Gary Mitchell

My 'Lunches with Gary' helps me cut through the noise and focus on prioritising the activities which will truly deliver progress to my business. Gary has a no nonsense strategy execution perspective and speaks in plain, often necessarily direct language. This has helped me to pull together multiple threads of thinking and early stage ideas into a simple, actionable plan which is delivering results. He gets a good lunch, I get held to account in my thinking and an elegant summary document. Would give him 10/10 if its weren't that he sets homework.

Ed Hill - SVP EMEA at Bazaarvoice

Gary and I have worked together for more than 10 years. Not only is he one of the smartest people I've worked with, he's hard working and has an extraordinary talent for helping execute on strategy and complex projects. He brings clarity to complexity and a tenacious approach to really bottoming all critical issues, holding people to account and all done with a great sense of humour and fun.

Terry Finerty - CEO at ReConsulting

I talked to Gary about our business and he took copious notes and then organised all the ideas and content in my head into a coherent plan - and then he created concise, clear, correctly sequenced and visually striking presentational material. He makes business planning easy and efficient (and fun too).

Andrew Pearson - CEO at STEER

I had the pleasure to work directly with Gary in Unisys when he performed the role of Strategic Director. His analytical skills and ability to oversee and bring solutions forward for extremely complex problems did impress me deeply. In addition, Gary is a strong and demanding person who does what needs to be done to achieve results. I would highly recommend Gary to companies that need a strategist that can actually change things and move the business to the next level of sophistication.

Roy Peters - President at Unisys Logistics Europe

I was an executive at the company during Gary's engagement. I must say, he brought a unique insight, creativity and knowledge to this engagement that I'd haven't seen since. His facilitation skills, coupled with the ability to breakdown barriers is outstanding. The work that he did with sales process, product and service development made a strong impact on the results of the organization.

Damien Walch - VP at Comdisco

The business planning exercise enables management teams with a broad range of experience to capture and arrange their thoughts in to a coherent document which ensures alignment of thinking and a benchmark for future decisions. And manages to do this efficiently and rapidly without the usual jargon or consultant speak. Gary has a unique style which ensures teams are at their most relaxed and willing to contribute.

Giles Derry - Senior Partner at Dunedin PE

Gary Mitchell became involved with Mothercare at a critical stage in its development. By bringing structure, process, measurement and objectivity to project design and implementation, he played a vital role in Mothercare's successful turnaround. He delivered change by harnessing and developing talent and knowledge that already existed in the organisation; such talent responded very positively towards Gary's style and approach.

Steve Pomfret - Director of Strategy at Mothercare

I have one word to describe Gary's work...'Awesome'. He is a straight talking, fearless, focused individual who has the ability to make anything impossible possible. I personally learnt a lot about effective project management whilst working with him.

Shelley Peppard - Head of Retail Ops at Mothercare

The strategy document continues to be at the centre of our strategic and operational actions including budgets.

Bob Blunden - CEO at CET Group

Gary Mitchell has worked with the management teams of a number of Dunedin portfolio companies to help them develop and communicate their strategic plans. His approach is to capture management's plans in a set of clear, concise slides which are easy to follow and quick to refer to. His assistance has been invaluable.

Ross Marshall - Senior Partner at Dunedin PE

The business planning process helps the management of a business quickly communicate where a business currently is and articulates clearly their vision and strategy. The output helps provide a clear plan and provides a useful foundation for effective board participation and support.

Nicol Fraser - Head of London and SE at BGF

The business planning exercise helped bring together the key people of our rapidly growing divisions under a common plan and a clear group identity.

Patrick Gallagher - CEO at Citysprint

Gary's no nonsense, pragmatic and common sense approach to programmes and projects is a major asset in making breakthroughs when impasse occurs through imperfect planning or political expediency. He retains focus on the goals but also has the sensitivity and sensibility to be able to manage and account for programme challenges and changes.

Ian Sellick - Director of Outsourcing Europe at HP

Winning a big account like Deutsche Telekom was a real challenge; delivering was to be an even bigger one. I chose Gary Mitchell as program director because of his previous outstanding performance and results both at Comdisco US and at ICL Fujitsu. The structure and management style of the international delivery team and customer expectation was really impressive. Finally, on due date, we got both the expected deliverables and the forecast economics. Many Thanks!

Bertrand Godin - VP Services Europe at Comdisco

Gary brought the structure, urgency and leadership needed to deliver and launch on-time a major service offering in 3 months. Gary's approach and support delivered management information and key decisions to senior management in a timely and effective manner allowing us to keep our senior perspective and focus on the key issues. His commitment to this was absolute, and was the difference between Gary's approach and others I have seen.

Thomas Flohr - President I.T. Leasing Global at Comdisco

Replacing 15 country-based, diverse supply-chain operations with one centrally controlled European organisation with no interruption or degradation of service to customers is no mean feat.  Gary was the chief change-agent and central coordinator who made sure the strategy was implemented to time and budget. Gary's success on one hand was based on his approach to planning, to getting the buy-in of all involved and his perseverance in keeping people to their commitments. On the other hand his work ethic, intellect and ability to adapt to change earned him respect from the shop floor to the board room whilst his sense of humour and personality carried well with all type of people and across different cultures.

Reto Jost - Director Technology Operations Fujitsu / ICL

I just wanted to say that your analysis of our portfolio businesses was extremely valuable. It gave a helicopter view showing what worked, and more importantly what didn't, and where we needed to focus resources to help them grow. Your methodology clearly shows in a visual way, a distillation of the business, pulling out the key attributes, highlighting gaps, and then asking questions that guide management to address what's important. Your process is intuitive, illuminating and highly instructive - brilliant!

Andy Hasoon - Executive Director at Milamber Ventures plc