Our Team

The Smith+Co promise is that you only get experienced people with the expertise and energy to help you solve your problem.

Executive Team

Unlike many consultancies, we don’t employ an army of full-time consultants, analysts and researchers. Instead, we support our clients through an international network of implementation partners and subject matter experts. This enables us to bring together exactly the right team with the best expertise and industry experience for each client and project and to do so in a way that allows us to be much more cost-effective.

Smith+Co also offers a Speaker division. Our speakers delivers conference speeches, facilitate management seminars and design and deliver executive workshops worldwide. The team are experts in communicating, stimulating and engaging management teams and frontline employees behind the customer experience.

Shaun Smith

FOUNDER SMITH+CO

Andy Milligan

CO-FOUNDER

Sophie Langham

Employee Ex & Learning Design

Richard Gray

Senior Consultant

Louisa Clarke

PARTNER

Simon Bailey

MANAGING PARTNER

Ged Equi

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Jo Liddell

HEAD OF OPERATIONS

Expert Associates

Supporting our executive team are our Associate colleagues, expert advisors who work with leaders across the world. Their experience in stimulating business for organisations ranges from professional services to financial services, from car companies to construction companies, retail to resorts, motorsports, mobile communications, advertising and marketing agencies and more.

Caffeine® is a trademark of The Caffeine Partnership

The Caffeine Partnership Ltd is a company registered in England & Wales under Registration number: 5988061

SHAUN SMITH

Founder Smith+Co

Shaun has been a leader in expanding management attention from the narrow focus on customer service to the wider, more strategic drive towards customer experience. He is the founder of Smith+co the UK based customer experience consultancy that has helped organisations create compelling customer experiences that achieve brand differentiation and customer loyalty. Smith+Co has worked with clients in a number of industries including retail, hospitality, financial services, travel and technology to name a few.

He is co-author of five acclaimed business books. His latest book ‘On Purpose- delivering a branded customer experience people love’ written with Andy Milligan, explores how consumers are increasingly favouring brands that have a purpose beyond profit.

Shaun has worked with senior executive teams in many sectors, spoken to audiences in 25 countries and appeared on CNN and CNBC. He is a former Fellow of the Professional Speakers Association and a Member of the Global Speakers Federation. Shaun is a recipient of the PSAE (Professional Speaking Award of Excellence).

Andy Milligan

Founding Partner, The Caffeine Partnership

Andy is a leading international brand and business consultant and is acknowledged as an expert on all areas of brand development. He advises CEOs and senior management teams, on strategies for developing and exploiting brands and growing their business.

Andy’s experience spans industries as diverse as airlines, financial services, packaged goods, telecommunications, sports and leisure and pharmaceuticals. He has directed major programmes in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the USA and throughout Europe. Clients he has worked with include Nissan, WWF, Orange, McLaren, Barclays, Unilever, Thai Airways, IHG, FIFA, Sage, Arcadia, Avon and Roche.

Andy is a regular speaker at conferences internationally and has made frequent appearances in media, including on BBC, Sky and CNN. He has published six best selling books: See, Feel, Think Do which explores the success of instinct in business; Brand It Like Beckham which analyses the success of David Beckham as a celebrity brand; Uncommon Practice which examines the link between great brands and their corporate cultures; Don’t Mess With the Logo which is a straight-talking guide to brand building and BOLD, voted ‘Management e-book of the Year’, which reveals the practices that make great brands stand out, and turn customers into fans.

Andy’s latest book, On Purpose, written with his regular co-author, Shaun Smith, is a practical guide to executing business purpose successfully by delivering a branded customer experience people love.

Sophie Langham

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE & LEARNING DESIGN

Previously Head of Retail Training at Sky. Sophie has over 20 years of experience in retail sales and service training and design. During her time with Sky she was responsible for the retail launch and rollout of key products including Sky Digital, Sky+ and Sky HD. Sophie also headed up the rollout of Sky Stores across shopping centres in Ireland, consulting on store positioning, brand, design, training and on-going performance management.

Improving performance through offering a great customer experience forms the foundation for all of Sophie’s design work. Sophie has led Smith+Co Employee Experience and Learning Design projects across a wide range of business sectors, including most recently Bellway Homes, Saint Laurent, Estee Lauder, eNett and Jersey Telecom.

Richard Gray

Senior Consultant

Richard has 30 years consultancy experience in brand strategy, communications and engagement. As Head of Brand Strategy and Engagement at E.ON he was responsible for developing and implementing a new brand positioning and rolling out a brand engagement programme to over 17,000 employees. Prior to this Richard was Director of Brand Strategy and Engagement at Interbrand where he developed the firm’s methodology for brand engagement and worked on a combination of strategy and engagement projects. Since then Richard been delivering strategic consultancy in sectors as varied as Automotive to Academic Publishing, and organisation from established brands to fast- growing digital start-ups. As well as extensive consultancy experience, Richard has held senior leadership positions in consultancy and creative organisations, where he was responsible for driving growth and financial performance.

