Work that made a difference

Hyatt Hotels Corporation selected their London property, The Churchill Hyatt Regency, as a Lab Hotel: A flagship innovation site where new concepts are trialled and proven before adoption worldwide. In 2013, I was brought in directly by Hyatt's Chicago head office as the only Project Manager hired to work outside the United States on Innovation Initiatives.

The brief was ambitious: challenge the fundamental assumptions of how a 5-star hotel operates, from staffing structures to guest arrival, check-in, and in-stay service. Everything was on the table, and the bar was set by the Chief Innovation Officer of one of the world's most prominent hotel dynasties.

I delivered a ground-breaking redesign of the hotel's staffing model, consolidating 30 departments into 7 refocused, cross-functional teams. Alongside this, I implemented mobile guest service technology enabling complex guest preferences to be attended to before arrival, linked with one of the first tablet check-in implementations. This enabled the guest's arrival to be anticipated and room preparation to be synchronised for arrival. I also deployed new concierge systems and processes and established a partnership with a luxury un-hotel group to support 24/7 check-in, unheard of in the industry at the time. Wi-Fi access points in public areas were used to analyse footfall and dynamically deploy staff to maintain service levels.

The programme delivered record Net Promoter and MICE scores that year and earned the hotel a Top UK Workplace ranking. The innovations attracted the personal attention of Hyatt's global CEO, Mark Hoplamazian, who diverted the Pritzker family's private jet to London City Airport on a Saturday morning specifically to hear about the work. He described it as some of the most important work happening in the company at the time.

Sulzer Pumps is a global manufacturer of precision industrial pumping equipment. As IT Manager, I was responsible for the entire IT operation across 12 locations in Europe and the Middle East, including enterprise systems, CNC equipment, and MRP shop floor platforms.

Precision-engineered parts, each representing thousands of pounds of skilled labour, were going missing from the shop floor. In some cases this was theft; in others, parts were simply misplaced within the manufacturing process. Either way, missing parts threatened the on-time delivery of £multi-million contracts for global clients — an unacceptable commercial risk.

Applying Lean Six Sigma principles, I analysed the shop floor process end to end and designed an RFID-based tracking solution integrated with existing access points and MRP systems. Each part was tagged and tracked through every stage of the manufacturing process. Engineers could see exactly where their assigned part was and what process needed to be performed on it. Security and project managers were automatically alerted if a part left the shop floor without being formally booked out of the system. I also spearheaded the international adoption of ITIL processes across all 12 locations, helping standardise IT service delivery across the wider group.

Part loss was eliminated. The integration of RFID tracking with the MRP system created a synchronised, auditable manufacturing process that protected the integrity of £multi-million client projects. The ITIL rollout delivered measurable reductions in IT incidents and significant improvement in service delivery standards across Europe and the Middle East.

Odgers, one of the world's leading executive search firms, had a complex, overrunning Salesforce programme spanning the UK, UAE, and APAC. A CRM implementation typically takes between 12 and 18 months but this programme was in difficulty, timelines had slipped into their 5th year, and confidence was low. I was brought in as Consultant Programme Manager in December 2019, weeks before (unbeknownst to any of us) the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning. Something I now know I was an “early adopter” of, that Christmas ☹

Delivering a complex, multi-region Salesforce programme with multiple suppliers, under pandemic conditions, with a team working entirely remotely — and doing it faster than anyone had planned.

I restructured the programme governance, clarified ownership across workstreams, and drove the programme to an agreed MVP delivery three months ahead of the original revised schedule. The stabilisation following delivery led to a retained engagement, and a permanent Head of Delivery role. I subsequently built and led a multi-disciplinary in-house delivery function encompassing project resources, business analysts, Salesforce administrators, and developers. I introduced AI toolsets to accelerate delivery, including AI-assisted user story writing, acceptance criteria generation, and test script drafting. The first adoptions of this approach in a professional services environment.

A programme that had been in difficulty was delivered ahead of schedule during a global pandemic lockdown. The in-house delivery function I built went on to manage a portfolio of up to 30 projects, delivering cost-saving, value-generating, and security-enhancing initiatives across operations, marketing, finance, and HR. The use of the AI toolset reduced delivery time on documentation-heavy tasks significantly and my team were recognised as leading the way in AI adoption by senior leadership.

