4C is a leading commercial, supply chain and operations consultancy working within the public and private sector globally. We are passionate about delivering transformative solutions for sustainable impact, and our success is measured by the positive change we help our clients achieve.
Who We Are
Organisations need a partner that will solve their problems for today and help them transform to stay relevant in the rapidly changing landscape. Whether it is helping organisations to improve efficiency and reduce costs, adopt new technologies, drive sustainable growth or navigate the complexities of the post-pandemic world, we have the expertise and experience to help our clients succeed.
We work with leading organisations across all sectors including the government and public sector, regulated industries, retail, consumer, hospitality, life sciences and financial services.
We understand that every organisation is unique, with its own history, culture, and challenges. That’s why we tailor a collaborative approach to each project, working closely with our clients to design and implement solutions that are right for them.
We are recognised by the Financial Times and Consultancy UK as a leading consultancy firm within our areas of specialism.
Whatever the challenge, our team of experts have the experience, tools and expertise to deliver bespoke solutions that bring long-lasting value.
Get in touch to learn more about our services and how we can help you succeed.
We have joined a community of like-minded companies who are committed to using their businesses to solve social and environmental challenges. Being a B Corp means that we are dedicated to meeting rigorous standards in areas such as environmental sustainability, employee well-being, community engagement, and ethical business practices. It also means that we are transparent about our impact and are held accountable to these standards by independent auditors.
As a B Corp, we are committed to leading the way towards a more sustainable and equitable future.
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
At 4C we are committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace where all individuals are valued and treated with respect.
We know that our success as an organisation depends on our ability to attract, retain, and develop a diverse workforce. We are committed to creating a workplace that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve, and to building a culture that celebrates and values differences whilst also encouraging and aligning these values to the way we work as one 4C. We believe that this commitment will not only benefit our employees, but also our customers, partners, and the communities in which we operate.
Corporate Social Responsibility
At 4C, we are committed to making a positive impact in the communities where we operate. Our corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitments reflect our values and our commitment to creating a better world for everyone and are reflected in our BCorp status.
Some of our key CSR commitments include:
Environmental Sustainability
We are committed to reducing our environmental impact and promoting sustainable practices in our operations and with our clients. We have committed to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2030 and have been carbon neutral since 2020.
Employee Wellbeing
Employees are our greatest asset. We are committed to promoting their wellbeing and supporting their professional and personal growth.
Community Engagement
We are committed to giving back to the community and supporting initiatives that make a positive difference in peoples’ lives.
Ethical Business Practices
We are committed to conducting our business with integrity and in compliance with the highest ethical standards.
Armed Forces Covenant
We are a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant demonstrating our pledge to ensure that those who serve or have served, and their families, are treated fairly.
Our CSR commitments are not just words on a page, they truly reflect who we are and what we stand for as an organisation. We are dedicated to making a positive difference in the world and to delivering sustainable impact for our clients and communities.
Our Values
Our people are the driving force behind our success and we believe that our values are what make us unique. Our commitment to these values is at the heart of everything we do and we are proud to be a trusted partner to organisations around the world.
Purposeful
We believe that we have a responsibility to contribute to the greater good and make a difference in the world, embracing diversity and promoting equity and inclusion. We are driven by a sense of purpose that goes beyond financial gains and focus on creating real impact.
Genuine
We are authentic, reliable and we act with integrity in all our interactions. We seek to build genuine relationships with our clients, colleagues and stakeholders based on trust, honesty, and transparency.
Innovative
We are committed to pushing the boundaries of conventional thinking and exploring new ideas to solve complex problems. We value creativity, agility and willingness to take risks and embrace change.
Committed
We are deeply committed to the success of our people and our clients, going above and beyond to deliver exceptional results. We take a long-term view on client relationships, investing time and resources to build enduring partnerships.
Our Leadership Team
4C is led by an experienced team who are focused on delivering transformative solutions with sustainable impact to our clients, whilst building a culture of shared values and success that drives our continued growth.
Andy Hemsley
Partner
Andy has over 25 years’ experience as a consulting partner and senior change & transformation leader. Working with financial services organisations, Andy focuses on how diverse capabilities are integrated to help successfully deliver the most complex change and transformation challenges. Andy has led delivery of digital transformations, organisational change, operational effectiveness, and technology implementations as well as carve-outs, M&A and joint-ventures.
Andy’s passion is promoting diversity and championing equity and inclusion in all the work he is involved in with clients and here at 4C.
