Bios | Associates | Thorsdottir + Associates

Some of our Associates

Associated Partners & Partner Organisations

Ken Blunt

Ken is a large-scale international business and ICT Transformation Programme leader and Turnaround specialist with over 45 years of business experience. To date, he has been engaged on private and public sector, multi-functional, shared service business transformations, spanning more than 40 countries and 15 international technology company acquisitions.

Ken has also developed a reputation for being parachuted-in at very short notice to turn around distressed and stalled transformation programmes, mergers and business divestitures/separations.

When engaged on turnaround assignments, he has been able to draw on his extensive experience to assess and qualify cultural, business, technology, service delivery, supplier and governance root causes and capability or maturity gaps quickly.

Based on collated evidence, Ken has developed potent skills in steering, influencing, motivating and engaging delivery teams, stakeholders and business leaders to develop and implement essential and pragmatic restructuring actions grounded on best-of-breed technologies, best practices and programme governance that have consistently delivered successful turnaround outcomes.

Ken has contributed significant expertise to Rolls Royce, IBM, SAP, Canon, Siemens, ABB, Avon Cosmetics, Kodak, Anacomp, Deutsche Bank, Bayerische Hypoveriens Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, UK Cabinet Office, Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), Department for Transport DfT), Department for Education, and the Qatar Government.

Ken is Managing Director and Consultant at Palmares Consulting.

David Wayne Callahan, B.A., M.F.A.

David is an American coach and facilitator who has developed a reputation as guru of communication and presence. His natural spontaneity and deep love of creative and truthful expression has afforded him a professional experience spanning four countries, ranging from Journalist, to Communications Director, to Professional Actor and Voice Artist, to Transformative Coach.

His unique method, fruit of working as a professional actor for over 25 years, was honed following his exposure to the three principles (known also as the inside out paradigm or health realization) in London in 2013. Distilling his experience into a deeply holistic approach, David has since been helping individual and corporate group clients to become more effective, spontaneous and impactful in their professional and personal lives.

He has contributed his passion and expertise to companies including Barilla, RS Components, Cameron SrL, Elcart SpA, Deutsche Bank, Crédit Agricole and to individual clients from the worlds of politics, medicine, law and art.

David currently lives in Italy, between Milan and his beloved country home in the rolling hills of the pre-Alps where he explores his other great love, that of portrait painting. In his unique style, he aims to capture the soul of the subject sitting before him.

In addition, David has served as a director in the private sector and on Government advisory boards.

Adrian Campbell

Adrian is a Strategic Enterprise Architecture Consultant with extensive professional experience in Enterprise Architecture, Strategy, Business Architecture, Governance and Road Mapping, using multiple frameworks and methods.

Adrian is focused on helping clients with strategic planning, business design, business transformation and identifying investments in business and IT change. He can diplomatically arbitrate multiple perspectives and interests to create a consensus in for decision making.

To date, Adrian has been engaged with many clients across many industry domains across the globe, establishing and leading an Enterprise Architecture capability. These industry domains include financial services, government, retail, oil & gas, utilities, military.

Adrian has used his significant business architecture expertise to support various business change scenarios including: Strategic business changes, digital transformations, design of new business models, consolidation of shared systems across multiple countries, cost reductions, new organisation/Target Operating model design, design and Incubation of new companies, mergers & acquisitions, due diligence, initial public offering (IPO), defining requests for proposals and evaluation of vendor proposals, smart solutions (intelligent connected SCADA devices), reuse of shared services, information and application rationalisations, new technology innovations (such as Cloud), legal & regulatory changes, globalisation changes.

Adrian is currently writing a book on Business Architecture. He also has a blog.

Anwar Haque, BSc, EMBA, PGCE

Anwar is Head of Computer Science & ICT (CSICT) in an inner London state sector school. He was previously HoD CSICT in an exclusive Oxbridge feeder private school with previous similar appointments.

In previous roles, Anwar built CSICT departments, implemented new engaging curriculum, prepared and built all relevant structures at subject and department level so as to operate for success achieving higher than expected results in each appointment.

