James Hayward

Key Consultants

James offers experience of successfully leading strategic projects in global companies & working for dynamic entrepreneurs to launch new concepts, supported by insights into team leadership and high performance gained as an army officer.

Sector and Service Expertise

Primarily consulting for consumer brands in the hospitality, leisure and sport sectors James has fulfilled strategy & planning, chief of staff, or programme manager roles often supporting senior executives in brand, marketing & communications.

Equally adept at planning and managing a portfolio of projects to deliver change or working with creative teams to understand consumer needs and discovering key insights.
James has particular expertise in creative strategy; merging emotion and logic to harness transformational results by fully exploiting the area between the business strategy and winning creative concepts.

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Strengths and Career Achievements

James led the concept development & multiple change projects for a private investor to realise the vision for an iconic £200m luxury resort. He created brand identity, marketing strategy and managed product launches for leading luxury and heritage retailers in the outdoor lifestyle and sports sector. He has been the chief of staff to COO and consultant supporting the European leadership team of a FTSE 100 hospitality company. He was a programme manager for a £5.4m strategic brand transformation initiative for a global company with 12 brands, 5000 hotels in 100 countries.

Away from the leisure market James was a project manager on the planning and delivery team for London 2012 Olympics. In his Army career he led operational mentoring and training teams whilst embedded with the Iraqi Police and Afghan National Army units.

James holds a BSc in Geography, Postgraduate Diploma in Strategic Management & Leadership and a Wine & Spirits Education Trust Advanced Certificate. Outside of work he combines this with an interest in food and the countryside to help farmers diversify their businesses.

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