Our People

Steve is the founder and Chair of Kingsgate, which has been delivering successful change for organisations in difficult and challenged situations for over 20 years.

Steve is a thought leader in turnaround and is the current Chairperson of The Institute for Turnaround.

Steve has a successful turnaround track record at CEO/MD level in listed companies, privately owned enterprises and in the public sector.  His extensive restructuring experience ranges from pan-European multi-site operations to significant public-sector involvement. Steve also has strong sector knowledge in health and social care, technology, distribution and logistics.

He has been a Turnaround Director for over 16 NHS hospital Trusts, leading the Kingsgate teams to deliver cost reduction and transformation programmes over the last 15 years. Cost improvement programmes have ranged from £10-35 million. In the private sector he has also been significantly involved in advising on M/A

Steve is also the co- founder and Chair of Dearden HR, an established human resources consultancy providing solutions for complex people issues for over 25 years.

Kelly leads Kingsgate’s private sector business.

She has delivered a wide range of turnaround and transformation programmes across a number of sectors, including CEO and CRO roles in Automotive, Aerospace, and FMGC sectors.

Kelly has lived and worked in the USA, China and UK, in blue chip and privately-owned businesses. Along the way has developed a very pragmatic and hands-on approach to leading operationally focussed improvement programmes in challenging situations.

Kelly is an accredited member of The Institute for Turnaround (IFT).

Sue has many years’ experience working in the NHS, including 20 years at Board level in roles including Chief Operating Officer; Director of Nursing and Acting Chief Executive. She has worked primarily in hospitals, but also has worked in the community and for a charity. She has a great track record of successfully achieving standards including financial, operational and quality. She retains her nurse registration and her clinical background allows her to work well with doctors and other clinicians.

She has a significant background in redesign, change and transformation for successful financial, operational and clinical quality improvements and efficiencies. Sue has spent 2 years working as ‘Improvement Director’ for NHSI in Trusts which had been put into ‘Special Measures’.

Gary Owens has twenty years of healthcare sector experience and has significant experience working in the NHS, mainly within hospitals, successfully delivering significant CIP and transformational programmes across an NHS organisation, as well as health systems.

Gary has a vast amount of experience in successfully delivering operational turnaround, he is comfortable leading multi-disciplinary teams at operational and strategic level. His experience also includes developing and driving productivity and performance improvement programmes, organisational design, delivery model redesign, annual business planning and strategy development.

A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Mark has provided HR solutions to numerous NHS and public sector organisations. He has first hand experience of working as an interim having worked as an interim Director of HR for large teaching hospitals, acute trusts and PCTs.

As a substantive Director of HR in two separate NHS Trusts, most latterly a London-based FT, he has real senior and hands on experience, with the ability to hit the ground running in terms of HR matters and organisational design. He understands the health sector in depth, having additionally held the position of relationship Director for North London at NHS London.

Mark is Managing Director at Dearden, which partners with Kingsgate on a regular basis.

Ali joined Kingsgate in 2018 and works in both our private and public sector teams. Her experience is working on large-scale turnaround projects with a particular focus on delivering hands on pragmatic solutions in a range of business issues. She blends her financial and operational skills and experience to drive improvement. She is a graduate of the Institute for Turnarounds (IFT) Academy, a programme designed for the next generation of turnaround professionals, providing a structured grounding in the expertise required to lead successful restructuring, turnaround, and transformation projects.

Ali is an Associate Member of the IFT and is Co-lead for their Next Generation working group. She is a qualified agile and prince 2 project manager and is currently studying with CIMA to become a qualified Management Accountant.

Andrew has over a decade of experience leading teams across multiple clients as a Turnaround Director or Transformation advisor and has a successful track record of delivering complex change including multi-million pound cash releasing savings, improving operational performance, enhancing organisational reputation.

Previously he worked in the public sector for 16 years, most recently as Chief Operating Officer and Director of Performance in large NHS Trusts.

Recent projects include supporting system wide financial recovery, planned care productivity and delivery, and COVID-19 planning and operational support.

Robin is a Management Consultant with 25 years’ experience working in public sector, particularly health and local government. He has successfully delivered financial recovery and business transformation programmes at Barnet and Chase Farm NHS Trust, Southend University Hospital, and London North West Hospitals NHS Trust, and Croydon health system.

