MEET THE TEAM
Manisha Aatkar
PARTNER, HEAD OF ORGANISATIONAL CONSULTING AND COACHING & MENTORING PRACTICES AND MEMBER, INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY GROUP
Manisha has spent over twenty years in Financial Services and Regulation. Her experience includes leading and executing transformation programmes and delivering innovation in business and people development. Her specialisms are in developing business and operating models, designing people strategies and competency development. She has a reputation for creating a vision and making it a reality by developing sound strategies while remaining grounded in the financial realities and people talent that lever the business.
At Ekim Consulting, Manisha leads our Organisational Consulting practice and delivers senior search mandates across the HR function. She is also responsible for our Coaching & Mentoring practice.
Amanda Amroliwala CBE
PARTNER, HEAD OF BORDER, IMMIGRATION & SECURITY SERVICES PRACTICE AND MEMBER, INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY GROUP
Amanda has spent over 30 years in public service and law enforcement. From 2016 until 2023 she was the CEO of the Parliamentary & Health Service Ombudsman, responsible for investigating failings across government departments and the NHS.
Prior to this she was a Home Office Board member as Director General for Immigration Enforcement. Her previous roles include Chief Operating Officer for UK Border Force and Director of Crime & Policing Group. Alongside these roles, Amanda has served as a Board member of ABTA, the Travel Association and for a large mental health and community NHS Trust.
She is an experienced an active C-suite mentor and coach, focusing on culture change and inclusion.
Dusty Amroliwala OBE MA MBA FCIPD
PARTNER AND MEMBER, INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY GROUP
Dusty has held senior roles in defence, international diplomacy, the UK civil service, higher education, health, the judiciary and the international corporate world. From 2011 to 2017 he was the Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of East London, leading the University through a major transformation programme. He was also the founder Chair of the London Design and Engineering University Technical College.
As well as his experience in Higher Education and in wider Public Service roles, Dusty brings considerable expertise (as a non-executive Director and then Chair) in two large acute London NHS Trusts to Ekim’s Health Practice and to clients who wish to focus on Quality & Safety and deeper probes into matters concerning ‘Serious Investigations’. Dusty is also COO (Education Services) at VFS Global, Chair of both the recruitment platform Student Circus and of Vitacheck Health.
Nicki Barry
PARTNER, SEARCH PROPERTY & FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
Nicki Barry has over 20 years’ experience in the recruitment and facilities management sectors. Qualified as a chartered accountant in a Big 4 practice, she used her financial experience to move into finance recruitment in London and Vancouver, Canada. More recently she joined Compass Group and spent 7 years leading client retention in the cleaning, catering and procurement divisions.
Nicki is passionate about client management, contract retention and building relationships that are sustainable and deliver mutual benefit to business provider and client. Ekim Consulting will be able to leverage Nicki's client and candidate relationship management experience, supporting its mission to deliver a client focused service from start to finish.
Nicki's focus at Ekim Consulting is winning and delivering permanent and interim search mandates in the Property and Facilities Management sectors.
David Best BSc MSc Ph.D
PARTNER, HEAD OF DIGITAL & DATA TRANSFORMATION PRACTICE
A former Senior Partner of Deloitte Consulting, David has worked in Mining, Higher Education, and the senior Civil Service, and has consulted internationally in digital and data transformation. He has been an adviser to the Government Digital Service, Head of Digital Transformation at the Ministry of Justice and Director of Digital Services and Technology at the Office for National Statistics. Prior to joining EKIM he was Director of Analytics and Insight at UCAS.
David has also held senior positions in the Third Sector, including visiting Professor in Informatics at Strathclyde University. He has advised governments and corporate organisations here and abroad in the development and adoption of digital technologies, working in South Africa, the Americas, the Far East, and Europe.
At Ekim David’s practice focuses on the use of data and user centred research and design to anchor the development and transformation of services using digital technology, whether customer, or internally, facing. He also delivers senior search mandates for our clients across the Digital and Data functions
John Bloor
SENIOR ADVISER
After a career in financial services, John Bloor has been a talent finder for over 20 years, starting at PwC where he built the firm’s highly regarded Turnaround Panel and he went on to manage two large practice areas in a Top 10 interim agency. He has led interim management practices in professional services organisations and search firms as well as running his own talent business for 5 years.
