
Managing Director | Principal Consultant at Bletchley Group
Twickenham, United Kingdom

Managing Director | Principal Consultant at Bletchley Group
Twickenham, United Kingdom
Founder and Managing Director of Bletchley Group, an International Digital Business Consultancy based in London.
Working for global brands, offering a range of digital services from e-commerce, to online brand protection, digital business strategies and online marketing, helping clients understand new business practices, new consumer behaviour, and new digital technologies available.
I also work with technology based start-up’s helping them to monetise the internet.
A Thought Leader and Speaker on Digital Strategies, Marketing and Business having chaired conferences, spoken at Internet World amoung others.
Strategy, Solution Delivery, Business Change Management, coaching and mentoring and Thought Leadership
(Consumer Goods industry)
December 2008 — Present (1 year 2 months)
Board Advisor for GreenStreet.Net, a Social Network e-commerce business. Advising on Business Model / Viability, Financial Model, Consumer Proposition, Branding, Marketing etc etc.
(Wine and Spirits industry)
December 2008 — Present (1 year 2 months)
Chief Marketing Officer responsible for all Brand / Marketing and Commercial areas of the business.
(Public Company; NWS; Newspapers industry)
August 2008 — Present (1 year 6 months)
Managing the Initial Set Up of The Sunday Times Whisky Club and the MySun Social Networking / Community Platform
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Management Consulting industry)
June 2000 — Present (9 years 8 months)
Managing Director and Principal Consultant providing Strategic Development, Solution Delivery and Business Change Management services to clients as well as Coaching and Mentoring and Thought Leadership within the Digital Industry generally.
(Privately Held; Wine and Spirits industry)
March 2006 — March 2008 (2 years 1 month)
Consultant managing digital brand activity:
• Developed digital strategy for all Bacardi Portfolio brands;
• Specifying and delivering the technical platform;
• Managing the BACARDI, DEWARS, ERISTOFF, CAZADORES brands digital activity including websites, digital assets etc;
• Technical Solution development and management of extranet for BOMBAY SAPPHIRE;
Ȃ2; Managed development of Bacardi Ltd corporate website;
• Working with Stakeholders across the world from the USA, Mexico and Latin America, through UK, Germany, Austria, Hungary, France, Spain, Portugal and Sweden to Singapore, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand;
• Working with Multiple agency’s to deliver solutions throughout the world.
• Ensured compliance with Corporate and Social Responsibility requirements in a highly regulated environment.
(Government Agency; 5001-10,000 employees; Government Administration industry)
July 2004 — March 2006 (1 year 9 months)
Consulted on various projects within Law Enforcement and National Detections sections including strategy, business analysis, technical management, techncial issues, risk management and stakeholder management through to solution delivery. Coached and mentored technical project managers and change managers.
(Government Agency; 1001-5000 employees; Government Administration industry)
2003 — 2004 (1 year )
Consultant Programme Manager working on the Initiation and Planning for the Delivery of a multi-million Programme with a multi-million IT spend. Projects were 6 to 9 month in duration. Smaller projects included feasibility study and proof of concept projects.
As part of the Communication's Division I managing a programme of work to modernise the dissemination of both textural and data information ensuring consistency and complying with the Brand Strategy.
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Hospitality industry)
August 2003 — October 2003 (3 months)
Managed software application development for a iTV company providing Digital TV services to the Hotel Industry.
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)
March 2002 — October 2003 (1 year 8 months)
Managing and consulting to various large and small clients:
• Developed successful e-business strategy to develop business into international market and to expand magazine circulation and advertising revenues;
• Successfully delivering e-business and internet projects on time, to budget and to requirements;
• Developed an e-business partner strategy for a major movie distributor and mobile phone operator for mutual benefit: developing creative idea and implementations for the film ‘Signs’ on a mobile phone channel and a web film club.
• Providing business and technical consultancy to SME's via Scottish Enterprise.
(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; Financial Services industry)
May 2001 — March 2002 (11 months)
Turnaround a failing project to successfully launch the Lombard Direct website.
Project managed the full life cycle delivery of an on-line transaction website.
• Project successfully delivered on time, to budget and to requirements within a radically changing organisation;
• Developed Business Case and obtained Group approval;
• Managed using a hybrid of Prince 2, RAD - DSDM along with UML and OO Techniques within a Matrix Management environment;
• Managed conflicting interests of difficult Project Stakeholders;
• Managed full lifecycle - strategy, marketing, requirements gathering, design, development, testing, training, implementation and post project review;
• Developed strategy to transfer successful brand online;
• Full responsibility for planning, monitoring, risk, quality and finances
• Managed in house development team using HTML, DHTML, JavaScript, JAVA and Forte with JRun and Oracle 9.0 linking to a Chordiant CRM platform.
