Why senior leaders choose independent advisory over the large consultancies

The major consulting firms offer scale, brand recognition, and broad capability. What they rarely offer is the consistent attention of a senior practitioner who has personally navigated the kind of decisions you are facing.When a large firm is engaged, senior partners are typically visible at the pitch. Delivery follows through experienced managers and analysts applying structured methodologies that were designed before anyone properly understood your problem. This is not a criticism of those firms. It is simply how their model works.Silvermere works differently.
Every engagement is led and delivered by a Managing Partner. The advice you receive is grounded in direct personal experience of the challenges we are advising on. We have sat in the rooms where these decisions were made. We have owned the outcomes that followed.That is not something a methodology can substitute for.
The work is shaped around your organisation, your leadership context, and your specific challenge.We do not arrive with an answer and work backwards. We start with the problem.
We are also independent. We have no software vendor relationships, no platform partnerships, and no commercial incentive to recommend any particular technology or approach.Our only interest is the right outcome for the organisation we are working with.
We are a niche practice. We work with a small number of clients at any one time, and we are selective about the engagements we take on. That is deliberate. It is the only way to maintain the quality and attention that senior advisory demands.

When senior leaders engage Silvermere

Leadership teams typically come to us at a defining moment. The situations vary, but the underlying pattern is consistent: significant complexity, material stakes, and a recognition that external senior perspective will change the outcome.

What we do

How we support leadership teams

We work across three interconnected areas of senior advisory. Most engagements involve more than one. The boundaries between strategy, governance, and delivery are rarely as clean in practice as they appear on paper, and we work comfortably across all three.

Board and Executive Advisory

Board & Executive Advisory
For Chairs, Non-Executive Directors (NEDs), and executive leadership teams
Boards carry governance responsibility for some of the most consequential decisions an organisation makes. Technology investment, enterprise transformation, operating model change, and major platform programmes all carry material financial, operational, and reputational risk. Boards need to understand that risk clearly and govern it confidently.
We provide independent assurance, structured perspective, and direct advisory support to Chairs, Boards, Non-Executive Directors, and executive leadership teams who need confidence that major programmes are well-governed, honestly assessed, and realistically scoped.
This is not a reporting or compliance function. It is a senior, independent voice in the room, with the operating experience to tell you what you actually need to hear.Transformation & Execution Risk
For leadership teams where ambition, investment, and delivery complexity intersect
Most major transformation programmes do not fail because the strategy was wrong. They fail because execution was underestimated, organisational complexity was underweighted, and the gap between strategic intent and delivery capability was never properly closed.
We work with leadership teams to identify where the real risk sits, stabilise delivery that has lost pace or confidence, and put the structure, clarity, and leadership focus in place to move programmes forward.
Our combined experience spans Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) transformation, Lead-to-Cash redesign, eCommerce platforms, and large-scale supply chain and warehouse programmes. All of it delivered inside real organisations, under real pressure, at significant scale.
The combined portfolio we have directly led and advised on represents more than £200 million in programme investment across FTSE 100 and global enterprise environments.Operating Model & Delivery Effectiveness
For CIOs, CTOs, and executive technology leaders in ambitious organisations
Technology organisations must continuously evolve how they are structured, how decisions are made, and how work flows from idea to delivered capability. When operating models fall behind strategic ambition, the gap shows up first in delivery pace, then in quality, and eventually in commercial performance.
We work with CIOs, CTOs, and executive technology leaders to design operating models that are fit for purpose at the next level of scale. This includes cloud governance, delivery organisation design, technology decision-making structures, and the conditions that allow high-quality engineering to move at the pace the business needs.
We also work with technology leaders who are navigating Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption, platform consolidation, or major infrastructure modernisation and need independent input before significant investment is committed.

We operate comfortably across strategy, structure, and delivery - particularly where trade-offs are real and outcomes matter.

What clients tell us matters most

Why Silvermere

We ask clients why they chose Silvermere and why they come back. The answers are consistent.s move forward with clarity.

They know who they are working with.

From the first conversation to the final recommendation, the senior advisor who assessed the situation is the same person advising on it. There is no handoff to a junior team after the engagement is won. No account management layer between the client and the thinking. Senior practitioners, throughout.

The work is shaped around their situation.

We do not apply a standard methodology and adjust the outputs. We start by understanding the specific context, the constraints, the history, and the people involved. The approach follows from that. Every engagement is different because every organisation is different.

The advice is direct.

Senior leaders do not need their situation described back to them in carefully managed language. They need an honest assessment, clearly delivered. We provide that, even when the message is uncomfortable. Especially when the message is uncomfortable.

We have no hidden agenda.

We carry no software vendor relationships and no platform affiliations. We are not incentivised to recommend any particular technology, approach, or supplier. Every recommendation is based entirely on what we believe is right for the organisation.

We are selective, so the attention is real.

We work with a small number of clients at any one time. This is not a limitation of our model. It is the model. It is the only way to ensure that every client receives the full attention and focus that serious advisory work demands.

Institutional experience at the scale where it counts

Silvermere's Managing Partners have operated inside some of the world's most complex and demanding organisations. Not as external observers, but as senior leaders directly accountable for the outcomes of the programmes they led and the advice they gave.Combined, their experience spans more than £200 million in major programme investment managed and advised on, across regulated industries, global operating environments, and high-consequence transformation across the United Kingdom, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East.

Representative organisations include:

The difference between advice grounded in this experience and advice drawn from outside it is material. We have made the decisions. We have navigated the pressure. We understand what serious execution actually requires.

The partners

Silvermere is led by Jennifer and Steven Barker Hodges. Together, they cover the full span of technology strategy and transformation delivery, from Board-level governance to operating model design to programme execution. Most advisory relationships draw on both.

Where we work

Our Presence

Silvermere Consulting FZCO is a UAE-registered consultancy operating from Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) Free Zone. Our partners are based in Abu Dhabi and work with clients across the UAE, the wider Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Africa, and the United Kingdom.
We work remotely where it serves the engagement and travel where the work requires physical presence. Most advisory relationships involve both.
If you are headquartered outside the UAE and working with regional or global leadership teams, we are equally comfortable operating in that context.

Start a Conversation

If you are facing a challenge that feels like the kind of work we do, we would like to hear from you.
We do not take on every enquiry. We are selective about the engagements we accept because that is the only way to ensure the quality of attention each client receives. If there is a genuine fit, we will be direct about it.If there is not, we will tell you that too and where we can, we will point you toward someone better placed to help.
The first conversation is always informal. No pitch. No proposal. Just a direct discussion about what you are facing and whether we are the right people to help you navigate it.

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