John joined Ekim on its formation as Managing Partner with particular responsibility for development of the company's internal operations and organisation. His sector specialism was Financial Services and functionally, senior search and placement across the c-suite, particularly CEO and CFO, internal legal and all production related roles. He also brought considerable experience of working on crisis management and turnaround mandates.
John remains with Ekim on a part time basis as Senior Adviser focussing on search and special projects.
Kris Bryant
PARTNER, SEARCH RISK, COMPLIANCE & FINANCIAL CRIME
Kris is a Fellow of the International Compliance Association and has more than 26 years’ industry experience of Risk, Compliance and Financial Crime with many of those spent as a SMF16/17 (CF10/11) within a range of household name and boutique SME financial services businesses. Kris has also spent several years as a consultant across the same disciplines and has taken great satisfaction in assisting his clients in ensuring their systems, controls, frameworks and resources are fit for purpose in sometimes challenging environments.
Kris possesses a deep understanding of financial services regulation across multiple disciplines including, but not limited to; Financial Planning, Investment Management, Broker/dealer, DFM, Life and Pensions, Payments, EMI, Insurance, Fintech and Corporate Finance firms in a range of jurisdictions around the globe.
Kris's focus at Ekim Consulting is winning and delivering permanent and interim search mandates for our clients' Risk, Compliance and Financial Crime needs.
Jane Chalmers
PARTNER, HEAD OF HEALTHCARE PRACTICE
Having completed her first career in the Royal Air Force, Jane has been working as an Interim Executive with boards, senior leaders and their teams, in the NHS and Local Government for over 10 years. She has extensive experience in leading, planning and delivering large change and transformation programmes across the whole spectrum of NHS organisations and within Integrated Care Systems. She has also led, co-designed and delivered organisational re-structures within the NHS at regional and sub-regional level.
Jane leads the Health Practice at Ekim Consulting, where her functional specialisms are programme management - design, delivery & leadership - and organisational change.
Outside of Ekim, Jane serves as a Non-Executive Director of The Forces Pension Society.
Chris Crowther
PARTNER, HEAD OF INFORMATION SECURITY & OPERATIONAL RESILIENCE PRACTICE
Chris has over 20 years’ experience of leadership in the fields of information security and operational resilience. He has proven experience as a CIO and CISO in his own right. Chris has deep expertise of all areas pertaining to information security and is a trusted adviser to private companies and public bodies. Chris operates on the global stage and is a thought leader in the specialist area of cyber security and mitigating risk through pro-active management.
At Ekim Consulting, Chris’s Practice is focussed on supporting entities who wish to excel in the fields of information security and operational resilience.
Paul Davis MBE
ASSOCIATE PARTNER, HEALTH CONSULTING
Paul spent 37 years in aviation, mostly instructing on military helicopters. He held various leadership roles in safety management in the UK and abroad and has unrivalled experience as an investigator in two UK state level safety organisations. In 2010, he was selected to help establish the Military Air Accident Investigation Branch. After seven rewarding years as Head of Operations Investigation he stepped across to the NHS as one of the inaugural National Investigators at the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch.
Paul currently works closely with safety critical industries, with a special interest providing strategic guidance and operational mentoring to NHS organisations.
At Ekim Consulting, Paul's focus is contributing to the delivery of Quality & Safety and other consulting services to the health sector.’
Oli Delany OBE MBA FCIPD
ASSOCIATE PARTNER, HEALTH CONSULTING
After a successful RAF career where his appointments included Station Commander and Head of the RAF’s Ground Training School, Oli joined the Bar Council where he held responsibility for the regulation and representation of the barrister profession.
He later qualified as a Trainer/Master of Hypnotherapy, Master Level NLP and Time Line Training Therapy coach and has lead programmes designed to facilitate cultural change for multi-national private clients and leading charities.
