Our Leadership Team
John M Neill CBE, Chief Executive & Deputy Chairman (Unipart Group) and Director (UEP)
Emily McMinn, Financial Controller
David Walsh, Practice Development Director
John Coulston, Head of Performance
Mark Richichi, Capability Director
Gary Tharme, Account Development Director
Ian Arbuthnott, Head of Sector, Financial Services
David Whale, Head of Public Sector
| John M Neill CBE, Chief Executive & Deputy Chairman (Unipart Group) and Director (UEP) John Neill joined Unipart in 1974, becoming Managing Director in 1977. He was subsequently appointed Chief Executive of the Unipart Group of Companies in 1987 after leading the management buyout from British Leyland. Together with the Board members and members of the Group Executive Committee, he is responsible for the day-to-day management and overall performance of the Group. In his role of CEO, John led the transformation of Unipart and was the principal author of The Unipart Way (Unipart's proprietary approach to performance improvement and employee engagement). As a Director of UEP, John plays an active role in the development and growth of the UEP business. |
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Neil Smith Managing Director A true Lean Sensei and one of the four original UK Toyota team to be trained by the world renowned Operations Management Consulting Division, he successfully implemented the learning from Toyota across the Unipart Group; the exemplary quality of his work was recognised by Toyota themselves who cited Unipart as being the best example of Lean working outside Japan. Since UEP’s establishment in 2005, the practice has grown under Neil’s direction from a single-client base to one of the world’s largest consultancies specialising in the field of operational performance improvement. |
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Emily McMinn Financial Controller Another member of the original UEP Management Team, Emily leads the Finance function, which supports all of UEP's consulting activities. She also manages UEP's back-office support teams, which service the day to day needs of UEP's practitioners. Emily joined Unipart Group in 2000 and, before joining UEP in 2005, held a number of positions as Finance Manager within Unipart Logistics for various contracts servicing clients from the Automotive and Retail sectors. Prior to joining Unipart, Emily held such roles as Systems Finance Manager for Dun and Bradstreet Europe and Management Accountant for Knight Frank. |
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David Walsh Practice Development Director David joined UEP in 2008 with almost 20 years' experience of senior roles in international blue-chip consulting, corporate and M&A environments. He previously held senior practice development roles at both PwC (where, as one of its earliest members, he co-led the rapid growth of PwC's highly successful Strategy Group practice) and Deloitte Consulting; he also co-founded a group of consulting firms in Eastern Europe and has held senior management positions in Coca Cola HBC and the Nuance Group (the world's largest ‘duty-free’ retailer). Within UEP, David focuses on the development of UEP’s strategy and management of various practice development initiatives designed to ensure that UEP achieves its ambitious growth objectives. |
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John Coultson John has over 15 years experience in implementing successful Lean transformations across a number of organisations in both Public and Private sectors. He has has recently aided a large Central Government Departments Executive Committee in their translation of Vision through to Strategy, Tactics and ultimately Operations. Prior to joining Unipart, John operated as Senior Consultant for a Lean consultancy firm. In this role he worked on contracts in the Aerospace, Nuclear and Rail industries. |
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Mark Richichi Capability Director An engineer by training, Mark is a founder member of UEP. After a successful career at Toyota, Mark joined Unipart in 2001 where he held a variety of internal consulting and continuous improvement roles across Unipart Group divisions. As part of the original UEP management team, Mark played leading roles in securing and managing a number of key UEP programmes for clients such as HMRC, Airbus and Boots. His passion for people development led him to create and manage UEP's strategy for recruitment and development; he has also lead UEP's Learning & Development team which focuses on the development of - and transfer of knowledge to - client personnel. |
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Gary Tharme Account Development Director Gary joined UEP in the summer of 2008, after over 20 years in senior business development and client relationship management roles in the consulting arena serving both public and private sectors. He has global responsibility for the management and development of relationships with all of UEP’s clients, and has personally worked with over 130 clients at board-level, with particular specialisation in the Healthcare and Financial Services sectors. |
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Ian Arbuthnott Ian joined UEP in 2007 and leads a sector-based team of business development professionals. Prior to joining Unipart, Ian was a Divisional Managing Director of a publicly quoted, market-leading, US aerospace and defence group, having previously held board-level roles in sales, marketing and operations management. Since joining UEP, Ian has successfully developed new client business in a variety of sectors, including Financial Services, Central Government, Manufacturing and Retail |
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David Whale One of the founding members of UEP, David leads the Public Sector practice and has successfully managed large-scale change programmes and organisational transformations for numerous public and private sector organisations. Since 2005, David has played a key strategic role designing and managing the roll-out of HM Revenue & Customs’ highly successful central change programme called PaceSetter. David joined the Unipart Group in the early 1980’s where, prior to joining UEP in 2005, he held a number of Director & General Manager positions.
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