Merlin Entertainments, operator of Legoland, Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, and dozens of other attractions worldwide, needed to modernise and standardise their retail and food and beverage technology estate. I was brought in as Consultant Programme Manager to oversee a portfolio of strategic projects for the Food and Beverage and Retail Directors, working closely with the CFO.

Designing and delivering integrated point of sale, payment, stock and kitchen management solutions across diverse attraction types, sizes, and geographies — and building the commercial and strategic case for a global rollout.

I managed the full portfolio of technology projects, coordinating architects, designers, subject matter experts, and global stakeholders. I led a successful RFP for a stock solution, proof of concept for one of the first Kiosk Point of Sale deployments, delivered a full retail and food and beverage theme park installation at Legoland Windsor, and initiated a further trial in California. To support the global rollout business case, I devised a configurator tool, making it straightforward to cost deployments across attractions of varying sizes and configurations worldwide. I attended Senior Leadership meetings regularly and was instrumental in turning around what had previously been regarded as an underperforming IT delivery function.

All projects were delivered on time and on or under budget, with one pilot completed in a record two months. The board approved a £multi-million global rollout of the integrated solution. The configurator I built became a part of the commercial model for global expansion planning.

Direct Visual was a family-run unified communications business whose owners were looking to sell the company and retire. I was brought in on a fixed-term contract to assess the business and improve its commercial attractiveness ahead of a potential sale.

The business had underperforming support processes, strained client relationships, and a team that lacked formal industry accreditation. Without addressing these issues, the valuation and saleability of the business would be significantly limited.

I designed new Microsoft Dynamics CRM processes to improve efficiency and communication between the Sales, Technical Services, and Support teams. I put the teams through industry-recognised accreditation programmes, overhauled the support function, and personally visited the company's largest clients to agree corrective actions, retain their business, and rebuild satisfaction. When acquisition negotiations began, I participated directly in discussions with potential buyers.

The improvements transformed the commercial profile of the business. Client relationships were restored, the team was professionally accredited, and the support function was performing to a demonstrably higher standard. The business was acquired by Logicalis in a £multi-million transaction: An outcome that directly fulfilled the owners' retirement goals.

I have had two engagements with Whitbread Plc, the FTSE100 hospitality group behind Premier Inn and (at that time) Costa Coffee. On the first assignment, they wanted to migrate their Premier Inn Field Sales team to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Later, they needed a unified enterprise performance management (EPM) solution that could consolidate KPIs and OKRs across all group brands (a redesign of a partially manually produced Balanced Scorecard, internally known as the WINCard) and deliver real-time insights to the C-suite and below.

For the CRM project, the challenge was documenting the various regional Field Sales Team processes along with the differences in product offerings across the group. Then, new processes needed to be devised for both Field Sales and Call Centre Operations that fitted the new solution whilst protecting the existing business model and front-end client experience. The entire Field Sales Team needed to buy into the solution and the solution needed to work first time. For the EPM project, the challenge was combining data from 29 distinct business areas into a single, coherent data model and performance management platform: One that could serve everyone from board members to operational managers with relevant, timely intelligence.

For the CRM project, I worked with Business Analysts who shadowed the Field Service Team and Call Centre teams to gather artefacts for "As Is" process mapping. Once common processes were documented, I worked with architects, developers, data analysts, change teams, and testers to design, build, test, and train the solution. I attended National Sales Meetings to keep the team on board at every stage and reported back to business and technical stakeholders at regular intervals. For the EPM project, I designed and delivered an Enterprise Performance Management and Balanced Scorecard solution using OBIEE, integrating data from all 29 business areas. I managed a project budget in excess of £1m, ran the RFP process, and led supplier selection. The solution design was underwritten by the Head of Business Intelligence at Oracle.

The CRM migration was delivered on time and within budget, streamlining sales team efficiency, moving them to a unified platform which improved data quality and enabled improved customer and operational insight across the company. The performance management platform gave the Whitbread C-suite consolidated, real-time visibility across the entire group. The solution was robust enough to be underwritten by Oracle's own BI leadership.