He also works frequently for the Warrior Programme, coaching both serving and veteran military personnel suffering with mental welfare issues. He was co-founder of the RAF Charitable Trust and is a Board member of Combat Stress and the Quartet Community Foundation.
At Ekim Consulting, Oli's focus is contributing to the delivery of Quality & Safety and other consulting services to the health sector.
Adrian Doble
PARTNER, ELITE COACHING & THERAPY
Adrian is very well known for helping professionals and business leaders who find themselves at a crossroads; where the need to change is fundamental to reaching the next level.
Adrian assists leaders from the entire spectrum of business. "Leadership can be a lonely place and when we are up against it we need a person to turn to who responds positively, imparts confidence and encourages."
He has also been a restructuring professional for 30 years and is now a professional coach using NLP, CBT and hypnotherapy.
On business restructurings he makes the point that he only ever works for the company. "You can't change a business by working for the bank. My duty is always to the board." He has the badges to prove it with the very best of awards and references in the restructuring industry.
On hypnotherapy he says; "I was 22 when I changed my life with hypnotherapy and I knew that this would one day be my calling. NLP and CBT are extensions of this fascinating profession."
All his references are on LinkedIn and his website www.mentoringservices.org.
Jim Frampton MBE MA CMgr MIoD MCMI
PARTNER
Jim has spent over 30 years in senior leadership roles in defence, major transformation programmes and public regulation. He has extensive experience in strategy, planning and capability development for large organisations, portfolio management, financial oversight, mentoring programme managers, advising on cross-cultural working for international clients, and developing governance and risk management frameworks to help Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises to scale up swiftly, safely and effectively. He has worked internationally on developing corporate management teams and helping them to adopt a growth mindset and open reporting ethos.
Jim works across all practice areas at Ekim Consulting.
Bernard Galton
PARTNER
Bernard has significant leadership experience spanning over 40 years in the Public Sector where he has built a track record of leading significant complex change and organisation redesign involving mergers and acquisition. He developed his career in the Ministry of Defence before moving to the Welsh Government to be its first Human Resources Director. Later stepping up to Director General, he added a large Corporate Services portfolio to his Human Resources and Organisation Development responsibilities. In addition to his Government role, he was also Head of Profession for HR and OD across all Public Service bodies in Wales. He has also been the recipient of two National People and Change Awards.
Membership of NHS Wales National Board provided him with an in depth understanding of the key strategic issues facing health and social care and on retiring from the Welsh Government Wales Bernard transitioned into Non-Executive Director roles. He is on the Boards of University Hospitals Bristol and Weston.
Stuart Hall
PARTNER, SEARCH C-SUITE AND BOARD
An industry veteran, Stuart Hall has been involved in executive search for over 20 years as a managing partner, consultant and owner. He started his career in real estate. For the past 15 years, he has specialised in real estate, financial services and academia. Stuart has a substantial international search background, and focuses on building management teams with cross-sector and cross-border capabilities for companies ranging from Fortune 500 to early stage.
At Ekim Consulting, Stuart focuses on C-Suite and Board roles, including CEO, CFO, CRO; senior executive teams; board directors and chairs. He works across all practice areas.
Mike Hollin MBE FIoD
MANAGING PARTNER, CHAIRMAN, INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY GROUP
A highly experienced provider of exceptional talent to companies that vary from start-up to large multinationals, Mike has over 16 years’ experience in the field of talent acquisition with the ability to work across sectors and functions.
He ran and grew a well-known agency before stepping back in 2014 and has placed over 300 individuals in a variety of roles including CEO and the full C-suite, as well as turnaround, transformation and growth. In his previous career, he spent 26 years in the military serving both overseas and in the UK, latterly as an adviser to Government Ministers on the strategic direction and performance of commercial assets.
As well as having responsibility for the overall leadership and direction of Ekim Consulting, Mike works closely with the teams operating across all of the company's Search and Consulting practice areas.
Dawn Huggins
BUSINESS MANAGER & EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
Dawn has significant organisational, management and leadership experience from a 27 year career in the military where her appointments included responsibility for staff planning, co-ordination and administration of all Army Pay and Administration with over 30 staff, supporting circa 25,000 Army personnel in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the North of England. She has since used her skills outside the military undertaking Project Management and Executive Assistant roles in the recruitment and charity sectors.
