MEET OUR TEAM

Upneet is a Big Four trained management consultant who relishes a small firm entrepreneurial experience. He loves a new challenge and is passionate about helping clients transform to achieve their potential, whether that’s through helping them articulate their strategy, redesigning their operating models, or managing complex programmes. A big believer in the need for agility and innovation in any business, he likes to keep himself informed on what makes great businesses great and how to learn from others.

Outside of work (and at work), you can often find him talking about his Saturday cricket games and upcoming travels. Upneet is your go-to person for recommendations on a good curry restaurant in London (and in most places around the world).

Lucy has over five years’ experience in consulting and research settings, with further experience in the health sector. She has worked with senior stakeholders in public, private and third sector organisations on complex global programmes; these have included changes to structures, processes, technology and organisation behaviours. Lucy’s consulting approach is complemented by an expertise in psychology, gained from her BSc and MSc degrees, and coaching training.

At Gate One, Lucy focuses on the public and health sector, and is an active part of the change management team. A keen traveller, Lucy has recently returned from exploring South America, completing a 5-day trek to Machu Picchu.

Jen joined Gate One in January 2018 having previously worked as a consultant in a big four firm. Specialising in large scale change and programme management, Jen has delivered complex transformation programmes primarily across the retail and financial services sectors. Most recently, she has worked with a retail client on an operating model transformation and has also supported a large global institution with their Brexit programme.

Away from work Jennifer is passionate about sustainability, enjoys travelling and socialising at one of London’s many brunch spots. She is also a F45 fitness fanatic and frequent runner, having run the London marathon last year.

A founding partner of Gate One, Alex is proud of our pioneering spirit and strong camaraderie. He enjoys developing innovative solutions for transformation challenges and likes nothing more than toasting the shared hard yards of a job well done.

Working principally in the financial services and public sectors, he has extensive experience of hands-on delivery of high profile, complex global transformation programmes, governance of £multi-billion change portfolios and building organisations’ capability to deliver change themselves.

Now with a young family, Alex does what he can to indulge his passions for travel and sport. He looks forward to returning to previous exploits such as a self-guided 4×4 safari through Botswana.

Organisations are facing unprecedented levels of change and digital disruption. As a founding partner of Gate One, David is excited about the endless opportunities that this provides and is inspired by the incredibly talented team around him who are helping our clients to meet their transformation needs head on.

Having worked across a broad range of FTSE100 organisations for 20 years, David specialises in complex digital, portfolio and enterprise-wide target op model transformations. He regularly coaches and challenges board level teams to lead effective change.

David is also an active investor and a board member of several start-ups. He is fascinated by the innovation process and how to infuse the entrepreneurial mindset into larger organisations.

Kirsten has over five years’ marketing experience after graduating from her degree in marketing and international business in 2014. She began her career in New Zealand promoting pushchairs, after which she moved into the public sector to sell the Kiwi dream as a marketing advisor for Immigration New Zealand. Kirsten is a passionate digital marketer who loves to get stuck in and learn new things.

Having been in the UK for only two weeks before joining Gate One, she spends her spare time exploring the great sites of London.

Gurpreet spent seven years working for a big four and global consultancy on technology-enabled business transformation programmes before joining Gate One. He specialises in delivering technology and digital operating models, IT strategy and business service design. He is passionate about driving customer value by breaking down complex technical concepts in customer focused solutions.

Most recently, he designed a global multi-channel marketing model for a leading pharmaceutical company. Gurpreet leads Gate One’s technology TOM proposition.

Outside of work, Gurpreet recently ran three marathons in three months! When he’s not running, he enjoys experiencing the exciting London food scene.

Caro has over 14 years’ experience within consulting and financial services, having worked for a major bank and big four firm in both Australia and the UK. As Gate One’s change lead, her professional focus is supporting organisations to design, activate and embed strategic transformation programmes, whilst applying creative approaches to facilitate and accelerate behaviour change. Caro is passionate about coaching, and supporting client teams to develop their skills leading and embedding change.

As an Australian, Caro enjoys exploring London’s restaurants, theatres and historical sites, travelling as much as possible, and getting outside to celebrate any (comparatively rare) day with blue sky.

Emma started her career in the NHS managing Surgical specialties followed by Accident and Emergency. She then spent two years at a Big Four firm as a healthcare consultant. During this time she specialised in operating model redesigns across the Acute Sector and most recently a large-scale Brexit Programme with the Department of Health and Social Care.