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Banking industry)
May 2001 — March 2002 (11 months)
Managed two Business Change projects for the Own Brand Businesses unit:
Integration of two Operating units Arrears Collection Processes - Managing an internal team a Team including multiple ambassador users and an third party software vendor/developer to successfully enhance the functionality of the existing debt management system in a project of £1.5million over 8 months.
Managed the full life cycle delivery of a Business Critical project to integrate arrears collection processes of two business units and moved operations from Glasgow to Enfield; and
Enhancement of Arrears Collection System - Managed all stakeholders, project sponsor, data migration, operation procedures, staff training, testing, system implementation and initial support. System development from third party software vendor was later released as a module to their off the shelf system.
Managed complex weekend implementation, test implementation and roll back;
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Automotive industry)
May 2001 — September 2001 (5 months)
Managed the feasibility study for new a financial product development. Reviewed IT systems, marketing and operational processes.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Financial Services industry)
May 2001 — August 2001 (4 months)
Legacy Maintenance and enhancement for existing system:
• Reviewed all Business Change and IT projects, over 40 in total;
• Facilitated the internal negotiation and prioritisation with 10 project sponsors;
• Managed projects and stakeholders until additional management staff recruited.
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Banking industry)
January 2001 — March 2001 (3 months)
E-commerce strategy, Web Site and Content Management systems.
• Defined project scope and issued estimates for each project element.
• Facilitated brainstorming workshops, reviewing e-commerce strategy to develop ideas and concepts for e-commerce banking, branding, customer usage and attitude;
• Facilitated requirement gathering workshops, negotiating and cutting through inter division politics to gain agreement;
• Evaluated Interwoven Content Management System and competing systems;
• Developed Web Site Design Guide: BoS site framework, BoS Homepage, Personal Banking Division home page, 47 different Personal Banking product pages.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Internet industry)
October 2000 — March 2001 (6 months)
Project Manager on two projects:
Bank of Scotland - E-commerce strategy, Web Site and Content Management systems; and
Work24.co.uk - SME Portal Web Site Development
(Public Company; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
October 2000 — February 2001 (5 months)
SME Portal Web Site Development.
• Time Boxed RAD Methodology to allow 2 software implementations per week
• Tight configuration management allowing development of several software versions simultaneously
• Improved delivery, technical project management and cost control resulted in improved client relationship
• Manage team split over 3 locations using PhotoShop to design, manual HTML, DHTML, JavaScript, JAVA coding on an Apache, SSL, Tomcat and Oracle 8i & 9i platform in a Sun Solaris Unix environment.
(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Insurance industry)
December 1999 — October 2000 (11 months)
Managed the Software development, maintenance and enhancement for several of Scottish Amicable on behalf of ZEDA, at the time there largest client:
• In-house project management methodology (a variation on Prince 2)
• Managed team of 35 in 6 multidiscipline teams in 4 remote locations totalling 40 staff working on both Life and Pensions projects;
• Line management responsibility including team selection and interviews, disciplinary procedures, appraisals & holiday approvals;
• Managed work allocation, budget, issue and risk and quality;
• Managed client liaison with week status reports backup by monthly KPI reports to Senior Managers and Directors.
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Investment Management industry)
August 1999 — October 2000 (1 year 3 months)
Managed the enhancement of the existing Intranet / Extranet site.
(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Computer Software industry)
August 1998 — October 2000 (2 years 3 months)
Managed several projects:
Scottish Amicable - Software development, maintenance and enhancement
J Rothschild Assurance - Intranet / Extranet Development
Prudential - IFA Business - Application Maintenance and Enhancement
Stakis Hotels / Hilton Hotels - Implementation of WROB system throughout the UK
Northern Rock Building Society - Upgrading of BOA to Y2K compliance and from VB3 to VB5
(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; Insurance industry)
July 2000 — September 2000 (3 months)
Remotely managed Development resource working on application maintenance and enhancement.
(Public Company; 501-1000 employees; Hospitality industry)
November 1999 — December 1999 (2 months)
Managed implementation of the business critical Weekly Return Of Business (WROB) system to all 81 Livingwell Clubs throughout the UK. This was achieved within the 3 week timescale and to the clients satisfaction dispute software faults being found during implementation.
(Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Banking industry)
August 1998 — November 1999 (1 year 4 months)
Upgrading of branch office applications (BOA) workstream of Y2K programme. Analysed and upgraded applications with interfaces to legacy and reporting systems.
1989 — 1991
1987 — 1989
1984 — 1987
Motor Racing - F1, Le Mans