Previously, Robin was responsible overseeing planning and delivery of large-scale technology transformation programmes in local government, health, leisure and membership organisations.

Peter has had a long and successful NHS career, having held positions at Deputy and Chief Operating Officer level.

He has extensive management experience with a proven track record of delivery, performance management and service redesign. Peter has also led on contract negotiations as part of the annual planning round and in the development of service strategy. Most recently he has worked with a client in Essex, leading on service transformation. Peter has worked with Kingsgate over a number of years, collaborating on a range of transformation programmes.

Jon is a Chartered Accountant. He has significant experience in the private sector turnaround and restructuring over a number of years supporting clients across a range of sectors and specialising in SMEs.

He has previously worked for PwC  in their mid-tier business recovery team and also worked on secondment at Barclays as a Relationship Director in their Business Support team.

He provides financial leadership, focussing on management information, driving cash flow and profitability and also providing M&A and transactional expertise.

Jon is an accredited member of The Institute for Turnaround (IFT).

Medhya is a qualified CIPFA accountant and a Prince 2 project manager with over 19 years of management consultancy experience, across a variety of sectors.

She has worked for clients within central and local government, the NHS, international development, financial services, private and energy sectors.

Medhya’s expertise is within business and finance transformation. She was part of KPMG’s finance transformation team for 7 years and continues to build her change management and project delivery skills since leaving.

Medhya can successfully deliver complex projects, across a variety of working cultures, while managing a range of stakeholders to embed the change and leave a sustainable legacy.

Medhya enjoys her work and loves interacting with people, becoming part of the team. She delivers quality results in high pressured environments, in collaboration with multi-disciplinary teams.

Following 10 years at Whitbread, and success in founding and generating strong investment returns in his leisure retail business, Jan has, over the last three years, focused on turnaround, operational performance improvement, and project optimisation in the leisure, procurement, and not-for-profit sectors. Jan has held directorships with four companies, and has consistently achieved goals through galvanising team effort and strong leadership skills, resulting in increased sales, profit and returns on investment in tough markets.

Chris has over 20 years’ experience of working at FD, Deputy CEO and CEO level in the NHS and a number of years management consultancy and executive coaching experience, including working for Kingsgate. He has specific strengths in diagnostic consulting, strategy formulation and developmentand analyticalreview. He focuses on results and outcomes, with strong interpersonal and negotiation skills, proving invaluable in roles where he has helped individuals and teams with diverse and competing views find common ground and to focus on the critical issues.

Chris has provided strategic advice to two governments and expert support to nearly 20 health organisations and a number of SMEs. He is very comfortable working with boards and clinical leaders alike. Most recently he has enabled the development of a compelling case to persuade the boards the North Bristol Hospitals Trust and University Hospitals Bristol FT to re-examine the potential benefits of the merger of the Trusts.  This was achieved and the organisations went on to jointly commission the development of a business case for a “merger by acquisition”.

Albert is a native of Holland and is based in Eindhoven. His turnaround experience covers both leadership and functional directorships in large-scale situations covering R&D, Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Marketing and Sales. He has held a variety of senior management/board positions in Germany, the Netherlands, UK and Asia. Recently he has helped a number of distressed legal partnerships turnaround and has also been involved in the health sector. Albert has a PHD in nuclear physics and is a polyglot, including fluent English.

Caroline joined Kingsgate in August 2020 and supports all aspects of business development and marketing. Prior to joining Kingsgate, Caroline has over 10 years of experience working in these fields in a diverse range of sectors as an employee and as a consultant. She has experience kick-starting marketing and business development in Start-up firms as well as developing strategies for the more established.

Sharon joined the company in August 2017. She is a qualified Chartered Management Accountant of 13 years and has worked within the finance Sector for over 25 years. Prior to joining us Sharon worked for DHL Express UK as Head of Financial Planning & Analysis managing a team and budget in excess of £130m.

Heidi’s experience spans support roles for a small scale social enterprise to major corporates. By the end of 14 years working in the proposals teams for two major construction firms Heidi was leading the Marketing Support team and was advising on business intelligence. More recently she had a broad support role within the development of an educational organisation with a social purpose. All these skills now come together to ensure that Kingsgate has a fair, transparent and organised approach to contracts and bidding.