Prior to his education sector work, Anwar worked in Telecommunications, Construction and Investment Banking. He was in a team of four experts supporting businesses across UK who were early adopters of ISDN technology. He implemented a new budgeting system and reporting process during his appointment within Construction.

Anwar has an Executive MBA from Imperial College, where he majored in Strategy and Finance and won a flight passenger seating strategy game. His thesis was a study of how companies gained competitive advantage with use of ICT.

Anwar’s interests include IT Security, Global Diplomacy and change management, social enterprises in developing countries, developing innovations that have social impact through Blockchain technology.

Trevor Hills

Trevor has many years of experience as a successful management consultant and coach to blue chip companies and SMEs. He has also provided productive advice and guidance to both new and established directors and senior managers in negotiating change and challenges. He has also owned two small production businesses.

Trevor has provided an extensive range of business economics, business development and effective employee management, improving firms’ performance by strengthening internal structures and making room for entrepreneurial activity, growth and exploiting profit opportunities.

As well as being a Bachelor of Law, Master of Science and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Trevor is a Member of the Institute of Physics and the IoD. Away from work, he has always been a versatile sportsman and has maintained a wide interest in arts, history and culture.

Trevor owns Trevor Hills & Associates which provides specialized management consulting services.

Marc Jarret

Marc is Vice President of Gottesman Company, America’s largest network of independent M&A Brokers. The Gottesman Company was established in 1985 and is one of the largest M&A firms in the United States specializing in finding Buyers for Sellers and Sellers for Buyers. Rated A+ by America’s Better Business Bureau, the company is also a member of IBBA (International Business Brokers Association), M&A Source, and ACG (Association for Corporate Growth).

Through the Gottesman Company, Marc works with a large pool of buyers and sellers of lower mid-market companies with $5-500 million turnover. The company is rather unique, in that they represent neither buyer nor seller as a fiduciary agent. Since most intermediaries are reluctant to share seller fees, Gottesman designed a Cooperating Intermediary Program to help them find buyers for sellers, in confidence, without sharing a seller fee (buyers pay their fee.)

After beginning his career in Banking and Futures Trading, Marc spent most of his career in the telecoms industry and was first-to-market with cell phone personalisation products which went on to become a multi-million-dollar industry. In 2009, he founded a boutique consultancy firm which helps his clients expand internationally.

Steve Rigby

Steve Rigby is a Change and Performance Management specialist with a long track record of working at all levels in organisations linking strategy formulation to operational outcomes. Steve has led and managed end-to-end process redesign internationally, working with organisations such as Proudfoot Consulting and AT Kearney. In South Africa he was part of a team which grew two consulting firms to leadership positions in their market.

Steve has over fifteen years of hands on experience of practical Change Management experience and is a subject matter expert in both Lean techniques and Performance management. His main focus has always been to deliver sustainable results and his most recent interest is how to set up and manage internal change management efforts.

Ganesh Sanker

Ganesh is a senior Human Resource leader with widespread international experience in several industry sectors and large, global and matrixed organizations. He has in-depth knowledge of leading and running a global HR function.

At an organisational level, he initiated, promoted and led several transformational initiatives and change programs like defining Company and HR strategy, evolving and rolling-out of company values, reorganizations and workforce optimisation. Within the HR function he has designed global HR service delivery models including offshore delivery models, talent management programs, onboarding programs, mobility & expat programs, reward systems, and career development models.

He has extensive knowledge of HR processes in Mergers and Acquisitions having played a leadership role in M&A and TUPE deals enabling organisations to create rapid inorganic growth and expand into new technologies and markets. He is well versed in all aspects of HR in M&A including Due Diligence, Deal Closing and Post-Merger Integration. He brought number of changes to the M&A process to deliver business continuity and rapid integration which contributed to realising the financial goals of acquisitions.

Another area he holds expertise in is HR Information System (HRIS) projects having been involved in and led large, global scale transformations.

Ganesh holds a Masters in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from the reputed Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India. He loves reading, especially non-fiction and has an interest in Economics. He is also an avid photographer.