Dawn is the Business Manager at Ekim Consulting and Executive Assistant to the Founding Managing Partner.
Margaret Kilcoyne
ASSOCIATE, ORGANISATIONAL CONSULTING PRACTICE
Margaret has spent over 30 years working in Financial Services, with more than 20 years working as an HR specialist for multinational companies. She has covered all areas of HR, both at a strategic and operational level, including M&A and implementing organisational change. She has a deep understanding of HR operations and the significant contribution HR can make to an organisation’s business strategy.
Key areas of interest are talent management, well-being and diversity. Margaret is a Chartered Member of the CIPD.
Mark Lewis
ASSOCIATE ADVISER, SEARCH PROCUREMENT & SUPPLY CHAIN
Mark has 18 years’ experience of procurement leadership positions across a range of sectors including Telecommunications, Pharmaceuticals and Support Services. During his career he has gained extensive experience of procurement transformation, organisational design, and building and leading teams. He has particular experience in managing senior business relationships in complex, decentralised organisations with Global/Local operating models.
Mark's focus at Ekim Consulting is supporting the delivery of permanent and interim search mandates with the Procurement and Supply Chain functions.
Bruce Mair
PARTNER, SEARCH DIGITAL & TECHNOLOGY AND CHANGE & PROGRAMME LEADERSHIP
Bruce Mair has a Big 4 background, beginning his career with Ernst & Young and Accenture before moving into executive recruitment. Now with twenty-five years’ experience in the industry, Bruce has long established trusted adviser relationships and a strong understanding of the digital agenda and challenges within technology. Having worked for a number of the UK’s top agencies, Bruce specialises in placing candidates in both permanent and interim CIO, CTO, CDO and CMO roles, as well as senior programme leads and functional directors and heads. He works with listed businesses, private firms, SMEs and private equity backed companies.
Bruce’s focus at Ekim Consulting is on the winning and delivery of permanent and interim search mandates within the Digital & Technology and Change & Programme Leadership functions across all sectors.’
John Pearce
PARTNER, SEARCH PRIVATE EQUITY
John leads our Private Equity practice.
He began his career at Arthur Andersen and has since acquired over 30 years' experience in board and C-suite level executive recruitment. He is extremely well-connected and his gift for understanding contexts and successful delivery is evidenced by top-biller status at his last three businesses.
John is a regular commentator on the importance of the roles of the CFO and the Chairman - placing well over 150 personally into businesses of all sizes.
For the last 15+ years, he has worked extensively with Private Equity investors and their businesses. In 2010 he founded Chief Officers Group to deliver board level recruitment services for the Private Equity industry, FTSE 250 and AIM-listed businesses and rapid growth situations, often aligned to transactional activity and/or market disruption.
He has developed an impressive network of acting Chairmen from both the PE and listed worlds and has, more recently, assisted with board composition for a number of high profile IPOs.
John was previously the Managing Director of Directorbank, where his team of 10 consultants served a portfolio of over 60 international PE clients across Europe.
Ekim Consulting and Chief Officers Group have collaborated on many search assignments over the last 6 years augmenting each other's reach across the investor and investee markets. The relationship continues and brings a value adding proposition to the clients of both businesses.
Robert Peopall BA, MA
PARTNER, HEAD OF BUSINESS DIAGNOSTICS & MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS
Robert is a business strategist and digital business transformation director with 30+ years’ experience. His expertise covers business and technology transformation programme management, M&A, ITO, BPO, Shared Services, ERP, Digital, Big Data & analytics experience gained from working with Ernst & Young, HP, and CSC.
Robert has worked at board level down within a large number of global organisations bringing a wealth of experience and lateral insights gained from many different industry sectors. Robert’s Practice is focused on helping clients accelerate discovery and change through automated diagnostics and helping them with due diligence, carve-out, acquisition integration and synergy realisation planning and execution perspective.