Richard’s clients include Nissan, First Group, Coca Cola, Premier Foods, Rio Tinto, Hovis, the UK National Health Service, the UK Civil Service and TT Electronics.

LOUISA CLARKE

Partner, The Caffeine Partnership

Louisa has over 21 years communications, business and brand experience working with high performing teams for some of the world’s best companies including P&G, BNP Paribas, Nestle, Sara Lee, CBRE, and Nissan.

Louisa is an experienced facilitator & qualified business coach with an outstanding new business track record and genuine competitive spirit. Louisa spearheads Caffeine’s business growth transformation division in the areas of: prospecting, pitching and client retention, brand positioning, leadership coaching, presenting with impact, negotiation, cross-selling and employee engagement.

Before joining Caffeine, Louisa held client service & board director roles at two global communications agencies. She headed up Fleishman-Hillard’s consumer division with full P&L responsibility, building the division with a series of new client wins. She led MSL’s EMEA P&G business working for P&G’s senior brand, external relations and marketing directors to develop pan-European PR strategies and coached agency teams across Europe to execute with excellence.

As a former Great Britain junior international rower and current veteran rower, Louisa brings a competitive track record to motivate people under pressure and understands the power of teamwork and what’s required to win.

SIMON BAILEY

Partner, The Caffeine Partnership

Simon is an experienced business leader, business consultant and brand specialist. He advises CEOs & senior business leaders on how to use their brands to drive business growth.

Simon was formerly the European CEO of Interbrand; prior to that he was the UK CEO of WPP agency the Brand Union. Simon has successfully led several businesses turn-arounds, helping to restore both profitability and market reputation. His agencies have twice been awarded ‘Agency of the Year’ by Marketing Magazine.

While at Brand Union, Simon managed the global re-branding of Vodafone and was a member of Team WPP Vodafone, helping to coordinate the development of the brand across multiple WPP agencies.

Simon attended Law School and began his career at The Guardian & Observer Newspapers.

Simon has over 18 years experience in consulting and business leadership, some of his previous clients include: Argos, Barclaycard, BBC, British Airways, ExxonMobil, GSK, Hays, Nomura, Orange, Philips, Reckitt Benckiser, SAB Miller, Shell, UBS, Unilever & Vodafone McLaren Mercedes.

Simon is a regular speaker and press contributor and has been asked to appear many times on both TV and Radio. Simon is a strong believer in the power of ‘Purpose’, he sees it as an essential part of building successful businesses.

GED EQUI

Creative Director, The Caffeine Partnership

Ged was Creative Director of the brand experience team at Interbrand where he was responsible for creating the brand identities of Oxfam, Volvo, Eurostar, BiC, Astra Zeneca, oneworld, London Eye, FIFA, BNP Paribas and the United Nations.

Recent clients and projects include the creation of a European-wide large internal brand engagement programme for Nissan Europe and a brand engagement programme for the French investment bank BNP Paribas. He is an acclaimed judge on many industry award panels and has a wealth of experience in brand strategy and identity, digital design, packing, literature, exhibition design and new product development.

Ged has worked alongside Philippe Starck and dined with Cindy Crawford. When he’s not name-dropping, he is a contributor to magazines such as Design Week and Creative Review and speaks at industry events, including the Chartered Society of Designers Forum and the Young Designers Forum.

JO LIDDELL

Head of Operations, The Caffeine Partnership

Jo has over 15 years’ experience of working agency-side and thrives on running client projects smoothly and efficiently.

She spent 14 years at Interbrand, working across a diverse range of private and public sector industries and projects, including London Development Agency, London Underground, Barclays, Roche and SCA, before joining Caffeine in 2014.

At Caffeine, Jo brings her attention to detail and passion for timelines, spreadsheets and status updates to a variety of strategic and creative client projects – keeping the team on track and clients delighted.

Need a CX Expert?

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Our Team

Executive Team

Shaun Smith

FOUNDER SMITH+CO

Andy Milligan

CO-FOUNDER

Sophie Langham

Employee Ex & Learning Design

Richard Gray

Senior Consultant

Louisa Clarke

PARTNER

Simon Bailey

MANAGING PARTNER

Ged Equi

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Jo Liddell

HEAD OF OPERATIONS

Expert Associates

defining customer experience

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Privacy Policy

Services

SHAUN SMITH

Founder Smith+Co

Andy Milligan

Founding Partner, The Caffeine Partnership

Sophie Langham

EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE & LEARNING DESIGN

Richard Gray

Senior Consultant

LOUISA CLARKE

Partner, The Caffeine Partnership

SIMON BAILEY

Partner, The Caffeine Partnership

GED EQUI

Creative Director, The Caffeine Partnership

JO LIDDELL

Head of Operations, The Caffeine Partnership

Need a CX Expert?

Are you an impatient leader wanting to make things happen? We can help.

defining
customer
experience

Are you an impatient leader wanting to make things happen?

We can help.