Team

Good enough to be an Archer:
The core Archer team

John Ingham – Director & Digital Enabler

Digital Enabler – Formerly Content Director of O2 where he introduced the mobile Web to the UK, John is always ahead of the digital curve to future-proof business strategies. His speciality is digital enablement based on a solid business case.
John has created award winning web and mobile sites and been a keynote speaker on digital enablement and future market directions at conferences and summits in London, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Johannesburg and New Orleans.

Our Digital Enabler was formerly a much-followed music journalist,  and has a repertoire of tales about many music "personalities" before they became known as such - including memorably, bailing Sid Vicious out of jail.

Amongst other achievements, John designed and deployed a film and music download service in Saudi Arabia, and advised Simon Cowell how to commercialise his TV properties online. He is a student of disruptive innovation and how quickly it can decimate major industries, using that background to advise practical future-proofing. A design fanatic, we call him "Mr Less is more". He is a master of the distilling complex with agility.For the past several years John has worked on an innovative start-up - giving the original concept and remaining as navigator through development to Exit Strategy. He speaks with authority on those challenges - and like the rest of the team is quick to recount what new things he has learned en-route.

Australian born and resident in London, John has also lived and worked in the USA and Japan and his work has seen him travel extensively in the USA, Continental Europe, and Scandinavia.

Little known facts:

Our Digital Enabler was formerly a much-followed music journalist,  managed a Japanese Rock Band, speaks Japanese (albeit being a bit out of practice), and his first book  chronicles an amazing music era written from his unique experiences with many of the icons of the industry. You can read about it here:Spirit of 76. 

While living in Japan for several years, speaks Japanese (albeit being a bit out of practice). While there, John managed a Japanese Rock Band and is drily able to illustrate why understanding culture when doing business is critical.

John is fascinated by cactus plants in their many varieties, is a frequent haunter of the art galleries and creative spaces of London, has polymath interests that span aviation, technology, history, politics, and cultures. A world explorer, some of John's favourite places to holiday include Japan, Amsterdam, Italy and the lesser known hideaways of the Spanish coast.

Paquita Lamacraft FRSA– Principal Consultant & Catalyst

Catalyst — the master of working with people to collaborate better, and to get done the things that have been talked about without significant progress.

Paquita was formerly European COO of a fast-growth European software company, Cultural Strategy Manager to the fastest-growing city in Europe, inaugural Director of a two-state Regional Development Organisation, and in Germany was part of a five-person Rapid Growth Team with Hewlett Packard, where she led global IT workplace transformation projects and developed the Go-To-Market Strategy for the department.

More recently she worked with the UK Fire and Rescue Service (FRS), developing the guidelines for Community Risk Management Planning so they were adaptable to any FRS regardless of geographic location, resources, or governance arrangements. She also led a remarkable team developing an innovative statistical measurement that lets any FRS use its own figures to establish the Social and Economic Impact of its work. (She is the one in the blue shirt in the video, but wishes everyone to know she does wear other colours too.)

From experience in both public and private sectors, she designs winning project proposals and restructuring, and has a record of effective review and management of hitherto unidentified organisational risk. Working with industry leaders, Paquita has developed sector strategies for petrochemical; biotechnology; transportation, logistics and shipping; ITC; creative industries; plantation forestry; organics; dairy; packaged food; and tourism.

She is known for creative approaches and for inspiring those with whom she works. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and a Fellow of the Strategic Doing Institute.

A native Australian, Paquita returned to England in 2014 after seven years in Germany. She has lived and worked in Canada, Italy, France, England and the USA (12 years), with project experience across the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Netherlands, Indonesia and Finland.

Paquita is a traveller who delights in capturing the character of a place, as seen on her website discover-interesting-places.com. A popular public speaker, she has also had her own drive-time radio show, worked in a Forensic Pathology Office, been a rally driver, and organised a visit by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

Paquita’s book SWIVEL: How to refocus your business for a post-pandemic world was developed rapidly in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although a book for its moment, SWIVEL is a repository of relevant case studies and links to specific information, with pointers gleaned from 60 books from her personal library. It is a guide to busy leaders coping with sudden new realities for their business, and an entertaining read.

The second edition, Swivel Again: Refocus your business for a fast-changing world, adds fresh research, facts, and case studies on responding to the challenges every business now faces — and options for addressing them.

Her business book Shrapnel Free Explosive Growth gives leaders of fast-growing businesses a self-guided path to developing a flexible supporting infrastructure and strategic ways to enhance market reputation. Its second edition, More Shrapnel Free Explosive Growth: design for a fast-changing world of complexity, outlines a six-week in-house programme to empower your own team to adapt an existing operating structure to the new realities that have emerged.

Her first book, The Cuban Approach, tells the tale of one month with no plan on the less-visited roads of Cuba. While storytelling about the off-the-beaten-track sights of the island, it is also a guide to letting go of the past and living each day to the fullest — a skill needed increasingly in troubled times.

Paul Nash - Technical Leader & Logistics Magician

Logistics magician – Paul is an Englishman who has a long history of simplifying complex IT structures. His IT solutions are business-needs based and were significant contributors to the success of a well-known food UK food manufacturer from startup to sale, including rapid and effective RFID-based logistics and market distribution of product to UK supermarket giants Tesco and Marks & Spencer. His previous airline experience saw him responsible for global system load in Los Angeles and for all IT emergency response structures.

Paul is an expert in Linux technologies, an early specialist in RFID technologies and market distribution, and can design low cost, effective infrastructure support for emerging businesses, as well as re-thinking new directions for established ones. Paul has the gift of being able to describe the complex in analogies that are memorable , entertaining, and particularly illustrative, helping we lesser mortals to comprehend with utter clarity the issues to be resolved .

Little known facts:

Paul originally trained as a chemist. He is fascinated with physics and astronomy, nature in its fullest breadth, and is also a polymath and repository of fascinating trivia - causing listeners to later look at the world with increased fascination.

Paul follows "the Good Life" with his family and dog on their own acre of Sussex, England. Emily their "house cow" has gone on to greener pastures.  Paul  loves a good English Ale and employed lockdown as a timeframe in which to create his own mini-brewery and perfect his Nash House Blend.

Common interests

A globe trotting crew, we have all lived. worked and thrived in a range of countries.

We  love the classics: cars, arts, design in all its forms, and good cuisine.

Mostly, we love to laugh, spend time with our friends, eat great food and drink good wine (even Paul whose preference is beer), and pursue whatever thing has piqued our curiosity of late. This means we all have the book sickness and could happily live in a library, as our reading tastes are eclectic indeed.

The rest of the crew - talented collaborators chosen for specific skill sets

We are a small core team with a wide professional network on whom we draw. These are often the people with the very specific skills, knowledge and networks you need, but could never access. We know who will join a project because it sparks their interests and taps into their own objectives and curiosity. In this way we have been able to secure some great talent to advise, lead, or refine projects for our clients.

A small but important reference to one of the co-founders of Archer - Charles Matthews

Charles Matthews and Paquita founded Archer in 2014, when they took voluntary redundancy together from Hewlett Packard Germany. Sadly, Charles departed this life far too early.

Born for the stage, he could recite from memory witty ditties and long, thoughtful poems, and was quick with the wry, insightful comment that made a point acceptable in a tense room — conjuring that alchemy called laughter which lubricates all the best interactions. He had a rare gift for analysing a situation and reassembling its components more effectively, and a remarkable track record in multi-supplier management and in soothing troubled relationships into productive outcomes.

For all who delighted in his company and his entertaining view of life — and especially for his former colleagues and clients at EDS/HP and Archer — Charles remains much missed, and often recalled with affection.