He has in-depth expertise in shaping, mobilising and leading complex change using traditional, agile and hybrid delivery modes. He has extensive experience of helping organisations successfully shape and deliver their entire portfolio of change and transformation on a global scale – as well as building their own in-house capability to deliver. As a highly experienced and hands-on delivery leader, he has also led assurance of large and complex programmes to help boards and leadership teams reduce risk and increase certainty of success.
In addition to his financial services focus, having worked extensively across banking, insurance, payments and UK regulators, Andy also has cross-sector experience in consumer products, telecoms, utilities and life sciences. At 4C, Andy is expanding and broadening our Financial Services team, using his industry focus and insights to further develop our team and the impact we make across the sector.
Jeremy Smith
Managing Director
Demonstrating 4C’s investment in our people, Jeremy has joined 4C in 2011 as a Manager and progressed to become our Managing Director.
Jeremy brings over 20 years’ experience in international consulting across a wide range of public and private sector clients. Except for a few years in quantity surveying, Jeremy’s career has been consulting focused. Starting as an Analyst in a small operations consultancy, he quickly moved into procurement and worked with leading organisations, including Aviva and Barclays. Jeremy’s career development continued in a boutique procurement consultancy, where he gained global experience in the financial services and oil and gas industries, working with companies such as BP and Shell.
Jeremy has in-depth expertise and extensive experience in leading teams to deliver major international savings projects, transforming organisations’ approach to procurement through category management and SRM and developing operating models, capabilities, processes and systems.
Jeremy joined 4C to combine his consultancy skills with more hands-on practical experience which he gained in Retail and Logistics, broadening our Retail and Private Equity offer into new regions and services. As 4C’s Managing Director, Jeremy applies his people-centric leadership and inclusive approach to drive our growth and continued high-quality service, whilst delivering a positive impact across all our industry practices and making 4C a great place to work.
Allison Ford-Langstaff (FCIPS)
Partner
Allison is an experienced Procurement & Supply Chain leader with over 25 years of commercial experience across both public and private sectors. With a passion for innovation, learning and development, Allison leads our Services team of SMEs, who share their expertise and thought leadership across 4C.
Allison’s specialism is transformation, vision and strategy setting and managing change programmes, including cultural change, operating model and organisational design and she is passionate about ‘moving the dial’ in people’s capability to help organisations achieve sustainable success.
Prior to 4C, Allison ran her own consulting business for 10 years, providing business strategy and commercial expertise to SMEs, as well as selling and delivering multi-million projects and acting as CPO for several procurement transformation programmes supporting organisations including British Steel, Bridgestone Firestone, Sanoma, Capita, Network Rail, Astellas, DHSC, Sellafield, MOD, Reckitt, Eurostar, Arriva and GSK. Allison’s previous experience also includes leading the Sourcing & Supply Chain function in Orange UK and a CPO role for Wanadoo.
As 4C’s Services lead, Allision works with a team of experts who share their deep expertise, research and insights across 4C, building tools and techniques that enable us to consistently deliver sustainable impact to our clients. She heads up our Early Careers Consultancy programme, inspiring those new to consulting, commercial, supply chain and operations roles to find their passion and build both their technical and consulting expertise.
Mark Ellis
Partner
With over 20 years of industry experience and almost the same in consulting, Mark has a deep understanding of our clients’ business challenges. An established leader, Mark has worked with many organisations across the public and private sectors to transform their business operations, enable meaningful and sustained performance improvements and deliver tangible benefits to the bottom line.
Prior to joining 4C in 2015, Mark led IBM’s Procurement Practice first in the UK and followed by EMEA, before becoming the global lead. Mark’s extensive experience includes working with diverse organisations ranging from BP, Shell, BG Group, GSK, Novartis, Logoplaste, Somerset County Council, Metropolitan Police, Essex County Council, Thames Water, Cabinet Office, HSBC, Mondelez International, Unilever and Inditex.
Working in procurement line roles at the Department for Works and Pensions, Transport for London and Canterbury City Council has given Mark a real understanding of the day-to-day challenges of running high-performing teams under pressure, which he translates into practical solutions with sustainable impact.
As well as being the Lead Partner for some of our most complex engagements, Mark leads our Sales and Account Management team, ensuring we deliver a consistently high level of service to our clients that adds real value and delivers a return on investment.
Gavin Bowen-Ashwin
Partner
Gavin has over 18 years of experience in supporting organisations to transform their supply chains through commercial and operational improvement. Leading 4C’s Retail & Consumer practice, Gavin has extensive experience working with retailers, major operators in the hospitality and leisure sector and food and beverage manufacturers, both in the UK and Europe.
