The Team
 David Walton - Managing Director & Founder
David founded Bestoutcome 7 years ago after spending 11 years as a management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers. David has extensive experience in effective business change through professional programme and project management in areas such as e-commerce, IT transformational change, customer relationship management and large-scale infrastructure implementations. With David leading the company it has grown, been consistently profitable year on year, and has extended the range of services offered to customers to include software products to support business change through outcome-driven project management. Previously, David held IT management positions at the International Stock Exchange and Max Factor.
Paul Shelton as non-exec director
Paul joined Bestoutcome in 2008. He was a Managing Partner of the Rose Partnership for 2 years and a Partner with PwC Consulting for 18 years, where he held a number of roles, including Head of the Financial Services Practice, European Board Member responsible for People and Knowledge and Global Head of the Insurance practice. He also spent three years with IBM, where he was responsible for business development across Europe for their business process outsourcing practice. Paul is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Mike Wheatley - Director, Client Services
Mike has over 30 years experience in technology management across a range of businesses in private and public sector. He is a highly experienced, line, programme and project manager. Seven years working in software development in the oil; hotel and financial sectors was followed by 10 years in management consultancy working for Deloitte Haskins and Sells where he primarily focused on either leading or advising on project, programme and business change management in a variety of industries. He successfully transferred his skills and expertise into the BBC where he worked for 12 years in a number of senior roles, including Head of Technology for Television and Head of Technology Governance. He has a degree in Computing Science from Imperial College, London. Mike manages the professional services organisation at Bestoutcome, ensuring the matching of highly skilled business change and programme/project management consultants to the demands of customers. He also holds the executive brief for services delivery quality and customer success.
Iain Aitken - Director, Products & Services
Iain has over 20 years of IT consultancy experience gained as an independent consultant and with the management consultancy division at PricewaterhouseCoopers (and predecessor firms). His work has principally focused on managing and delivering projects to improve the economy, efficiency, effectiveness and value-added of large IT organisations. He was responsible for developing PricewaterhouseCooper’s international method and tools for IT performance improvement (ITM-PI). He recently published the book, ‘Value-Driven IT Management; Commercializing the IT Function’. Prior to his move into consultancy he worked for 10 years in various IT technical and management roles in industry. Iain is the chief architect for the products and services provided by Bestoutcome, and is responsible for the product roadmaps, delivery of product and product quality.
  Greg Clough

Skill Set
Greg is a programme and project management specialist with experience of delivering a wide variety of both IT and Supply Chain projects in the FMCG sector.

Experience
Greg has over 10 years experience gained in a wide range of roles whilst at Unilever Plc. He recently led a multi-supplier SAP warehouse integration programme covering all of Unilever's warehouses in the UK.

His previous roles included Head Office IT Manager, responsible for leading the IT team and managing the project portfolio and also Supply Chain project manager leading a business change programme within the UK Foods business.

  Neil Thompson

Skill Set
Specialist in software testing, in particular testing strategy as part of project / programme set-up, and outcome-driven process improvement. Also test management, project reviews and quality assurance. Neil presents at most of the top testing industry conferences and has a wide perspective of different methodologies. Co-author of the book “Risk-Based E-Business Testing”.

Experience
Ten years as a management consultant with Deloitte / Coopers & Lybrand. Since then, assignments include Euroclear, Glaxo Wellcome, and several at Barclays Bank, as a testing manager / consultant, and Marks & Spencer, helping with complex change and testing challenges. Significant process improvement at HM Revenue & Customs, and shorter test strategy and improvement jobs for several blue-chip companies.

His management consultancy career included test programme management / consultancy for electricity privatisation, quality assurance for British Gas, test strategy in Jamaica and the Czech Republic, test training in Poland, and project management and reviews for a variety of prestige organisations. Core IT / IS skills were developed during five years systems development, systems analysis and project management with software houses Software Sciences (now part of IBM) and Hoskyns (now part of CGEY).

  Richard Pownall

Skill Set
Specialist in Programme Office management. Additional experience in project management, IT efficiency and effectiveness improvement, training. Earlier background in systems development and customer support.

Experience
With Bestoutcome set up and managed a programme office responsible for the 30 project, £45m IT component of Marks & Spencer's head office relocation programme. Went on to work with the Head of IT to build a comprehensive and consistent management information and reporting system across this 950-strong IT Group. Seven years as a Management Consultant with PwC. Later assignments (with The Royal Mail and Reuters) concentrated on programme office set-up and management, supporting multi-million pound IT transformation programmes. Also spent a period in resources management, responsible for the allocation of consultants and improving management information. Earlier roles included Implementation Technical manager for a complex systems delivery programme with Yorkshire Electricity, and a number of IT service improvement projects. Core IT skills developed during twelve years with ICL, mostly in technical consultancy roles with Unix and client/server systems.

  John Cook

Skill Set
IT process improvement specialist with particular focus on IS strategy, development and project management methods and tools. He has led a number of significant CMM based improvement programmes within the retail, insurance and defence industries. He has also held IT Management Team positions within banking and reinsurance sectors.

Experience
Over twenty years experience gained in IT management and consultancy roles at Swiss Re, Parity, LBMS and Michael Jackson Systems. Jon has guided over 20 organisations delivering process improvement projects and development method/tool implementations. Recent assignments include establishing CMM improvement programme within Dixons and BAE Systems delivering significant improvements to their project management and systems development processes. While at Swiss Re Jon managed the IT Process Improvement and Training functions. Here Jon delivered a pragmatic process improvement programme and project office function to establish an efficient and effective IT department.

After Swiss Re’s acquisition of M&G Re. Jon was heavily involved in developing Swiss Re’s global PMO function.

  Martin Burnett

Skill Set
Specialist in Business Analysis and Project Management. Experience in IT project delivery, requirements and process definition across a variety of market sectors.

Experience
Over 20 years in IT, initially as an infrastructure architect before progressing into project management and business consultancy roles focusing on bridging the gap between business and IT departments. Over 8 years experience with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and has worked extensively throughout Asia and Europe on global multi-site projects. Experience across a number of market sectors including retail, finance, non-profit and government. Recent roles include Business Consultancy and process reviews as well as Project Management.

  George Cowley

Skill Set
 Programme management specialist. Extensive experience in programme management support and project office manager roles. Has strong IT skills (including advanced VBA) with an ability to automate key processes (which are usually labour intensive) enabling a focus on more ‘value add’ activities.

Experience
Over 4 years working within a blue chip management consultancy. Over five years programme management experience within New Media, Technology & Outsourcing, Financial Services, Retail and Products industry sectors. Example clients include BSkyB, Marks & Spencer, BAA, London Stock Exchange, Sainsbury’s & Centrica.

  Anthony Sheridan

Skill Set
Specialist in IT Programme and Project Management with detailed knowledge of system security, IT infrastructures, application development and deployment.

Experience

Twenty years in IT with in-depth experience of the retail industry. Originally specialising in the development of Data Management and Database Administration teams, went on to manage a £10m Y2K programme. Established the system security practice for DSGi, and programme managed a number of multi-brand E-commerce initiatives. Played a key role within Marks & Spencer and later HSBC on major infrastructure migrations. Now leading a PCI Compliance Programme for a major UK retailer.

Additional Consultants    
Paul Barons
David Beazley
Mike Mawson
John Hamlett