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The Bridge Management Group.

Principal: Jonathan S Palmer.

Jonathan saw a need for a service combining practical interim management with consultancy to solve problems and embed change in an organisation. "The Bridge" got its name because a bridge is the structure needed for the most difficult part of a journey. The Bridge Management Group aims not only to develop that structure but also to cross it with you.

A simple philosophy

What The Bridge does:

• Plans and manages recovery and improvement while increasing the long term capability (No slash and burn)
• Reshapes organisations in line with changed opportunities
• Helps organisations plan for innovation and new ventures and take those plans through a formal due diligence process
• Relates any assignment to the organisation's strategy, vision and ethos 
• Respects creative conflict and resistance to change and brings out the ideas contained in that resistance 
• Gives an organisation early warning if work on the project is indicating that its plans are expensive or unfeasible

What The Bridge does not do:

• The Bridge does not make recommendations that it could or would not implement
• It does not pretend to have a solution for any problem 
• It does not use “one size fits all” methodologies

 The Bridge has been successful for over 15 years in the following areas:

• Corporate recovery and rationalisation
• HR, Change Management & Organisation Reshaping.
• Interim Commercial and financial control
• Business Development & Programme Management
• Arts, Economic Regeneration & Voluntary Sector
• Planning & Communications

The keys to its success

Its resources

Jonathan is active in topinterm, a close network of 180 director level practitioners and able to call upon a range of supporting skills. He is also associated with IMS Interim Executives who are Catalist registered making it easy for public sector and nfp organisations to use The Bridge

The Bridge's inner circle includes 5 director level practitioners.

• Spike Robinson.  An experienced venture capitalist and industry commentator who has held IT Director and Managing Director roles in financial services, media, marketing, IT, and eCommerce.  He has delivered major projects for JP Morgan and Agency.com, the international new media agency. Other notable relationships include The Economist Group, the BBC, the Cabinet Office, Mellon Bank, Peder Smedvig Capital AS, and Abbey plc.
• Iain Wolsey. An international marketeer and consultant, responsible for creating and branding Somerfield and managing a major 10 year international business integration programme.
• Philip de Lisle. An international entrepreneur, author and mentor who has developed 6 successful businesses.
• Jerry Hayter. A senior HR manager expert on HR systems, recruitment and the legal an HR issues of change management
• David Barker. An accountant and tax planner with a clear understanding of the control issues of change management

The Bridge's longest standing client is, Alan Gaynor, a specialist chief executive, company doctor and entrepreneur who has used The Bridge in 8 companies in 15 years. His view:

“Jonathan combines strategic thinking with practical skills in implementation and corporate recovery. He can work across disciplines and tackle the immediate and perceived needs of an organisation in trouble. However he does so in a radical way ensuring that the organisation never “runs on empty” but continues to move forward once the immediate challenges have been overcome.”

Examples from a range of clients.

• A corporate recovery where a market repositioning took place in parallel with the profits improvement resulting in reinvestment that would otherwise not have taken place
• A product development programme for a retailer leading to the creation of a new chain for the new products.
• Integration of a retail takeover where an exchange of managers was undertaken and monitored to ensure that best practice of both retailers was captured
• Helping an organisation identify that it was better to exit certain unprofitable customer relationships rather than invest in catch up technology to service the relationships (the original project I was asked to undertake)
• A shared services project in the voluntary sector where improving the partners' base performance first would make a better technology possible (and far more profitable)