David Radford-Wilson MBE
ASSOCIATE ADVISER, SECURITY & RESILIENCE AND MEMBER INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY GROUP
Dave has over 30 years’ experience in the Defence, Security, Emergency Response and Disaster Relief sectors. As a former British Army officer, he spent significant time commanding units on operations. He set up and ran an emergency medical company in the Middle East before moving to AECOM’s Middle East Defence and Security practice. He subsequently ran AECOM’s AID and International Development practice before setting up his own consultancy in leadership, coaching and organisational development.
Working alongside Ekim Consulting’s sector and function heads, Dave helps clients to understand their security risks and vulnerabilities and how to effect remedial action.
Peter Strachan
ASSOCIATE PARTNER, HEALTH CONSULTING
Peter Strachan is a former military officer with vast experience of working with different cultures in diverse environments.
An expert in helping Boards deliver cultural change in challenging and complex organisations. His extensive experience, in all sectors, over 45+ years allows him to relate effectively with everyone from the shop floor to the boardroom. He has delivered individual coaching programmes to professional sportsmen, senior civil servants and company directors.
His training credentials include being a trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming, Instructor of Hypnotherapy, Trainer of Master Time Line Therapy™️ and Master Coach.
At Ekim Consulting, Peter's focus is contributing to the delivery of Quality & Safety and other consulting services to the health sector.’
Ivor Stratford
PARTNER, SEARCH TRANSFORMATION, CHANGE & PROGRAMME LEADERSHIP
Having worked earlier in his career in Financial Services and Consulting, Ivor now has a wide background in Recruitment and Executive Search, operating extensively within professional services and across multiple industry sectors on change and transformation mandates.
He has worked for several agencies as well as running his own recruitment business for five years.
Ivor’s focus at Ekim Consulting is placing both permanent and interim Chief Operating Officers, Transformation & Change Directors and Senior Programme and Project leads in listed, private and private equity owned businesses.
Prof Keith Straughan PhD, MA, BSc
PARTNER, HEAD OF HIGHER EDUCATION PRACTICE
Keith has enjoyed a long career in higher education and in business. He has held senior leadership roles in world-leading, established universities, as well as in the newer universities and the private-provider market. He has specialisms in healthcare, EdTech and innovation. He is active as a consultant and advisor to universities internationally and holds professorships in London, Vienna and Kuala Lumpur.
Keith has extensive experience of spinouts and start-ups and is active as an NED, board adviser and consultant. He is a sought-after accredited executive coach and mentor with cross-vertical experience among corporates, education, healthcare and government.
At Ekim Consulting, Keith leads our Higher Education Practice as well as contributing actively to other areas of work.
James Titcombe OBE
ASSOCIATE PARTNER, HEALTH CONSULTING
Formerly a project manager in the nuclear industry, James became involved in patient safety following the loss of his baby son Joshua in 2008 due to the well documented failures in care at Morecambe Bay Hospital.
James has since worked as the National Adviser on Patient Safety for the Care Quality Commission and was a member of the advisory group established to set up the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch. He is a member of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) Expert Advisory Panel and Adviser on maternity safety for the NHS.
In 2015 James was awarded an OBE for service to Patient Safety, the same year that his book, Joshua’s Story, was published. James’s experience adds considerable dimension to Ekim Consulting’s healthcare offering.
At Ekim Consulting, James' experience adds depth and dimension to the output of Quality & Safety and other consulting services delivered to the health sector.
David Willcock
PARTNER, SEARCH
HEAD OF BUSINESS ANALYSIS & PMO PRACTICE
Following a career in financial services, Dave Willcock has gained 20 years’ experience in the talent acquisition field, with the ability to work across sectors and functions. Dave has delivered interim management, permanent hiring, search, and consultancy solutions to organisations in the public and private sectors ranging from start-ups to large multinationals.
Prior to joining Ekim Consulting he delivered multiple retained mandates with a search firm, led teams with well-known global recruitment businesses, led the interim management practice for a change management consultancy, and ran his own specialist recruitment business.
Dave’s practice area at Ekim Consulting is Business Analysis & PMO, offering a blend of bespoke Search, Interim Management, Consulting & Advisory services.