Who We Are

Tim Hardcastle

Managing Partner

Tim co-founded F2X in 2006. Tim’s career over the past 25 years has covered accountancy, corporate strategy and technology within support services, utilities and insurance in the UK, America and New Zealand. This wide range of experience means he is able to engage and facilitate discussions and offer insights at Board level. Not only has he led £100m plus technology enabled change programmes but also led a corporate recovery team reducing costs in IT and shared services over a 9 month period by 50% (£11m p.a.)

He specialises in business and technology alignment and his client work typically covers the areas of core capabilities, leveraging value from technology, and sourcing strategies.

Derek Hill

Partner

Derek, a co-founder of F2X, is the partner who leads the IT services and strategic sourcing practice. With over 25 years experience in both the public and private sectors, he brings experience from roles and assignments in both the USA and Europe. Derek leads assignments that deliver dramatic improvements in the essential IT services which underpin all technological capability.

He specialises in IT service re-engineering, IT outsourcing, in-sourcing and providing senior management with value for money assessments.

Simon Salt-Cowell

Partner

Simon leads major cost reduction programmes, commercial re-engineering and sourcing optimisation projects.

With a background in consultancy and delivering significant global initiatives in online travel, he works with Boards and Senior Managers to devise and implement significant cost reduction. He specialises in re-negotiation of existing contracts, and recent assignments in this area have delivered over £3m of savings.

Mark Oakton

Partner

Mark heads up the security practice of F2X. Mark has a background as a lead consultant with both commercial companies and the public sector and has worked with F2X for the last 3 years.

Mark has a rare talent – the ability to articulate fiendishly complex ideas to CEO’s, CFO’s and COO’s in simple terms. Programme initiatives such as Sarbanes-Oxley, PCI compliance, and information security standards are all matters of utmost importance. Simplifying the complex means that Mark is consequently in great demand.

Daren Rudd

Partner

Daren heads up the Enterprise Architecture Practice within F2X. With over 15 years experience, most notably within the UK’s leading players in insurance, Daren works with Boards and CIO’s and EA teams to create achievable technology roadmaps and architectures. His recent assignments have led to significant acceleration of results in terms of system and service choices through a focus on ‘agile’ architectures.

Ann Brown

Director

Ann leads the transformation and programmes services for clients and has the benefit of experience in numerous sectors from engineering to education covering a range of business critical services ranging from digital strategies to supply chain and logistics.

Ann works closely with clients to ensure that programmes are working effectively and delivering the desired results.

John Panther

Director

John is a senior member of the cost saving and commercial team having honed his skills in consultancy and more latterly at one of the UK leading Utility organisations where he had the pleasure of facing off the one of the worlds largest technology outsourcing providers.

John’s experience over the last 20 + years means that he is able to rapidly assess cost saving opportunities and use his vast commercial insight to rapidly access them.

Ben Whittaker

Ben leads the Infrastructure Architecture practice at F2X and has experience working with a broad range of clients in insurance, support services, construction, manufacturing and media sectors. Ben’s wide experience rooted in a deep technical domain knowledge means he is able to bridge the gap between business and technology. Often clients have been badly advised and require rapid problem resolution and Ben’s reputation as the infrastructure equivalent of Red Adair is growing.

Ben works with clients to define, design, oversee implementation and support technology solutions and is happy working with server room managers or Board Directors. He achieves this through communicating and collaborating with in house teams to deliver effective tailored solutions based on best-practice and industry-standards.

Helen Fraser

Helen has over 12+ years experience in delivering business and IT solutions to clients in banking, insurance, professional services, local and central government. Having sharpened her skills through a portfolio of projects her MSC, in business systems analysis and design, has enabled her to combine practical experience with deep theoretical knowledge. She understands how to deliver projects effectively and efficiently and leads the design and implementation of PMO’s.

Her extensive knowledge of best practice enables her to rapidly identify solutions to complex issues. Extremely commercially driven Helen ensures that the optimum approach is taken to deliver the best value for clients.