Meet the Team

Jason Belcher

Director & Co-founder

Jason founded Vanilla with Andy in 2009 after working on both the consultancy and industry sides of the fence. His vision for Vanilla was to provide a no-nonsense, cost effective service to users of IFS Applications and to make sure his customers get the best value from their investment.

His role now is making sure that the company grows but maintains the core principles it was founded on. He is determined that we continue to treat our customers as we did our first – like they are our only one.

Andy Bell

Director & Co-founder

Andy started Vanilla, along with Jason in 2009. Despite being something of an ERP ‘geek’ he is passionate about not complicating things and delivering what the client needs.  Andy likes to split his time between working with his customers on projects, running the business and supporting the Sales and Marketing functions with new business development and the occasional editorial piece.

Paul Darwin

Head of Consulting

Paul is an energetic Supply Chain professional with experience working across different industry sectors including Consumer Electronics, Automotive, Distributed Power and Yellow Goods. He has significant Supply Chain and ERP experience, having worked as a Sales and Operations Planning manager including the responsibility for Supply Chain and Operational elements in a full ERP system implementation.

In 2018, Paul was promoted to Head of Consulting, taking charge of all the consulting staff within Vanilla.  He’s able to build relationships at all levels within an organisation and ensure our consulting team is working to the high standards we set.

James Powell

Lead Consultant

James is a dedicated professional with a wide range of experience in systems implementation and business improvement.  He adopts a people focussed approach to business engagement to ensure that solutions and improvements deliver sustainable business change.   James’ excellent interpersonal skills come to the fore in customer/user facing delivery tasks. James has over 14 years’ experience, Analysing, Designing, Configuring and Project Managing business systems and process improvement projects.

Maria Nikolaidou

Senior Consultant

With 13 years of international experience working within the manufacturing industry and 12 years IFS experience, Maria boasts a varied technical and manufacturing background. An IFS specialist who’s capable of handling complex assignments effectively whilst possessing the confidence to work independently or as part of a team. Maria has worked and lived across the globe and speaks five different languages.

Chris Wharton

Consultant

Chris joined Vanilla in 2017 as a business consultant after spending 10 years in the manufacturing industry as an application analyst.  He is enjoying the change in career direction which allows him to interact with clients, understand their issues and play a part in resolving them.

Janine Procter

Senior Consultant

Janine joined the Vanilla team in 2013 as a Senior Consultant with over ten years’ experience working with IFS Applications.  She has previous experience working in Export Logistics for an industrial and medical equipment supplier.

Tim Hughes

Lead Consultant

Tim has 18 years’ experience of requirement capture, solutions design and implementation in a range of businesses. Very confident at leading workshops, analysing processes and recommending improvements. Tim quickly understands different business solutions and is comfortable building relationships across all levels of an organisation.

Tim Boulton

Senior Consultant

An enthusiastic consultant with a broad range of functional knowledge and a solid background in managing IFS full-implementation and enhancement projects. Tim has 7 years’ experience managing complex ERP projects; overseeing requirement capture, solution design, testing and business change. Confident in analysing the needs of a business and understanding quickly how they operate, Tim can recommend solutions and improvements at all levels of an organisation.

Kieran Garry

Project Manager

Kieran joined the Vanilla team in 2014 and in 2017 was promoted to Project Manager within the delivery term.  His role is to work closely with the customer and internal teams to manage projects through to successful completion.

David Robb

Project Manager

David’s previous experience was predominantly within the retail industry, where for the past 6 years he worked as a Project Manager on a large business transformation programme.  During this time David was accountable for a range of strategic IT and business change projects, with notable projects including the implementation of a new HR system, implementing new cloud based learning and recruitment systems and subsequently rolling these out to 20,000 users and harmonising delivery schedules throughout the retail and supply chain side of the business.

 David is looking forward to taking on a customer facing project management role, utilising his varied skill set in order to help Vanilla and its customers to deliver successful and value-added projects.

Dan Wright

PMO

Dan joined Vanilla in 2018 as a PMO. He is looking forward to the challenge of developing processes and getting to meet Vanilla’s customers. Dan would like to become a Project Manager in the future once he has the correct skills for the job.

Claire Valentine

Head of Support

Claire joined Vanilla in 2017 as Head of Support to bring together the Support Team and lead support activities for our customers.  She also found and set up our Technology and Support Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Rachael Hinckley

Support Analyst

Rachael has been with Vanilla since October 2018 and arrived with 15 years of experience in Supply Chain/Logistics and 6 years of IFS experience. As part of the support team, Rachael thrives on investigating issues and solving customer problems

Olivia Davies

Support Analyst

Olivia joined Vanilla in 2018 as a Support Analyst.  She also manages some small to medium sized projects. She has previous experience of being an IFS customer & managing a busy IT department with a support desk so knows what customers expect.

Karol Pietrzak

Support Analyst

Karol joins us from AMAG Technology where he was database analyst.   Prior to that, Karol was the finance lead for an IFS implementation.  He joins our support team as support analyst, with a focus on financials

Mike Hollifield

Head of Technology

Mike is an innovative technical consultant, coming from a dedicated industry background he joined the Vanilla consulting team in 2017.  Mike has advanced technical ability and fantastic communication skills, allowing him to express his ideas and opinions in a clear and constructive manner to both technical and non- technical members of the businesses we work with.

In 2018 Mike was promoted to Head of Technology, taking responsibility for the development team in Vanilla as well as leading our R&D activities into new technologies.

Neil Carter

Senior Developer

Neil joined Vanilla in 2017. He has a broad IFS application knowledge gained in the Manufacturing and Construction sectors in techno-functional roles. His Project Management background allows him to quickly understand customer requirements and interpret these to deliver user-focused technical solutions. He has a strong attention to detail and possesses an ability to learn new skills quickly.

Chris Elliston

Developer

Chris joined the technology team as a Developer in July 2019, coming from one of our old customers Thompson & Morgan, who have recently chosen to move away from IFS. He has been working with IFS since 2012 and brings a wealth of experience with him.

Lloyd Briggs

Developer

Lloyd is experienced in delivering technology designed for users. Lloyd is interested in developing new and interesting ways in improving his customers experiences with products and enjoy learning new skills.

Andrew Nicholls

Developer

Andrew joined the Vanilla team in 2013.  His primary role is technical, developing QlikView or IFS Quick Reports for clients. He is also a ‘go to’ guy for both data migration and mobile application development using Novacura Flow.

Paul Trownson

Developer

Paul joined the Vanilla team in 2013 and has a background in computing. He works across many of our clients as part of the delivery team and is heavily involved SQL reporting and producing training documentation.

Brandon Ellis-Cairns

Developer

Brandon joined Vanilla in 2014 as a trainee consultant.  He also helps to manage the support desk. He loves anything to do with technology and computers so this is a dream role for him as he is learning new technical and customer-facing skills.

Gary Warner

Developer

Gary joined Vanilla in 2018 as a Developer.  Gary has come from an IFS technical background where he supported a global IFS implementation.  Gary likes to resolve problem issues and is keen to learn new skills along the way