He brings a practical and pragmatic approach focused on supporting organisations to optimise their supply chains from improved SO&P, reduced COGS and more cost-effective manufacturing to ensuring a fit-for-purpose warehousing and distribution solution and right-sized overheads and operating costs.
Whilst commercial value is at the core of Gavin’s work, he is a transformation and change specialist, supporting organisations to plan, design and implement future operating models. Gavin’s experience includes working with UK-based and global organisations, enabling him to gain in-depth perspectives on global versus local operating models, which he translates into client engagements.
Gavin leads 4C’s Retail & Consumer practice supported by a passionate and experienced team of retail, hospitality and FMCG experts who put the customer at the heart of everything we do at 4C. Whether it is reducing the cost of food and drink for a holiday operator to enable their guests to affordably dine out or bringing innovative distribution solutions to retailers to improve the customer delivery experience, Gavin and his team are committed to working collaboratively with clients to deliver sustainable and long-lasting solutions.
Kelly Archer
Partner
Kelly is a public sector partner, using her extensive experience to bring our consulting services to health, policing and education contexts.
Having accidentally started her career in transformation in a temporary post-university finance role, Kelly seizes the opportunity to bring continuous improvement and efficiency to each client she works wtih. Kelly worked in project roles followed by two years with Ernst & Young before launching herself as a freelancer at an early age. Specialising in public sector transformation recovery, financial assurance and complex programmes of change she developed a reputation for landing change that stuck. As a result, Kelly was headhunted into consultancy leadership for Chaucer (now BIP) where she took on their Learning & Development lead role in addition to delivering for clients and then moved on to P2 working her way through leadership roles and through their purchase by Valcon into a Partnership role.
Kelly’s passion is now focussed on delivering market share gains and operational efficiencies to clients through her advisory work. Specifically she builds teams and services that deliver commercial advantage to clients through procurement, transformation and digital opportunity exploitation.
This expertise will see Kelly working with our experienced Public Sector team to broaden our offering to clients and introduce innovative approaches such as use cases for AI which deliver increasing value
Darren Blackburn
Partner
Darren is a consulting leader with a wealth of commercial and procurement experience across multiple industries. He is now wholly focused on supporting government deliver on its key imperatives by delivering the best commercial deals possible.
Starting out at BAE Systems, Darren was responsible for a number of large, complex equipment/system procurements to support the UK’s Astute programme and BAE’s interest in F-35, before becoming a Category Manager in the ordnance business. Darren then moved into consulting, delivering large engagements across Local and Central Government including a 2-year commercial managed service for a Central Policing Agency. He expanded his experience by working across both public and private sector, undertaking operating model reviews to deliver sustainable improvements, as well as delivering large cost reduction programmes.
Darren recently reignited his passion for commercial delivery in the public sector working in the Cabinet Offices Complex Transaction Team. Whilst he was there, he held a pivotal role in the Covid response and led high-profile commercial deals, delivering strong outcomes for communities across the UK. This passion is shared across our Public Sector team who are delivering positive impacts on some of the UKs biggest infrastructure programmes, Net Zero delivery schemes, Defence, Local Government, NHS and education initiatives.
Rob Vos
Partner
With an impressive career history having led multiple assignments on delivering digital solutions and supply chain transformations, Rob is our European retail partner. Using his experience in all aspects of transformation, including process design, change management and ICT, he will work to support the firm’s ongoing growth and geographical expansion across the continent.
Prior to joining our firm, Rob has worked with leading international brands including Casino, Carrefour, Musgraves, Tesco, Jumbo Ahold, Tommy Hilfiger, and HEMA, with whom he has built a strong foundation and long-term strategic partnerships.
As a member of the leadership team, Rob is responsible for the successful delivery of transformational projects across its retail practice, enabling clients to become more customer-centric. Rob’s expertise will help us deliver best-in-class services to our clients throughout Europe as we continue to build transformative solutions that create sustainable impact for our clients and society.
Paul Bestford
Partner
Paul has a track record of delivering competitive advantage in procurement through innovation, agility and cost across diverse sectors. Most recently Chief Procurement Officer at global manufacturing business Nutreco, his career has included leadership roles at Novartis, British Airways, Burberry and the John Lewis Partnership. He built his Procurement consulting experience in senior roles at Ernst & Young & KPMG supporting the transformation journeys of global organisations including Ford, GSK, 3M and BP. Starting as a Procurement trainee at BA, his hands on experience combined with unusually broad sector experience enables him to challenge established wisdom in a pragmatic and grounded way. His contribution to the profession has been recognized with a Fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply.
