"...helping businesses cut the right costs, by focusing on customer value..."

Andy Thorpe - Managing Director

Andy is a seasoned and passionate senior commercial operator - with 25+ years experience across the full-breadth of the sales, marketing and trading functions... Prior to founding AJT Associates, he spent most of his career working for some of the most rigorously customer and cost-focussed businesses in the world - and has a particular uniqueness in the breadth of his senior trading experience within the 'hard' and fast-moving 'Top 3' U.K. Grocers : Tesco Stores, J.Sainsburys, and Asda Wal*Mart...

A dynamic business leader and continual catalyst for change - he is always seeking to remove internal and external / contracted costs, renegotiating supplier terms and out-sourcing operations, where necessary... Never one to avoid tough decisions – he has successfully refocused a number of business-critical operations around newly clarified, customer needs... Core operational agendas have included: -

• Supplier/supply-chain management - 110+ strong supplier-base; 'Category Partnership' leadership with P&G/Unilever...
• Category planning/value-chain engineering - 20% year-on-year cost reductions achieved across a range of new product and sourcing strategies...
• 'Stretching' sales and margin targets - achieved £1bn+ sales, 37% margin delivery and U.K. High St. market-leadership in one key Non-Food business unit; and £2 bn+ sales in another...

Always engaged to deliver a tangible difference, his extensive 'hands-on' commercial track record has also been successfully deployed within the Gambling & Leisure sectors - as well as Financial Services - with recent Group board-level responsibilities for offshore trading and an extensive I.T./group change agenda – as well as a multi-channel operational team of 500+ reports...

This builds upon an earlier career in manufacturing – as a senior pan-European Product Manager in the Automotive sector; and Group Marketing Manager for a 'blue-chip'/branded DIY manufacturer... A move into the Pubs & Hospitality sector, saw rapid progression within Grand Met/Chef & Brewer Group, and Scottish & Newcastle Breweries, before being headhunted to join Whitbread plc - as their youngest ever Divisional Board Marketing Director for pubs...

His academics include a full-time MBA from Bradford University Business School and an earlier Management Degree from Warwick University Business School. This has been further supplemented with senior management training at INSEAD/Paris and Cranfield, and a spell with KPMG Management Consulting based in Birmingham.

Andy is now based in the East Midlands, near his 2 children - and has a partner based in Cambs. His passions include motorsport, cycling, ski-ing and relaxing in the Lake District...

Fleur Roseblade - Head of Consultancy

Fleur is a highly experienced and professional strategic operator, who has now worked alongside Andy for the last 5 years. She also has 15+ years successful commercial delivery, across the following business-critical disciplines: -

• Personal management of the Corporate Planning function - plus strategic business-case production and review...
• Programme planning and office management - including multi-workstream co-ordination...
• Project evaluation and measurement - including rigorous viability assessment and budget/investment analysis
• Detailed market/customer analysis and research - and 'Customer Scorecard' development...
• Senior stakeholder management and 'change' coaching...

A member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and Diploma holder - Fleur is also a graduate in Business Administration, and holds an HND in Business & Finance.

Married with 2 children, Fleur is based in Derby - and has a particular passion for 'The Big Apple' - and travels to New York whenever her young family allows...