Phil Jones  Managing Director

Phil has over 20 years strategy and board level consultancy with KPMG, Price Waterhouse, Renaissance and now with Excitant. He has also had line management roles as IT Strategy Manager with Pearl Assurance and in a dot.com start-up management team.

Phil worked for over 4 years for Norton & Kaplan's organisation, Renaissance, ending up as Head of Consultancy in the UK, gaining extensive experience of the underpinning thinking behind the "Strategy focused organisations", the "Balanced Scorecard" and "Organisational learning" . He has helped organisations as diverse as Boots the Chemist, JP Morgan, Anglian Water, Winterthur Insurance, The Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, City Councils, a part of the MOD and several organisations within the NHS.

Excitant's Associates

Michael Coveney
Specialism: The gap between strategy and performance and corporate performance management technology

Michael Coveney has more than 30 years of experience in the financial analytic software industry where he helped enterprises improve their strategy and performance management processes, using technology and best practices.

He is a regular speaker at international events and author of the acclaimed business book ‘The Strategy Gap’ published by J Wiley & Sons and more recently, "Strategy to the Max'.

Joe Chiao
Specialism: Regulation, compliance and governance in the Financial Services industry

He has over 30 years experience in financial services, specialising in the regulatory conduct of business for the last 19 . He has a strong product knowledge and understanding of the regulatory rules and requirements having started as a pensions consultant.

Joe has led numerous, high-profile regulatory engagements, particularly involving enforcement action and remedial work. He has assisted firms with their preparations for ARROW visits. He has enhanced systems, controls and governance arrangements. Joe ensures projects have robust oversight and MI so key issues or trends are identified. This ensures senior management and regulators can make informed decisions.

Ben P. Dogley
Specialism: Performance management and change management

Ben is a very experienced consultant with an agile analytical mind with a laser-like focus on business results. He has led and supported major transformation programmes and cost reduction programmes. Ben also has led teams of financial analysts as well as conducted extensive cost base analysis leading to substantial savings.

Ben's clients include NTL (VirginMedia), Unite plc, BT, Reuters, a Housing Association and Central Government . Ben has been a management consultant with KPMG, Renaissance and Hay.

Martin Duckworth
Specialism: Scenario modelling and thinking and its consequences for strategy

Martin brings strong experience of strategic planning and thinking from the FMCG market. He specialises in scenario planning and helping organisations to analyse the strategic consequences. He has developed a number of scenarios specifically to look at the consequences of Global warming.

He has extensive market research experience and describes himself as a corporate story-teller.

Trevor Gibson
Specialism: Environmental thinking and impact

Trevor has over 30 years environmental and and regulatory experience having been Director of Environmental Services for Peterborough City Council, where he led them to be one of the most environmentally effective councils. He has also been Director of Environment Capital at Opportunity Peterborough and Board Member at Peterborough Environment City Trust.

Trevor has an in-depth knowledge of both local and global environment and sustainability challenges. In particular their impact on governmental organisations and the business world. He introduced the Strategic Balanced Scorecard into his department to the plaudits of the Audit Commission. He is a qualified coach and now concentrates on helping organisations reduce their carbon footprint, reduce costs and enhance their reputation.

Laura Lindell
Specialism: Accelerated learning and individual performance

Laura has a background in psychology, NLP, Accelerated Learning, Emotional Intelligence and Solutions Focussed thinking which influences her approach to training and development.

Laura designs and delivers dynamic programmes with measurable results in organisations as diverse as the Health service, Local Government, Education, manufacturing, motor, material handling, aeronautical, insurance, law, banking and pharmaceutical.

Alan Meekings
Specialism: Improving commercial and operational decision-making and performance

Alan lead the development and implementation of the original Tesco Store Steering Wheel. He has extensive experience in performance measurement and management, recently helping both Moneysupermarket.com and Belron (who trade as Autoglass in the UK) improve their commercial and operational decision making.

Alan is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Business Performance at Cranfield University School of Management. He specialises in environments with high volumes of operational data such as FMCG. Having personally delivered some of the most significant transformational projects in the UK, Alan now focuses on improving the management process in organisations.

Dr Clive Morton OBE
Specialism: Board and top team development, Strategic review and the NHS.