Away from work Emma enjoys socialising in one of London’s many brunch spots and will find any reason to escape to Europe for a long weekend.

A childhood spent climbing the Lake District fells and a consulting career forged in complex business transformation have firmly convinced Simon that the more painful the ascent, the better the views.

Simon has spent over 15 years leading and delivering change programmes in multiple sectors, with a focus on healthcare and life sciences. He specialises in helping leadership teams to achieve large scale change execution and culture shift.

A founding partner and director of talent at Gate One, Simon passionately believes that building a growth mindset culture of coaching and continuous improvement creates profound development opportunities for our consultants and lasting change for our clients.

Sarah is a strategy and programme leadership consultant with experience designing and delivering large transformation programmes across multiple sectors. After completing her History degree, she spent two years with a large consultancy before moving to Gate One in June 2018.

Sarah is studying for the CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting which aligns to her interest in business planning and strategic decision-making. She is also training to be a Coach as part of Gate One’s Coaching programme and was a finalist for the MCA Young Consultant of the Year Award 2019.

Nick leads our health team and has over 13 years’ experience in consulting and as an economics teacher. He is an expert at translating strategy into real, deliverable priorities to achieve results for senior executive teams.

In the health sector he works across provider, regulator and commissioner environments to develop system-wide and organisational strategies and improvement initiatives that balance quality of care, financial sustainability and operational performance. Nick can also draw on a range of experiences in several other sectors.

Nick has run several ultra-marathons and as a retired rugby enthusiast he is working on his unfinished novel.

Grace has a strong track record of strategic design and programme delivery with over six years’ experience delivering in complex operational and asset intensive environments. She has worked on large complex programmes with senior leaders in organisations in both the public and private sector, and has been involved in all stages of a programme lifecycle, from development of the business case to the deployment or commissioning phase.

Grace is a keen traveller and has recently explored southern Africa where she tested the boundaries of her comfort zone through sky-diving and quad biking over some of the world’s biggest sand dunes. She enjoys dancing and trying out unusual gym classes.

Laura is a Senior Consultant at Gate One, with experience across a broad range of industry sectors. Her deep understanding of behavioural and social sciences enables her to successful implement change transformation programmes. Laura has co-created the Gate One internal coaching and feedback initiative.

Laura loves to stay active, particularly through cycling and surfing. She enjoys dinner parties with friends and considers herself a keen cook.

Ben leads our retail, consumer business and manufacturing sectors. He specialises in scaling innovation into transformation and has led both lean, agile innovation teams and large-scale programmes. He particularly focuses on the people and cultural change required to create long lasting value. He has over 20 years consulting experience.

Ben has a great track record in growing consulting businesses. He has held partner and VP roles responsible for creating new services and building teams at well-known consulting and technology firms in the UK.

As a keen record collector and guitarist, when he’s not creating dishes in the kitchen Ben enjoys listening to and playing music.

Simon specialises in large-scale digital and data change. He has delivered complex transformation programmes across multiple industries, with a focus on how his clients can develop data strategies that underpin and help realise their broader business strategies. This type of data-focused transformation often requires a cultural shift and he has developed expertise in ensuring this type of change is implemented effectively.

In his spare time, Simon likes to compete in Ironman events and is also building an app that tracks flakiness amongst friends.

Rob began his career in local government before moving into consulting, working for two of the Big Four firms and joining Gate One in 2019. He has accumulated a decade of experience delivering complex transformation programmes across local government, healthcare and central government. Rob is passionate about making public services work better for people who rely on them the most. He thrives working with clients in integrated teams to solve problems and deliver meaningful change.

Outside of work, Rob is a trustee for a family support charity and enjoys travelling the world with his husband.

James accumulated over a decade of Big Four consulting experience in the UK and Australia prior to joining Gate One. He has driven transformative change in a range of public and private sector multinationals and now leads Gate One’s Travel & Transport sector.

A proven problem solver, James specialises in operating model design, portfolio management, customer strategy and experience, and performance improvement. James relishes building high performing teams to work side by side with clients on their most complex and high profile programmes.

James is a seasoned explorer with his countries visited tally at 40 and counting, including a 2017 visit to France where he fulfilled his lifelong dream of representing Great Britain in the (now IOC-recognised) sport of Ultimate Frisbee.

Gemma started her consulting career at a Big Four firm delivering complex business change programmes. She has ten years’ experience focused on the pharmaceuticals, consumer business and retail sectors, working in areas such as complex programme and change management, supply chain operations and post merger integration. Gemma believes the best way to ensure excellent project delivery is to work collaboratively with clients to build results that stick.

