Our People

At the heart of Ville & Co is Nick Ville and Greg Wilkinson. Nick originally founded the company in 2005 and Greg joined recently as Principal Associate. Both Nick and Greg have over twenty years of experience in improving the performance of organisations in the public and private sectors. Nick and Greg have known one another for a number of years and they share a strong commitment to working with organizations that contribute to the public good.

Nick started Ville & Co in 2005 because he felt that there was a need for much better and more cost-effective help with performance improvement than was currently available. His experience was that many consultancy firms were very expensive, not as expert as they claimed and did not truly have the best interests of the client at heart when giving advice. Consequently Nick decided to set-up an organization that offered high quality advice at a reasonable cost and that was genuinely committed to adding value to the organizations it worked with.

Since 2005 Nick has steadily built up around him a network of over 30 expert practitioners who are well regarded in their field and who share his commitment. More recently the company has taken a significant step forward with Greg joining to work alongside Nick day to day.

We offer our clients a highly expert team of experienced managers, researchers and consultants, who can deliver high quality advice direct to senior decision-makers. They bring considerable knowledge of a wide range of services, and offer a powerful combination of senior management, research and consulting experience. The high level of expertise we can bring to bear, adds considerable value for our clients; by providing practical solutions which are focused on delivering tangible results, and lead to sustainable improvement.

Pen portraits of Nick and Greg and a selection of our Associates are given below.

Nick Ville, Director

Nick Ville is the Managing Director of Ville & Company. Prior to this he was the Home Affairs Director in the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (PMDU) in the Cabinet Office. Nick started his career in local government and initially worked for a number of local authorities in London. He then went on to join the Audit Commission where he led a lot of the Commission’s VfM audit work and also authored national reports on services for vulnerable people, school funding and PFI. Nick also has experience as a Non-Executive Director in the Health Service including as Chair of the Audit Committee at London Strategic Health Authority. Nick studied PPE at Oxford University and has an MBA from London Business School.

Greg Wilkinson, Principal Associate

Greg is the Principal Associate of Ville & Co. Greg was previously a Partner in Ernst & Young LLP and Accenture (UK) Ltd, where he led the UK government strategy practices of both firms. Greg has over 20 years experience of work in the public and private sectors on strategy, policy, and performance improvement. Earlier in his career, he was an official and elected member in local government, an associate director of the Audit Commission and a senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury.

Our community of professionals includes:

Mark Addison

Mark has served at Board level in six central government departments and agencies, including a period as acting Permanent Secretary at Defra. Mark has a track record of successfully designing and delivering organisational reform, improving performance, cutting cost, building delivery partnerships (including with IT suppliers), leading/managing emergencies and designing and promoting modern regulatory frameworks. He has specific knowledge and interest in climate change and carbon reduction, labour market/training, health and safety regulation, criminal justice, regulatory reform and agriculture/environment. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Cass Business School.

Ian Beesley

Until recently a senior change management consulting partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers and former Group HR Director for its Global Business Process Outsourcing service. A specialist in strategy implementation, experienced in working with Government Ministers, Board members and senior Government officials to formulate and implement strategies in complex and delicate situations in the UK and internationally.

Laura Coffey

Laura Coffey is a consultant with expertise in performance improvement and a proven track record in delivering results within central government, Laura has worked across both the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit building a specialism in health policy. Laura started her career at Accenture and has also spent time at Ariadne Capital, a boutique investment/advisory firm specialising in digital media. Laura is also a co-founder and director of a social enterprise which provides internship programmes for the London's top college bound students at market-leading companies, and works with young people to raise their aspirations, build their confidence and help them develop the skills needed to secure the very best career opportunities when they graduate.

Professor Paul Corrigan

Paul was special adviser to Alan Milburn and senior health policy adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Currently a management consultant and an executive coach helping leaders create and develop step changes with their organisation, Paul brings extensive knowledge and expertise in health care systems and policy.

Ben Emm

Ben has experience as a successful Probation Chief Officer with expertise in performance management, performance improvement, strategic planning, capability development and business excellence. He also created a national Performance Improvement Unit for the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). He is currently an independent consultant working with organisations from all sectors who deliver public services.

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Amanda Halliwell

A senior manager with a proven track record in delivering service improvement within local government and the NHS, with a particular interest in partnership working. Amanda authored two joint reports between the Audit Commission and the Healthcare Commission including ‘Living Well in Later Life’. Amanda’s career includes extensive management experience at the Audit Commission and in the private sector.

Judith Lempriere

Judith has extensive senior management experience in the Cabinet Office, Home Office, local government and the university sector. She is currently a freelance consultant and has been working on community cohesion, extremism, youth disengagement, domestic abuse and related issues. Judith brings particular strengths and experience in stakeholder engagement, working with diverse communities, leading and managing change and business planning and performance management.

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Michael Macdonnell

Michael has extensive experience in the NHS and across the public sector. He is currently Senior Policy Fellow at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London. Under the leadership of Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham, the Institute will establish a body of applied health policy research with a truly global scope, advise international governments and clinical leaders, and educate the next generation of policy-makers. Previously Michael was Director of The 10 Partnership, a strategy and performance improvement consultancy which operated exclusively in the health sector providing direct advice to Chief Executives and their Boards. Prior to founding ‘10’, Michael was an advisor at the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit under Tony Blair where he worked on behalf of the British Prime Minister to accomplish the government’s policy objectives in health and other sectors. Michael is a regular contributor to the Guardian, The Sunday Times, the Health Service Journal and other publications on the subjects of public sector and health reforms.

Peter Smith

Peter Smith is a leading authority on procurement and supply chain issues and was President of CIPS in 2003. He has worked at the highest levels for 20 years as both a Procurement Director and Consultant across many public and private sector organisations. Recent (and typical) work has included working as an OGC PCR Reviewer, supporting an MOD Agency’s Procurement Change Programme, and sitting as the procurement ‘expert’ on the Programme Board for a £500 million outsourcing programme. Peter also supports organisations who are looking to win public sector contracts, using his unrivalled knowledge of procurement to help the sales and bidding process.

John Tierney

John has extensive experience of the public and not-for-profit sectors. John is the Director of of Transform, a management consultancy specialising in strategic and change management for organisations committed to social change. John has also worked for Compass Partnership, the not-for-profit management consultancy and for the Audit Commission. Whilst at the Commission, he led their work with the social housing sector’s then funding and regulatory agency, the Housing Corporation, writing three national reports on performance and management issues in social housing. John also has international consulting experience and was the Africa Programme Manager for the UK NGO Help the Aged, as well as VSO’s Programme Director in Zambia and Belize.

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