Richard Shearing

Richard Shearing has a career path, including a few years of military service, followed by varied consulting roles in the National Health Service, Local Government, Central Government, investors in the City of London financial district, corporate companies and small-to-medium enterprises. This has provided involvement in all aspects of management consultancy from strategic/manpower planning, IT strategy implementation, organisational reviews, payment/reward schemes, change in all its forms, process management and fund raising. Whilst working on these diverse projects it became abundantly clear that the people and quality of information and decision making were critical towards the success of organisations overall and projects in particular attaining strategic objectives.

This wide-ranging experience is supported by relevant academic and management qualifications, including a Master of Arts degree in Business & Public Sector Strategy, Fellowship Chartered Management Institute and Fellowship Royal Society of arts. Also, active involvement with networking across many professional and business representative bodies.

More recently Richard has been focusing on achieving business objectives by employing the principle of “Good People using Good Information”. Firstly, by applying DNLA – the Discovery of Natural Latent Abilities, a world-class family of assessments developed for the selection and development of employees based upon social competences. Secondly, by addressing the overwhelming growth in structured data now dominating management information, which often misses those crucial unstructured nuggets. This gap in business intelligence can be filled by gathering anomalies combined with inference to reduce the risk of following fashionable trends thus adding extra dimensions to decision making.

Richard is very aware that nothing can happen without money, so identifies business propositions for various panels of investors and supports many innovative environmental opportunities.

Richard has pursued many sporting and outdoor activities but spends more time these days for walking, music, family and supporting various charities, including those for military veterans.

Michael Stonehouse

Michael Stonehouse is a successful turnaround and service improvement specialist who focuses on strategic development, constraints analysis, solutions development, project implementation and management.

Michael specialises in creating stability and focuses on improving service quality at the same time as making sustainable savings and continuous improvements. He bridges the perceived gap between Finance and Operational Staff, the gap that is often one of the biggest barriers to change in organisations and often leads to more indirect costs rather than achieving the desired savings. He ensures Operational Staff are fully involved from beginning to the end of any project to ensure rapid and motivated change that delivers savings and improvements which are sustainable and controlled. He ensures that the developed improvement processes and accompanying management control systems continue effectively long after projects end empowering the staff to continue improvements as part of their normal management routines.

His key skills include; Strategy Design, Business Process Re-engineering, Continuous Improvement through Management Control Systems and Staff Training, Lean Process Design, Reporting Structures, Management Training and Development, Change Management, Contract and Performance Management, Multi-Stakeholder Management, Supply Chain Management, Continuous Productivity and Service Improvements and Organisational Design in both the Public and Private sectors.

Clients have included a number of NHS Trusts such as; Kensington and Chelsea Primary Care Trust, East Kent Hospital NHS Trust, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundations Trust to name a few. Private sector clients have included; Alfred McAlpine Civil Engineering, Honeywell, Consignia, Balfour Beatty, Thames Water and MD Foods and Tesco.

Patrick Walton – ACIB, Dip FS, MBA

Patrick has a background in Corporate Finance at BZW and Bank of Scotland where he advised PLCs and large private groups with fund raising and acquisitions. He has worked across the full range of financial instruments be it equity, debt and capital markets.

As part of his corporate finance training he graduated from the Ashridge management School Acquisition planning programme in 1988. This programme provides the candidates with the dynamics of the acquisition process from planning through valuation of the target, diligence (commercial, legal, human and financial) and above all the integration plan to ensure that the valuation is achieved through the performance of the acquired target.

In addition served as a non-executive director in the private sector and on Government advisory boards.

Affiliated Company

rhw Solicitors, llp

rhw Solicitors llp have been providing legal advice to business clients for the best part of two centuries. They have helped business owners grow their businesses, acquire or merge with other businesses and, in some cases, deliver on exit plans which ensure that a business can successfully continue when an owner or partner wishes to retire.

rhw provides legal advice across the entire spectrum of business services. They can also offer expert advice on employment law and commercial property matters.

Core areas of expertise include:
• Contract law (MOUs, LOIs, contractual agreements such as NDAs, SLAs)
• Commercial property law (buying and selling commercial property, development, leases)
• Buying and selling a business (to include growing a business)
• Assistance with watertight shareholders’ agreements.

Commercial law team email guildford@rhw.co.uk
tel. 01483 302000
website www.rhw.co.uk