Feedback and References

Feedback from Arm

GENERAL FEEDBACK ON my work in IT Delivery

You truly are someone that gets delivery and drives valuable outcomes.

Rob Negus, Director of IT Product Development, Arm

Feedback from North Highland

GENERAL FEEDBACK ON TESCO MOBILE & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Tom Cox’s efforts here continue to be extraordinary

Ben Grinnell, Digital Service Line Sponsor & Managing Director, North Highland

Tesco Mobile Change and Delivery Assessment - Colleague Feedback

Tom has been integral to our team at Tesco Mobile hitting the ground running when we arrived. He gave up a lot of his time to give us his insight and thoughts on the organisation, and answer every we question we had with great thought and detail; he never made it feel like it was a chore to help us understand the client problem and the possible solution.

He has built fantastic, trusted relationships with our core clients and uses these relationships with great care to manoeuvre the politics in the organisation and support us with any issues we’ve run into. He has incredible tact and is a true example of how a consultant should act on client site; understanding the motivations of the client and the wider environment in which we’re operating and ensuring NH is positioned in the correct way to support them.

He has been a big personal support to me. When dealing with some difficult feedback from the client at the start of the project, he made me feel incredibly comfortable with the next steps we were going to take and helped me understand how to “frame” the next meeting with the client to help her get back on track with NH. He has great emotional intelligence and can infer a lot from a quick conversation.

Tom is also incredibly proactive, seeing problems coming from a mile away and coming to find me with a solution he thinks will work e.g. one of the analysts in the team had booked an interview with a senior client that Tom had found difficult to interview in the past, so offered to accompany him in the interview and “head off” any potential dangers – I would never have known that was a potential problem, and it worked really well. He has the ability to take a helicopter view of the project and work out any “danger” from his extensive experience working with the client.

He has been a pleasure to work with the last couple of weeks and definitely lifts the morale of the team if he can sense it getting a bit below par, thanks Tom!

Clare Flitton, Senior Consultant, North Highland UK

TESCO MOBILE CHANGE AND DELIVERY ASSESSMENT - COLLEAGUE FEEDBACK

I was asked at late notice to pick up an opportunity at Tesco Mobile around Agile Transformation. I worked closely with Tom to take this opportunity through to sale. A few key observations/experiences from working with Tom…
· His depth of subject matter knowledge, strategic understanding of the client and their need, and understanding of NHs offerings was exemplary. He identified and shaped the opportunity, then was instrumental to the sale through his support of me and others.
· Tom’s communication skills are excellent. He is able to articulate complicated situations, organisations and challenges simply – evidenced in him bringing me up to speed on the client and the client’s challenges in a matter of hours. He is structured, detailed and clear – both in internal and client sessions.
· Tom has a strong and trusted relationship with the client. He is evidently a trusted advisor and, in the client meeting, it almost felt that the client saw him as on their side of the table, really supporting them in figuring out what was right for them as an organisation. He demonstrated his credibility, gravitas and ability to effectively influence senior stakeholders well.

Clare Allum, Manager, North Highland UK

TESCO MOBILE CHANGE AND DELIVERY ASSESSMENT - COLLEAGUE FEEDBACK

During our engagement at Tesco Mobile, Tom was able to use his insight and knowledge about the ways the company operates to review our deliverables and give a view of how well they will be received by the client. He also helped us devise our approach so that it would be best suited to the client's desires. This was extremely helpful and gave us the upper-hand to provide real quality to the client.

As part of a team doing a 4 week discovery project at Tesco Mobile, understanding the client and getting intros to their people was going to be essential. Tom went out of his way to help our team. He gave gave us intros to everyone we needed to meet and acted as a client liaison for any issues we had. He also gave us an induction into the business to inform us about everything going on. All of this was outside of Tom's usual job and the success of the project must partly lean on Tom's assistance and willingness and pro-activity to help. Very thankful we had such a brilliant 'insider'!

Alex Esterkin, Consultant, North Highland UK

Feedback from Tesco Mobile

General Feedback from Steve Gannon on Tesco Mobile Engagement

• Innovative in coming up with ways to capture and log requirements

• Facilitation is excellent, always looks for ways to make it interesting

• The key for developing Tom is giving him bigger chunks of work and more responsibility rather than change what he is doing already

• Excellent at communicating at the right level, I find this a rare skill and he is the best in the team at it!

• Continues to build good working relationships and has earned respect across TEF and Tesco.

• People have been with TM for years and haven’t made a fraction of the progress Tom has made in understanding tesco mobile contracts and building relationships

• Effective at raising risks and issues in a constructive way without rubbing people up the wrong way

• He has been effective at managing conflict when it crops up

Steve Gannon, Head of Architecture and Design

General Feedback from John Appleyard on Tesco Mobile Engagement

• In relation to strengths: "His ability to see the bigger picture and not just what he’s doing. Always looking at broader picture from IT to whats happening in store"

• He is very open, confident and personable. Well respected and well liked.

• He gets involved in shaping and understanding things rather than just taking things at face value.

• He is very good at leading sessions. He is quick to grasp the wider impact of things and different options.

John Appleyard, Lead Solution Designer