UK & EUROPE
Tom Fitz-Walter, managing director for UK and Europe at TMX Transform, recently relocated from Asia-Pacific to lead the consultancy in growing UK and European markets. He speaks to Consultancy UK about what the UK market is really looking for – and how a decade of global supply chain transformation work informs his approach.
You’ve spent over a decade working across Asia-Pacific before relocating to the UK. Is there a difference in how mature UK clients are when it comes to working with external consultants?
It became quickly clear that the market here is mature, but what I’ve found less common is a true end-to-end approach: taking a client through from strategy and design all the way to implementation, then staying accountable to the original outcomes.
UK businesses have generally worked with consultants for longer, which makes them more sophisticated buyers. It also means they can carry more baggage. If a previous engagement didn’t deliver, you’re working against someone else’s track record as much as establishing your own, and our biggest challenge is often demonstrating value before we’ve had the chance to create our own.
Clients are becoming more sophisticated and more educated about what good looks like – and that’s a good thing. It raises the bar for everyone. What it means for us is that we have to keep moving: staying at the forefront of innovation, drawing on our global Centre Of Excellence experience, and continually forecasting what’s next. The goal is always to progress our clients’ capability, but to do that we have to stay ahead ourselves. Globally, 70% of TMX’s clients come back to us, and I think that’s because we never stop pushing.
TMX Transform’s model is built on practitioners who’ve held senior in-house roles. Does that resonate differently with UK clients compared to APAC?
It resonates just as strongly, and I’d argue it matters even more in a discerning market. UK clients have seen a lot of consultants. They can tell the difference between someone who has operated a complex supply chain and someone who has studied one from the outside. The credibility that comes from lived experience is real and it’s hard-won.
We’re building something here that mirrors what’s worked in APAC: pairing senior advisors who’ve held C-suite and operational roles with a younger, execution-focused team. The advisors bring context and credibility; the team brings pace. It’s a structure that’s been refined over years of project delivery across multiple markets, and it travels well.
You established TMX Transform’s Global Centre of Excellence while in APAC – a framework designed to connect project learning across markets. How does that translate into practical value for a UK client?
The supply chain challenges businesses face are universal. Take grocery retail: the core operational questions in the UK, Australia, Thailand and the US are the same at their core. They differ in scale and maturity, but the underlying problems are consistent. What the Centre of Excellence allows us to do is draw on that pattern recognition and bring it to bear for a client here, rather than treating each engagement as if it’s starting from scratch.
What’s also become clear over time is that maturity isn’t a simple hierarchy. Some markets that might be assumed to lag are moving extraordinarily fast – driven by dense urban populations, rapid e-commerce growth, and the need for increasingly creative fulfilment models. A UK retailer has as much to learn from what’s happening in South-East Asia as the reverse. We’ve had senior leaders from major UK grocery retailers visit operations in Australia and come away visibly surprised at the degree of automation occurring.
Are there approaches to engaging and working with consultants that UK businesses could learn from their APAC counterparts – or vice versa?
The engagements where we’ve seen the most transformative outcomes have been built on a real partnership, a valued working relationship where trust runs deep and both sides are fully invested in the result. In APAC, some of our longest-standing client relationships feel more like extended teams than external arrangements.
In the UK, the dynamic can be more transactional, and I think that reflects how the market has evolved. There’s also a legitimate wariness about scope creep; nobody wants to look up and find a project has quietly doubled in size. Our responsibility, as consultants, is clarity about where the value is and discipline about knowing when to step back. Clients here absolutely want trusted advisors, and for us it’s about earning that trust, and being transparent about the process of doing so.
TMX Transform has grown 600% in the UK since 2022. What do you think has driven that?
Supply chain transformation has become a boardroom priority for many organisations. Businesses are navigating labour availability, sustained cost pressure, the complexity of post-Brexit trade relationships, and significant capital decisions about future networks and facilities. The appetite for transformation – both tactical and strategic – has never been greater.
What businesses seem to be looking for is an end-to-end partner. Plenty of consultancies can produce a strategy document, but fewer can take a client through that strategy to property decisions, facility design, technology selection and live implementation. That full-service model, underpinned by our global methodology, is what has driven the growth. You can see this in the scale and breadth of projects and programmes we deliver for major brands including L’Oréal, Coca-Cola, Marks & Spencer and Nestlé.
What’s your ambition for the UK and European practice over the next few years?
To become the go-to end-to-end supply chain partner for major retailers and brands across the region. Growth follows from doing the work well, so the focus is on building the right team – people with local knowledge and the ability to draw on our global intelligence – and making sure every engagement delivers against what we committed to.
Longer term, I want to see supply chain recognised for what it is: a real source of competitive advantage. The businesses that get this right – that treat their supply chain as a strategic lever rather than a cost centre – are the ones that will outperform. Helping UK and European businesses get there is why I’m here.
This article was originally published in Consultancy UK on 18 May 2026.