Gemma enjoys exploring the world on two wheels, two skis or a surfboard, and will try to cram in a European mini-break at any given opportunity.

James is a Consultant with extensive experience on major transformation programmes across the Government, Retail, Health & Financial Services sectors. He is skilled in project and programme management, digital strategy and delivery, business case development and operating model design.

At Gate One, James has supported one of the UK’s largest retailers in the redesign of its operating model. He is helping to build Gate One’s digital capabilities and is undertaking a Digital Strategy course with Google.

Outside work, James loves endurance sports and travel.

James leads our Government and Public Services sector. He joined Gate One in 2015 after having worked across policy-making and big four consulting for the previous 12 years. Specialising in large scale strategy development and delivery, he has worked across central and local government, third sector organisations and those businesses that provide public services. Most recently he has been supporting clients across the NHS and local government in achieving their ability to deliver high-quality services more effectively.

Outside of work, James enjoys travelling the world with his family.

Born and raised in sunny South Africa, Kirsty came to London over a decade ago, gaining experience across different financial functions since then. Kirsty spent six years in an operations and finance role in a management consultancy before being lured by the English Rugby Football Union (RFU) as a financial accountant. With rugby out of her system (and 2015 World Cup tickets secured), Kirsty is now kept on her toes by the consulting team at Gate One, where each day is a different but pleasurable challenge.

Kirsty is also a qualified cosmetologist, natural and holistic therapist and Swarovski Crystal jewellery maker.

Mark is Head of Business Development at Gate One. His focus is on helping Gate One and prospective clients find each other through the myriad of client requirements and fog of consultancy companies. Having started his career as a consultant within strategy and marketing, Mark has helped build successful brands and drive revenue for small start-ups and Global 50 companies alike.

Outside of work, Mark is a keen property developer, with a number of successful projects behind him.

Prior to joining Gate One, Alex’s career involved working on business change projects in an international consulting firm and delivering digital transformation programmes in a London-based management consultancy. He also has experience as a brand specialist, with responsibility for developing online product exposure.

Now at Gate One, Alex is supporting a major European packaging firm with a customer segmentation project. He is also involved in supporting the growth of our digital proposition and capabilities in the travel and transport sector while supporting an incubator business concept.

Away from work, Alex is training for his next triathlon and enjoys throwing various cooking ingredients around the kitchen.

Kay commenced her career in a Big Four Firm in their People & Organisations consulting practice. She spent three years working mainly in the Public and Health Sectors implementing large scale people and transformation programmes, specifically running change, culture and organisational design projects to enable strategy delivery.

Weeks before starting at Gate One, Kay moved back to the UK after living and working in Australia for nine years. She is very much enjoying spending time with her family and friends in all corners of the UK after such a long time away.

Energy organisations are facing a perfect storm of social, economic and technological disruptions that demand change at a pace that accelerates every year. For Spiro, this is an incredibly exciting opportunity to deliver the innovation and creativity that Gate One is famous for.

His work in business transformation has taught Spiro that if we want to create a new future, we need inspired thinking that differs from the mindset that produced the status quo. Add to that a good dose of “sleeves rolled up” action and anything becomes possible.

Even outside of work, Spiro isn’t one for half-measures. As a keen marathon runner, he has set himself the goal of running 4000km this year – enough to get from Madrid to Moscow. Maybe next year he’ll even think about coming back again.

Claire joined Gate One in 2015 having previously worked in strategy and change consultancies. Claire is passionate about delivering end-to-end business transformations from strategy through to implementation. She builds deep relationships to understand the crux of the challenge and to ultimately deliver a step change in performance and lasting change. She has worked across a broad range of sectors.

Claire plays a key role in Gate One’s people and talent team to shape the strategic direction of the firm. Away from work Claire is usually busy with is a house renovation project or exploring the local countryside.

Mark’s approach goes back to watching his father design the world’s most innovative vessels: world class is perfectly possible and starts with great design and pragmatic creativity. Mark was previously Head of Performance at Crossrail where he supported organisations to develop strategy, deliver projects and communicate results. He has deep expertise in portfolio management, reporting and performance data analysis and visualisation. As a finance director, he has enjoyed responsibility for all aspects of finance, strategy, pricing, IT and operational delivery.

When not working, Mark is often found, camera in hand, seeking to get the elusive perfect landscape shot.