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.
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.
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.
Diversity & Inclusion
We are committed to creating a work environment that is diverse, inclusive and respectful for all employees.
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.
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.
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 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 sector 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 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 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 return on investment.
Gavin Bowen-Ashwin
Partner
Gavin has over 18 years of experience in supporting organisations to transform their supply chains though 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.
Will Sillar
Partner
With 25 years of consulting experience, Will has one mission – to find ways to improve the organisations we work with, and to make those improvements happen and last. With his prior experience of leading and growing consultancy teams, Will brings an innovative approach to 4C, focused on solving some of the most challenging post-Covid and post-Brexit technology, environmental and social issues.
An engineer by trade, Will came late to consulting in 1999. Ten formative years in Supply Chain with Accenture and then in IT with Capgemini was followed by ten years in transformation and programme management in aerospace and financial services. After roles in HSBC and Munich Re, including leadership of the world’s largest-ever IT transformation, Will returned to consulting in 2018, and has since worked in product strategy for Airbus, data strategy and regulation for Permanent TSB, and in Screwfix’s 2022 programme to launch Screwfix France and replatform its world-leading retail and ecommerce propositions.
Though a consulting veteran, Will also draws on twenty years as an army reservist, ten as chair of an educational charity, and spells supporting Olympic sailing and Forces winter sports.
At 4C, Will’s role is to broaden 4C’s propositions and extend the services we offer. Will also leads our Life Sciences team, and advises on transformation, technology and strategy more generally, bringing together diversity of thought and experience to make the maximum impact for our clients and society.