"30 years inside the programmes that succeed, and the ones that don't."
Pete Wilson has spent three decades leading large, complex digital and business transformations across the UK, Ireland, Europe and North Africa. That covers public-sector justice and policing, global banking, energy, manufacturing and consumer goods. Twenty-four of those years were spent in Big 4 and global consulting, including senior roles at PwC and PA Consulting. He's taken programmes from strategy to delivery, and he's been called in to rescue them when they were failing.
That second part is why Synapsefy exists.
"I've been brought in to fix a number of struggling programmes: a bank's digital transformation, a global bank's product governance after a regulatory sanction, a public-sector IT project most people had written off. The pattern was almost always the same. Nobody was surprised by what went wrong. The risks were known, often written down somewhere, but the programme wasn't structured to avoid them, they weren't owned, weren't quantified, and weren't carried forward into the next initiative."
"Organisations don't fail at change because they lack talent or technology. They fail because they don't 'remember', or because they don't account for why others have failed. Risk management becomes a tick-box exercise run by a project manager without the authority to act on it, and the lessons leave with the contractors when the programme ends."
"So, I went and tested that belief. I interviewed more than 30 project professionals and surveyed over 150 more. 97% were still managing risk in spreadsheets. Synapsefy is what I wish I'd had on every programme I've led: a way to see a project's risk before day one, give every risk a real owner, and make sure each project leaves the organisation wiser than it found it."
Track Record
Digital transformation at national scale. Led digital delivery of a multi-year transformation of a UK public sector department, replacing fragmented legacy IT with a single digital-first platform and online access for the public and professionals.
Programme rescue and remediation. Turned around a major UK bank's failing digital transformation, and led a global investment bank's product-governance remediation following a regulatory sanction.
Benefits delivered, not just promised. Led an IT infrastructure transformation for one of the world's largest police forces (c.£35m benefits), a business transformation for the UK's largest soft drinks company (c.£48m targeted savings), and an application rationalisation portfolio for a global publisher (c.$50m).
Complex, cross-border change. Directed an ERP-led transformation of North Africa's largest oil and gas company, and established a Big 4 MENA consulting practice over two years.
Governance where it counts. Ran a European programme office for a global travel group, and led governance of a UK water company's conversion to a government-owned company.
