Who we are?

Straight thinking management practitioners.

David Hilliard

Chief Executive

David is Founder and Chief Executive of Mentor Europe. He is a trusted hard-core specialist with encyclopaedic skills on strategy execution. A down-to-earth practitioner, with over 30 years’ experience in the telecoms and service industries.

He works behind the scenes with CEOs and senior executives, helping to unscramble problems blocking high performance and expertly sidestep high-priced execution oversights. David believes most executives continuously challenge themselves to get better at their craft – and it shows in the work they do.

He has helped many client’s setup new businesses, including Energis, Eircell, Virgin Mobile, Three, 5 Television and Tele2 – also working with other major clients, including Airwave, BT, Colt, Dell, eir, EE, O2, lastminute.com, Vodafone and Sky.

David is a master practitioner in Neuro-Linguistics and also trained as an accountant.

David Hilliard

Chief Executive

David is Mentor Europe’s Chief Executive. He is a trusted hard-core specialist with encyclopaedic skills on strategy execution. A down-to-earth practitioner, with over 30 years’ experience in the telecoms and service industries.

He works behind the scenes with CEOs and senior executives, helping to unscramble problems blocking high performance. David believes most executives continuously challenge themselves to get better at their craft – and it shows in the work they do.

He has helped many client’s setup new businesses, including Energis, Eircell, Virgin Mobile, Three, 5 Television and Tele2 – also working with other major clients, including Airwave, BT, Dell, eir, EE, O2, lastminute.com, Vodafone and Sky.

David is a master practitioner in Neuro-Linguistics and also trained as an accountant. He is a co-author of “It’s ‘Deja Vu’ all over again” with Ian Waters; an edgy, street-savvy exposé on how companies can expertly sidestep high-priced execution oversights.

Ian Waters

Partner

Ian is an experienced telecoms executive with a proven track record of developing and implementing pragmatic strategies that deliver concrete results.

He believes solid groundwork and high-performing organisations are essential to success in telecoms, where companies are having to respond to change faster than ever before.

Ian has advised Operators, Vendors and Financial investors in many countries on a range of operational, strategic and financial issues. Recent clients include Cable & Wireless, telent, Ericsson, eir, Lilly, EE, O2, Three and SSE. He has also led numerous projects with Private Equity Investors on investments in telecoms, IT, and service industries.

Before Mentor, Ian was a founding partner in Credo, an international Strategy Consultancy, where he was responsible for the development and growth of its Telecoms activities.

Ian Waters

Partner

Ian is an experienced telecoms executive with a proven track record of developing and implementing pragmatic strategies that deliver concrete results.

He believes solid groundwork and high-performing organisations are essential to success in telecoms, where companies are having to respond to change faster than ever before.

Ian has advised Operators, Vendors and Financial investors in many countries on a range of operational, strategic and financial issues. Recent clients include Cable & Wireless, telent, Ericsson, eir, Lilly, EE, O2, Three and SSE. He has also led numerous projects with Private Equity Investors on investments in telecoms, IT, and service industries.

Before Mentor, Ian was a founding partner in Credo, an international Strategy Consultancy, where he was responsible for the development and growth of its Telecoms activities.

Mike Hosie

Partner

Mike Hosie joined Mentor Europe as a Partner in 2014, focussing on the successful delivery of complex-transformation programs.

Mike Hosie works with Board and senior executives in telecoms, technology and media companies and is a proven and successful change leader in large, complex organisations where time-to-market is critical. He believes that organisations competing in ever more complex markets can only succeed with exceptional teamwork and a laser-like focus on execution.

Mike delivered MBNL’s change program to ensure the business met its strategic objectives for the LTE networks of its shareholders. At Tele2 (Netherlands), he accelerated delivery of the world’s first 4G-only network; and, at Arqiva, he ran the transformation program to position the infrastructure services organisation with first-rate capabilities that met the needs of demanding telecoms clients.

Mike is a Chartered Accountant and has experience of public markets having been both CEO and CFO of publicly listed companies.

Mike Hosie

Partner

Mike Hosie works with Board and senior executives in telecoms, technology and media companies.

Mike is a proven and successful change leader in large, complex organisations where time-to-market is critical. He believes that organisations competing in ever more complex markets can only succeed with exceptional teamwork and a laser-like focus on execution.

Mike delivered MBNL’s change program to ensure the business met its strategic objectives for the LTE networks of its shareholders. At Tele2 (Netherlands), he accelerated delivery of the world’s first 4G-only network; and, at Arqiva, he ran the transformation program to position the infrastructure services organisation with first-rate capabilities that met the needs of demanding telecoms clients.

Mike is a Chartered Accountant and has experience of public markets having been both CEO and CFO of publicly listed companies.

Why we get hired

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Mentor works on mission-critical programs. Those initiatives that make or break a business, make or break the careers of CEOs and management teams. We make a difference. Yes, we’re blunt, but we use 20 plus years of hard-won experience and judgment to take a view of what’s going on in a program and to make concrete recommendations and then to roll up our sleeves and work alongside clients to deliver them.We’re pragmatists: we don’t rely on tick lists on templates or on models, and we don’t just advise. We roll up our sleeves and we work with clients helping them to solve their trickiest execution problems. No two situations are the same. You can’t force fit a unique set of client circumstances into a one-size-fits-all approach.This is something that Mentor have done for decades, we worked on all sorts of programs: we worked on greenfield startups near to launch businesses we work for some of the biggest companies in the UK turn around mission-critical programs involving thousands of people and tens or hundreds of millions of pounds of investments and delivery resource. We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen fast moving nimble companies fail at execution. We’ve seen big lumbering former public sector entities kind of struggle with these challenges as well. And we’ve helped them all focus on what matters – make the hard decisions and get stuff done. We want to put our fees at risk against those successful outcomes – about actually delivering results for our client.

We develop powerful, tailor-made solutions for tackling your company’s toughest challenges – delivering benefits faster. 

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