OUR TEAM
BARRY HEDLEY - CHAIRMAN
Barry’s professional concentration in recent years has been on linking strategy formulation and execution processes to shareholder value, and this has led him to his current role at Dialectyx. He is also an extensively diversified angel investor and has been active in Private Equity for thirty years.
He maintains an active academic role at the Judge Business School, Cambridge University, where he is a Senior Associate and teaches Advanced Business and Corporate Strategy and Financial Management. He is also an Emeritus Fellow at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, where he was formerly Senior Bursar and Director of Management Studies. He has an MBA degree with High Distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and Harkness Fellow, and First Class Honours degrees in both Mechanical and Chemical Engineering from Cambridge University. He is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the Institution of Engineering & Technology and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts (RSA)
After an early business career which included being one of the team that established The Boston Consulting Group’s first office in London in the 1970s, Barry was formerly European founder and Global Chairman of Braxton Associates, an international strategy and financial consulting firm which later became the strategy practice of Deloitte Consulting. Under his leadership Braxton grew to around 1000 people worldwide. At Deloitte, Barry was also a member of the Global Management Committee directing its $4 billion consulting business.
STEPHEN ARNOLD – MANAGING DIRECTOR
Softa sold its intellectual property to Deloitte Consulting in 1998 and Stephen became a global partner with responsibility for Strategic Enterprise Management and Financial and Performance Management. He continued to work with leading business schools and software vendors in this space.
Stephen and his team acquired the intellectual property from Deloitte to re-establish the Softa organisation in late 2002. During 2003, Softa worked closely with Cognos in the field of Corporate Performance Management which led to the purchase of Softa by Cognos in 2004. As well as being the Managing Director of Dialectyx, Stephen is also the Entrepreneur in Residence and Head of the experiential learning and skills development research programme at the University of Hertfordshire.
Stephen graduated with honours in BSc in Business Management and with distinction in MSc in Digital Systems. He founded Softa in 1986, building the company into one of the top consultancies in the UK specialising in the integration of strategy, planning and reporting processes. Softa developed an innovative methodology – LivingStrategy – supported by its Sextant software. Stephen also lectured at leading business schools.
ANDREW BACKHOUSE - OPERATIONS & FINANCE DIRECTOR
1996-2013, Chief Operating Officer of Oxford Analytica, a global analysis and advisory firm.
2013-2015 Chief Operating Officer of The Institute for Fiscal Studies, London.
Andy has been involved with Dialectyx since 2010 and has been in his current role since 2015.
Andy is a guest lecturer on the Money and Finance module of the University of Hertfordshire’s MBA.
Education: 1982, BSc Hons in Managerial and Administrative Studies, University of Aston in Birmingham; 1985, qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Andersen & Co.
Employment:
1981-86, Manager in corporate services group at Arthur Andersen & Co;
1986-1996, Group Financial Controller and Company Secretary, Softa Group (IP sold to Deloitte Consulting) – a specialist Strategy and Sales & Marketing Systems Consultancy
JACK WALLER – MARKETING & OPERATIONS MANAGER
Jack holds a Bachelor honours degree in 3D Digital Animation. Jack joined Dialectyx Solutions when the company was still its infancy, as a games and animation development intern. Jack secured a full time position as a 3D animator, working on product development and marketing for Dialectyx.
As Marketing & Operations Manager, Jack is currently in charge of product development for Dialectyx and oversees all client services as well as sales and marketing.
PETER McINERNEY - COMMERCIAL LEGAL COUNSEL
Chambers Guide to the UK Legal Profession has described Peter as a "fantastic lawyer", and "an excellent sounding board for strategic advice". Head of the film TV and sports practices at Sheridans, we are delighted that he brings his unusual combination of skills to bear on our behalf at Dialectyx.
Peter has particular expertise in structuring international co-productions and the licensing of formats and sports rights. He also advises clients on effective rights management, rights audits and the clearance and exploitation of archives.
RAJIV NADKARNI – TECHNICAL DIRECTOR AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PARTNER
He started his career as a Software Consultant with Tata, and from 1985 through 1997, Rajiv worked for Blue Star Limited, becoming Group Project Manager responsible for complete delivery management for multinationals such as 3M, HP and Boots. He then joined Mastech Systems, a US based global software consulting company, and was their Head of Technical Resourcing for Europe.
Rajiv is an Electrical Engineer with Post Graduate qualifications in Software Technology from the National Centre for Software Technology, a Government of India initiative.
Rajiv has over 23 years experience in Software Development Services, primarily in Offshore Outsourcing. Rajiv has worked in India, USA & EMEA, and is now leading Microsap, delivering software services from its offshore centres, with Dialectyx as a major partner.
Rajiv has set up large-scale offshore relationships, managed accounts with team sizes of more than 100 people and managed the complete delivery of large projects with teams of 50+ people.
IN MEMORY OF BEN CALVERLEY
Ben moved to Deloitte in 1998 when it acquired Softa’s IPR and was a manager in the Strategic Enterprise Management team working with large corporates and software vendors (predominantly SAP, Oracle and Hyperion) helping to apply technology to the strategy and planning processes.
Softa was subsequently bought by Cognos, the leading CPM and BI vendor, where Ben worked for 2 years in Corporate Performance Management, supporting both consultancy partners and clients.
Ben was the Company Secretary of Dialectyx - and an all-round stalwart of the firm - until he sadly passed away in 2015.
Ben has spent over 20 years combining business consultancy with software specification and development.
Ben graduated from the University of Aston in Birmingham in 1983 in Business Administration and French. Having spent 3 years in industry, Ben joined Softa, specialising in the integration of strategy, sales and marketing planning and reporting processes, playing a key role in the development of the firm’s innovative methodology, LivingStrategy as well as being a leading member of the team which specified and designed Softa’s main software product, Sextant.