About Us
Expert Advisers
Kohima Partners was founded as a collective of senior consultants, with backgrounds from finance to defence. We are straight-talking doers - we help clients crystallise their goals, draw out the key activities that will lead to their realisation and then we make it happen, usually breaking down barriers along the way. The seniority and depth of experience of Kohima’s team enables us to talk to people at all levels in an organisation and to lead and influence key individuals, in order to push through solutions and effect change. Where we must tell uncomfortable truths in order to achieve the ultimate aim, we will not shy away from doing so.
Team
Rudy Vandaele-Kennedy - Partner
Rudy is a highly experienced Banker and Leader with over 25 years’ experience as a senior Financial Services Executive. He has extensive international experience advising Institutional, Corporate and Private Clients, and a proven track record across strategy, investment management, change management and operational transformation. He also brings significant experience from working in government and the policy environment. Rudy identifies challenges, designs effective solutions and delivers results - he fixes problems. Rudy focuses on investment management and advising private clients and their families on their business and charitable interests across the UK and Europe. He has spent a number of years with investment management firms, as well as ten years at UBS Wealth Management in London, where he held senior roles in Private Wealth Management and Ultra High Net Worth client coverage. During this time, he also led Private Equity coverage across Wealth Management, the Investment Bank and Global Asset Management. Earlier in his career, Rudy spent over a decade at JPMorgan, which he joined in 1994, working with international banks and corporates. He held a range of senior client and management roles in London and the Netherlands across Treasury Services, Managed Services (financial outsourcing) and Worldwide Securities Services, and served as Manager of JPMorgan Netherlands from 1999 to 2002. In 2004, Rudy was seconded to government, serving as Director of Policy at a major foreign government ministry, reporting directly to the Minister. In this role, he led policy formulation and implementation across areas including policing, internal security, counter-terrorism, customs agencies and border control. Rudy is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment, a Chartered Wealth Manager (PCIAM), and a Member of the Chartered Management Institute and the Worshipful Company of International Bankers. He is a native English speaker and fluent in German and Dutch. In addition to his civilian career, Rudy is a serving British Army Reserve Officer (Infantry) and has served on operations in the Middle East.
David Frankish - Partner
In 1995 David was appointed Managing Director of NFT Distribution, a wholly-owned grocery logistics subsidiary of Northern Foods plc and in August 2006 became CEO after successfully leading a management buyout. He has extensive experience in the food and logistics industry and was a Midlands regional winner in both the BVCA CEO of the Year Award 2012 and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2013. Subsequently David founded his own company Clovis Enterprise through which he has become a private investor, mentor and director in nine SME’s that respectively focus on the UK industry sectors of IT, people welfare, food manufacture, horticulture and home interior decoration. After completing a two-year term as Chairman of the CBI East Midlands Regional Council he chaired the CBI Employment and Skills Board for four years. David is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, a Fellow of the Institute of Directors and served for six years on the Recruitment & Employment Confederation’s Professional Standards Committee.
Stephen Fox - Partner
Stephen attended Manchester Grammer School and upon leaving school chose not to accept an offer to study International Relations at Cambridge University preferring to pursue his own business ventures, before subsequently studying Law at Liverpool. Stephen was a founder, and Senior Partner of Betesh Fox Solicitors and was appointed Senior Partner of Ralli Solicitors LLP. He is also a main board director of Ralli Limited. Stephen has higher rights as an advocate and is a qualified Mediator. Starting as a civil litigator, Stephen came to specialise in defending ‘white collar criminal cases, conducting many high- profile cases primarily prosecuted in the London courts, but also throughout England and Wales. Stephen and his team represent companies and individuals who find themselves subject to both civil and criminal investigations conducted by regulatory and law enforcement authorities including The Serious Fraud Office HMRC, the FCA and the various bodies which regulate the professions. Over time his specialisations have developed into being involved in the planning and quarterbacking of proposed commercial ventures primarily for the SME market. Understandably wherever possible clients must handle and manage publicity or where possible avoid it altogether and this is always born in mind enabling clients to return to their boardrooms with as little fallout as possible. Stephen high profile work has included the BHS enquiry, the successful Court of Appeal hearing of London police officer Commander Ali Desai and a long line of codenamed police operations conducted by HMRC the SFO and the Insolvency Service. His international work has included hearings in USA, Switzerland and other E.U. jurisdictions. Stephen’s interests include soccer, and comedy and his companies have been shirt sponsors of Sale Sharks rugby union club. He plays golf very badly but the less said about that the better!
Frank Filmer - Partner
Frank Filmer is a security professional and consultant of 30 years’ experience, who operates confidently in complex, high-risk environments. Across UK and international arenas, Frank has established a formidable reputation for delivering first-class, bespoke security solutions to governments, commercial organisations, and high-profile clients operating in complex and high-risk environments. Frank specialises in designing and implementing bespoke security solutions for government bodies, commercial organisations and private clients. As Managing Director of security firm 3xPC, Frank brings valuable insight into diverse business environments, cultural dynamics and geo-political landscapes, informed by operations across the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Colombia, Mexico and Libya. A proven British Army veteran, Frank recently served as a highly effective Company Sergeant Major of a reserve unit, maintaining an active link to current British military practice and international security thinking. Frank’s military service has helped him hone his leadership style and management skills, which are characterised by calm authority, integrity, professionalism and teamwork.
Matt Fincham
Matt Fincham is a communications consultant expert of over 20 years’ experience. Matt’s communications career started in the army, in 2006, where his duties included running a combat camera team in Iraq and conducting video interviews with Prime Ministers David Cameron and Gordon Brown. During his time at Army Communications, he also arranged for media to visit operational theatres and worked on the annual Army Communications Plan. Prior to his communications work, he served at regimental and staff postings within the Royal Logistic Corps, including acting as network manager for the British Forces Post Office. After leaving the Army in 2007, Matt went into corporate communications, working for PR agencies as a freelancer, specialising in the technology sector on brands including EE and IBM. Since 2018 he has run his own comms agency, Finch PR, across sectors from defence, aerospace, technology, finance and professional services; clients have included aerospace manufacturer Cobham, risk management consultancy Control Risks and Blackfinch investment group. Matt is a serving officer in the Army Reserve and his current military role is as an information operations officer with the rank of Major, in 77th Brigade, where he has completed an Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Practitioners Course. He was previously a reservist cavalry officer with the Royal Yeomanry and has SC level security clearance.
Kohima’s Ethos
Driving Client Success
You don’t always feel you can go one more mile - but you can always take one more step.
At Kohima, we know that if we keep on moving forward, we will achieve the aim.
The Origin of Kohima Partners Name
Kohima was chosen as the name of the partnership by founder Rudy Vandaele-Kennedy, after Kohima Company, which he commanded in his role as a British Army Reservist, where he is an Infantry Officer.
The Kohima Epitaph, also known as When You Go Home, Tell Them of Us, was written by John Maxwell Edmond and is engraved on the Memorial of the 2nd British Division in Kohima.
Edmonds was a classical scholar who worked for the War Office code-breaking bureau during World War I, who wrote the epitaph in 1916. His words are often attributed to the inspiration of the epitaph written by Simonides of Ceos to honour the Greeks who fell at the Battle of Thermopylae, translated as:
Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
Kohima Partners is driven by the same aspiration to succeed for our clients through outperformance as characterised by these two famous battles, millenia apart.
