James Dawn
CEO

James Dwan

James is an expert in Business Transformation, blending state-of-the-art with tried and tested (Agile, Systems Thinking, Strategy Deployment, Digital, RPA, Lean Six Sigma etc.). James has an energetic and charismatic style and a natural drive to solve inefficiency and disorganisation. He has recently pioneered an innovative fusion of Agile and Continuous Improvement techniques to accelerate business results with rave reviews from clients. James’ current clients include The London Stock Exchange, Elavon, BD (formerly Bard), Crown Commercial, and Essex County Council.

Graduating in Latin from the University of Wales in 1996, James first became an Agile practitioner as a software developer at FTSE 100 company Experian. In 2004, he joined Markem-Imaje to lead Agile transformation of their PC Software activity. James’ first ever Kaizen event was to improve the software delivery process, laying down foundations for accelerated Agile and Lean transformation. The results were stunning; the same team of developers who had never delivered on time used a tight PDCA cycle to deliver a quality product which customers loved one month ahead of schedule. James quickly cemented himself as one of the top facilitators within the European Continuous Improvement team and embarked upon a career trajectory would see him use Lean and Agile methods to deliver transformation in a number of different roles and across multiple disciplines.

In 2008, James became Manager of PC Software, with global responsibility for staff in the UK, Belgium, India. He provided expertise in software development processes to the company in general, leading to Scrum adoption across the group by 2010. As a programme manager, James had ultimate accountability for NPI cross an entire product range (Product Marketing, R&D, Qualification, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Technical Support, Sales, Finance etc.). His injection of Agile thinking led to unprecedented success described by the global Executive Committee as the “new reference for all programmes in the company to follow”. In 2012, James next worked directly with the Executive Committee and used Hoshin Kanri to deliver a global Strategy Deployment initiative across the entire enterprise (transformation of Sales, Technical Support, Finance, Marketing, and R&D global processes). The programme delivered multimillion dollar recurring benefits and led to James finally taking global Programme Office responsibility prior to joining Catalyst in 2017.