Clive is a specialist in board and top team development with extensive experience of the NHS. He is currently Deputy Chairman of Opportunity Peterborough, the Urban Regeneration Company and Chairman of Sabien Technology (managing carbon through energy reduction). He was Chairman of Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Deputy Chairman of D1 Oils, . He is a former Vice President of the Institute of Personnel and Development and former Chairman of the Association of Management Education & Development.

Author of four books (Becoming World Class, beyond World Class, Leading HR, and By the skin of our teeth). Co-author of "Public - Private Partnerships: Policy & Experience" and "Human Resource Management - a case study approach"

Mike Nevin
Specialism: Best practice and Strategy in Alliances and Partnerships

CEO and founder of Alliance Best Practice. Mike is an international business alliance and strategy consultant. He has a track record delivering sustained profitable growth and organisational efficiencies through business alliance formation and management.

Mike was the founding Chairman of ASAP Europe (Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals). He has worked and collaborated with Cranfield Management School, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Warwick Management School, Ashridge Business College and Cambridge University.

Liz Morrison
Specialism: Corporate communications and the management of change

Liz has extensive consultancy experience in food, pharmaceutical and the public sector.  She has worked in senior marketing positions with Mars, Kimberly Clark, Nestle and Rank Leisure, as well as the Home Office.

She specialises in the mental aspects of change, performance and the alignment of organisational and personal beliefs and values. One of only 30 coaches professionally accredited by the ICF in the UK , she has also written 3 books on performance in sport.

Clare Neal

Specialism: Executive Coaching & Supervision, Facilitation & Change

Clare specialises in Leadership and Management Development, having worked previously at Boots the Chemist, Korn/Ferry and KPMG. Clare is qualified to provide psychometric assessments using a variety of tools, including Myers Briggs Type Inventory, DISC, OPQ32, Hogan, as well as 360 degree feedback, amongst others.

Clare is a member of the CIPD. She an executive coach and also does coaching supervision as well as being a full member of the Association for Coaching. She brings expertise in team building and development.

Jennifer Smokevitch

Specialism: Leadership and Modern Balanced Scorecards. (Australia & SE Asia)

Jennifer worked for Norton & Kaplan for over four years in the US and Europe delivering both knowledge management and balanced scorecard engagements. These included major projects with ABN AMRO, Bankers Trust, First National Bank of South Africa. Since moving to Australia she has concentrated on the wider leadership implications of the Balanced Scorecard approach to Managing Strategy. Jennifer has coached executives and delivered engagements in US, Europe, Australia, Africa and South East Asia with organisations that include Qantas, Unisys, New Zealand Telecom, Liberty Life, Johnson & Johnson, HCF, and Jones Lang LaSalle.

Jennifer holds an MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia, USA, and a Bachelor of Arts, Honors, Magna Cum Laude in Philosophy. She is an Associate Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management and a member of the International Coaching Federation.

Jon Strong

Specialism: Performance management software selection and implementation

Jon brings deep and extensive performance management software tool experience to our clients.  Jon previously worked with the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative where he evaluated BSC software tools for certification and helped providers prepare their products.

Jon comes from a MI background and specialises in putting the application of Corporate Performance Management (CPM) technology to good use.

John Turner

Specialism: Freelance Philosopher - Improving the quality of thinking and conversation

It might seem strange to have a freelance philosopher on the team, but quality of thinking and asking the right questions is vital. Think of John as a breath of fresh air.

John runs workshops and training in big-picture thinking, open-mindedness and dialogue-based communications. John co-founded Applied Psychology Research and is Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Hertfordshire.

Mike Wilkinson

Specialism: Customer Value and Value pricing

Mike brings particular expertise to the Customer perspective and also to the thinking of sales teams. Especially how they maximise value in their sales process and how they think about the propositions they provide.

Mike is Author 'Value Based Pricing' and the forthcoming "The Challenge of Value". He specialises in helping particularly FMCG and B2B businesses get the best price (and therefore maximum profit) for their proposition, with any particular client. Mike has been providing consultancy and training in Value Based pricing for over 10 years. .

We also have close relationships with a select few consultancies, that bring specialist expertise such as scenario planning, CPM & EPM tools, and the management of knowledge in organisations.