Currently based in the Netherlands, Paul has worked internationally across Europe, North America and the Middle East, including 5 years in Switzerland.
Vik Sood
Partner
Known for his Big Four experience and strong transportation industry background, Vik brings 4C a unique blend of skills in C-Suite procurement strategy and financial transformations.
Vik started his career in the rail industry, including a number of project management roles within Network Rail and leading the project management function delivering a multi-million pound portfolio at Alstom. Using this delivery experience, Vik moved into consultancy joining PA Consulting and progressing through leadership roles at Deloitte and Prokura Kearney before joining 4C.
Vik’s main strengths are within procurement, financial transformation, strategic monitisation of services, energy & sustainability solutions, and supplier negotiations across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. He has led complex commercial transformations within the transportation industry, but also wider within the private equity, financial services and leisure sectors.
Vik is an experienced mentor, living our values as a genuine, people-centric leader.
Ebrima Mboob
Finance Director
Ebrima, an ACCA Financial Accountant, joined 4C in 2015 and progressed to become Finance Director, albeit after few years’ spell away, leading the Finance operations for Elis UK in the north of England and Scotland.
Before joining 4C, Ebrima started out at Maxymiser, a PE backed and fast growth SaaS Tech business, which was eventually acquired by Oracle. Over the last 10 years, Ebrima has operated in businesses ranging from Manufacturing and Facilities Management to Professional Services and Tech, with both SME and listed Multinationals. Ebrima applies this experience, as well as expertise in Finance Strategy, FP&A, Risk and Controls, with a result driven and continuous improvement approach to our financial success at 4C.
Suzanna Hinnell
Chief Operating Officer
With a career spanning consultancy, operations and marketing roles across public and private sectors, Suzanna uses her blend of skills and deep understanding of the consultancy business to put the foundations in place for 4C to grow both in the UK and internationally.
Starting her career marketing overland travel and some of the earlier forms of AI, Suzanna then sought a role where she could make a greater impact, and joined the Ministry of Defence on their internal fast-track programme. Having found a passion for consulting working in both the Army and Defence consultancy teams, and completing projects for the Defence Management Board, Suzanna progressed through a number of consultancy roles supporting the public sector to achieve transformative change. Stepping back from client delivery for a period, Suzanna moved into operations and put effective corporate support functions in place for several growing businesses. When the opportunity arose, she moved West, taking on the challenge of commercialising the trading arm of a Local Council whilst maintaining essential services for some of the region’s youngest and oldest customers. After a very rewarding few years, she moved back to consultancy, co-establishing a public sector procurement consultancy which was acquired by 4C in 2020.
As a member of the leadership team, Suzanna works closely alongside Finance, HR and Legal to deliver support solutions that continue to embed our purposeful, genuine, innovative and committed values whilst growing 4C profitably. Her team provides 4C with Marketing, Resourcing, Facilities Management, Governance and IT support and she also leads our internal sustainability work, pushing 4C to continually increase our positive impact as a BCorp organisation.
Sally Riley
HR Director
Having worked in a variety of sectors and organisations as well as having delivered HR services as an independent consultant, Sally brings a breadth of knowledge and outside experience to 4C. A pragmatic problem solver, Sally’s aim is to make people processes efficient and simple while adding strategic value to the business and focusing on what matters to employees.
Joining one of the UK’s largest water companies as a graduate, Sally gained a wide range of exposure to all elements of HR service delivery and quickly found a passion for process improvement and the value that well implemented systems can add to the employee experience. At the end of her time in the water industry, she built, ran and subsequently outsourced the shared service HR function, having managed the HR elements of the disposal of a regulated water business.
She then began an extended period of independent contracting, working initially with a number of organisations to build a new operating model for delivery of services in the water industry, supporting the key HR processes to deliver success through people. Sally moved on to work for a managed mental healthcare provider, helping to grow and develop their UK business as a consultant, before being asked to join them as their HRD, developing their UK employment offer and helping them through the sale process to a new US owner. After a period of process improvement and operational HR service delivery at a leading healthcare diagnostics company, Sally moved back into employment to work for a large housing association, driving service excellence in HR operations, systems and data as well as managing reward. After working with a Covid testing company to define and deliver their HR operational delivery, Sally outsourced the service and operationally managed a significant business restructure before joining 4C in 2022, having worked with them on a consultancy basis during the early part of 2020.
Sally works closely alongside the operational management team to ensure the business has the support it needs to live its values, recruit and retain top talent and to grow in a sustainable way. Her team manages all recruitment, onboarding, employee lifecycle and payroll services and supports the Operations team with day to day facilities and IT support.