Stephen is a founding partner of VBM Associates.

Since establishing the practice in 1996, Stephen has led project teams across a wide range of sectors, applying ‘value based’ principles and methodologies to strategic, organisational and operational business issues in both large multi-national and smaller private equity backed organisations.

He has worked with a range of leading companies in various sectors across Europe, North America, Asia and South Africa, including Coca Cola, Cadbury Schweppes, Mars, British Telecom, Adidas-Salomon, Pearson Group, Boehringer Ingelheim, Alliance Boots, Barclays Bank, Barclaycard, WH Smith, Avon Cosmetics, Karo Pharma and HRA Pharma. Stephen is passionate about working with clients to deliver challenging value creation goals.

He has developed a unique and powerful set of methodologies to help senior managers better understand the company’s key value drivers in a systematic way, and then to mobilise the business around these. He strongly believes that an understanding of a businesses’ key value drivers and top management consensus about these is an essential basis for the development of successful business strategies and for value maximising commercial decision making and performance management.

Stephen is co-author of ‘The Value Mandate’, a leading shareholder value development guide for top management. Stephen is also co-author of a book on Internet companies, their valuation, and efficiency implications for net-responsive companies, Net Value (2001).

Prior to establishing VBM, Stephen was a senior associate at Marakon, a leading international Managing for Value consultancy and was Chief UK Economist at the Henley Centre. He completed a B Com (Honours) degree (first class) in Economics at the University of Cape Town and an MPhil degree at Cambridge University