Leadership Team
Who We Are
Hugh Plaice connects ambitious organisations with the people who make things happen. With 40 years’ experience in technical and commercial IT recruitment and more than 2,000 placements, he brings deep market knowledge, commercial instinct and a network built over decades.
A specialist in contract and freelance talent, Hugh is the person clients call when the brief is difficult, the skills are scarce and conventional recruitment channels have drawn a blank. His strength lies in reaching beyond the visible market to find accomplished professionals, subject matter experts and sought-after specialists whose experience can make a decisive difference.
His career spans engineering, financial services, FMCG, telecommunications and utilities, with particular depth in SAP ERP implementations, programme and project management, and managed services. Having worked across specialist recruitment, a corporate environment and freelance assignments in financial services, he understands the pressures on both sides of the hiring decision—and what it takes to make the right match.
As Managing Director of Claverton Consulting, Hugh brings that understanding to a business focused on helping organisations strengthen their technology capability, navigate complex change and access expert talent through flexible resourcing and service models.
Relationships are the foundation of his approach. Many span more than 25 years, and professionals he once placed now return to him as clients, trusting his judgement when building teams of their own. That continuity reflects a reputation earned through personal attention, honest advice and a clear understanding of what each organisation needs to achieve.
Hugh’s proposition is straightforward: access to people you would struggle to find, informed by experience you cannot shortcut.
Hugh Plaice
Managing Director
Darren Ham is Operations Director at Claverton Consulting and a global technology services leader with more than 25 years of leadership experience across multinational and highly regulated environments.
Having held senior executive positions at Telefónica Tech, DXC Technology, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Hewlett Packard and Fujitsu, he brings extensive expertise in enterprise transformation, programme recovery and managed services, with full commercial and operational accountability. His achievements include leading a global service line encompassing approximately 23,000 employees and contractors, recovering BMW’s global workplace transformation to achieve on-time delivery, and transforming service organisations to improve profitability, customer satisfaction and employee engagement.
At Claverton, Darren combines strategic insight with practical delivery leadership to help clients navigate complexity, strengthen operations and achieve lasting business value.
Darren Ham
Operations Director
Denis Massey is Service Offering Director at Claverton and a senior transformation leader with over 30 years’ experience shaping and delivering complex, business-critical technology and service transformations across global organisations, including DXC, HP, Telefónica Tech, and Fujitsu.
His expertise spans service offering development, solution design, technical consultancy, business operations and organisational transformation across Managed Services, Professional Services, Workplace and Infrastructure. He combines strategic vision with deep operational and technical understanding to translate business objectives into scalable, commercially focused delivery capabilities.
Key achievements include transforming Telefónica Tech’s Professional Services systems and operations; designing and deploying HP’s ‘Resource Optimisation Programme’ across Global Delivery Centres; recovering the UK Ministry of Defence’s ‘New Style of IT’ migration (1,000 devices, plus accounts, data, network changes per night); and transforming Fujitsu’s mobile services organisation.
Denis brings a proven ability to lead complex and challenged programmes, strengthen governance, optimise performance and develop automation-led, scalable approaches.
Denis Massey
Service Offerring Director
What We Do
2020–2024
Led a full-stack ITSM & PSO transformation, slashing service costs through automation
2017–2018
Rescued and delivered a global managed workplace solution for 100,000+ users
2018
Recovered the NSoIT(D) tactical programme, automating 1,000 workstation migrations nightly
2015–2017
Optimised global delivery centres across India, Europe, and Asia to boost service quality
2014
Turned around the HPE Epic programme to launch the UK’s first paperless e-Hospital
2013–2015
Transformed a loss-making account back to profitability, turning the client into a key reference site
2011–2012
Re-engineered the regional shared delivery model and modernised account structures
2009–2011
Overhauled mobile engineering operations and streamlined international spares logistics
2006–2008
Recovered critical Top-Secret deployment programmes and led commercial cost-recovery actions
2005–2011
Designed and managed service delivery for the landmark 150,000-terminal DII programme