments and has consulted in the chemical, automotive, defence, airline, broadcasting and banking industries, typically with cost, quality and service as the improvement goals.

Alan’s background is in the UK automotive industry, from where, after progressing to a senior management position, Alan spent 8 years with Price Waterhouse before becoming an independent consultant.

Gareth Phillips

Gareth is an experienced transformation manager, specialising in the shaping & implementation of complex change programmes. These programmes have ranged from the hands-on managing of a major IT-driven change project in the City to assisting the police service with culture-driven change.

He is a practical consultant who uses tools such as executive & board-level facilitation and formal project management to deliver significant business benefits to clients.

In a career of 10 years at Price Waterhouse and as an independent consultant, Gareth has gained experience in a number of industries including financial services, energy, government, utilities and telecommunications.

Roger Read

Roger is an accountant, initially working in manufacturing industry followed by over 20 years management consultancy experience with Price Waterhouse, PwC and IBM.

During his consultancy career, Roger has retained his focus on financial management consulting and has worked across private, public sector and latterly, not-for-profit organisations. He has in-depth experience in:

Roger has led a number of significant transformation assignments, including reducing the finance function costs in a UK clearing bank by 40%, working alongside the CFO of a European pharmaceutical company in a fundamental upgrade of the world-wide finance function and integrated finance functions following M&A activity.

Simon Slater

Simon has 15 years' consulting experience, providing organisation development, change management and also strategic and operational marketing advice.

His change management work has focused on aligning sales, marketing and product development resources to meet the new or revised needs of the business, usually as a project manager leading a number of significant work-streams as part of a change programme.

Simon has worked within financial services (insurance and retail banking), telecommunications, media, electronics, construction, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, business services, government, and not-for-profit sectors.

He has line and general management experience spread over some 13 years in textiles, engineering and security, and retail financial services. He worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers prior to becoming an independent consultant.

Richard Surgett

Richard is an experienced change management consultant / business transformation director, with over 20 years international business experience in some of the world’s largest organisations.

He specialises in managing major business transformation programmes, change management and communications, programme / project management, business process re-engineering and shared services. He is also a highly experienced board level facilitator and executive coach.

Richard has over 15 years consultancy experience with Price Waterhouse, Ernst and Young and as an independent consultant. He has worked extensively in the energy/utilities, financial and professional services, aerospace, retail and manufacturing industry sectors.

Sue Thompson

Sue is a chartered engineer with 20 years’ consultancy experience in purchasing, supply chain, manufacturing and insolvency.

Sue has managed a broad range of supply chain assignments including Global and Pan European reviews, strategic procurement reviews, e-procurement implementation, organisational implementation, training, programme management and business process transformation. In addition, she has managed several insolvency engagements.

Her assignments are for major international companies in a variety of sectors including FMCG, financial services, engineering, media, hotels and transportation. Sue specialises in complex assignments where bottom-line results are required urgently.

Prior to entering consultancy (initially with Price Waterhouse), Sue was a manager responsible for the introduction of new technology with the Military Aircraft Division of British Aerospace.

Paul Turner

Paul is a project and programme manager with 27 years ICT and business experience, including 10 years as a consultant with Price Waterhouse and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is a qualified accountant with a range of experience combining outsourcing, process improvement, systems implementation and large-scale programme and change management.

Paul specialises in the financial services sector and his recent assignments include improving business processes to generate £10m additional revenue at a mortgage bank and managing the implementation of a new financial planning service.

Prior to consultancy, Paul held roles in both financial management and applications development.

Gerry Wood

Gerry is an experienced programme and project manager who has managed major change programmes at banks, insurers and other major financial services companies.

He has 18 years consulting experience and was among the first group of consultants at Ernst & Young to become an accredited change management specialist.

He has a pragmatic approach and achieves results by focusing primarily on teamwork, communication and the cultural and behavioural changes needed to achieve successful implementations.

Prior to consultancy, he had 10 years line management experience in manufacturing, reinsurance broking and software development.