About | Pelorus Insights

Sizewell nuclear power stations A and B Suffolk UK drone aerial view ..

About us

We work with leaders in the defence and nuclear sectors to strengthen decision-making in uncertain environments.

Decisions made today will shape outcomes for decades to come. That’s why decision-makers need trusted, experienced partners who can handle the details while keeping the bigger picture firmly in view.

Mission statement

We believe that defence and nuclear programmes can deliver enormous benefits to our national interests.

What we do

We know that high-stakes programmes are more successful when decision makers understand the impact of uncertainty on their objectives.

We are dedicated to helping leaders build the capability they need to navigate uncertainty and make clear decisions.

Empowering leaders to navigate uncertainty and make decisions with confidence.

Our experience

With over 30 years of experience working alongside Crown departments, prime contractors and innovative SME technologists, we bring both deep and broad expertise to the table.

We’ve seen firsthand how organisations struggle to establish and maintain capabilities that help leaders deliver through complexity and uncertainty.

We exist to fix that.

Our founders

Get to know our founders

Phil Jakubowski

Co-Founder, Pelorus Insights

With 20 years of expert leadership in P3M across defence, aerospace and energy, Phil brings a wealth of experience to Pelorus Insights. He works closely with senior executives to deliver deep, practical risk management insights, combining a broad, multidisciplinary perspective with a focus on real-world, results-driven solutions. Phil is known for building strong, collaborative partnerships with clients and stakeholders, while confidently challenging conventional thinking to unlock better outcomes.

Gareth Day

Co-Founder, Pelorus Insights

Gareth has been a risk management consultant for more than a decade, helping to plan and deliver some of the UK’s most critical defence capabilities and tackling some of the nuclear sector’s toughest challenges. His experience spans the full project lifecycle — from bidding to delivery — bringing deep domain expertise across defence (marine, land and space) and nuclear (new build and decommissioning). Having worked directly with P3M leaders on more than 20 major programmes — many worth billions — Gareth has seen firsthand the challenges they face delivering capabilities that matter.

Our Origin Story

Gareth and Phil met over a decade ago while working for a major UK defence prime.

With deep experience in major programme delivery, they found common ground in three key beliefs: that risk management is an underused lever for better decision-making, that complex problems are worth solving well, and that meaningful change needs deliberate, outcome-focused management.

They also shared a long-standing entrepreneurial drive.

Pelorus Insights was born from that alignment — with a mission to help leaders of high-stakes programmes navigate uncertainty and make decisions with confidence.

Our Team

Get to know our team

John Blayney

Associate Consultant – Senior Advisor and Finance Integration Lead

John is a business consultant with over 40 years’ industry experience, having held senior executive roles in Finance, Programme Management, Commercial and Customer Services at Rolls-Royce plc, together with a number of global NED Board appointments. As a qualified accountant with a successful track record as a senior finance business partner, John specialises in providing strategic financial management advice, including targeted bid and investment proposals, effective financial forecasting and risk appraisal, and lean cost management. John is a proven change agent, adept at forming relationships at all levels, influencing and energising people to be at their best. He has a passionate focus on customer needs, pragmatism and delivering tangible results.

Andrew Millington

Associate P3M & Transformation Consultant

Andrew brings over 30 years of strategic leadership and P3M delivery experience across complex global programmes. He has held senior roles at BAE Systems, QinetiQ, Thales, Eurofighter GmbH and AeroSystems International, leading international teams, recovering failing programmes, and delivering enterprise-wide transformation and capability frameworks. An expert in project, programme and portfolio management, Andrew’s skills span governance, project controls, risk, assurance, PMO leadership and business transformation. He is also a recognised speaker, author, mentor and awards judge. Andrew holds an MBA, is a Chartered Project Professional (ChPP), an ECITB-accredited P3M Trainer, and is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management, the Institute of Leadership & Management, and the Controls and Skills Authority.

James Tomlinson

Associate P3M & Transformation Consultant

With over 25 years’ experience of project and programme delivery within the defence sector, James applies his expertise in turning complex problems into structured simple solutions that drive value to clients in the public and private sectors. A certified programme management practitioner, with an engineering foundation, James specialises in the definition and implementation of programmes within complex organisations. Having trodden the path of project controls, control account management, project, and programme management, he has a deep understanding of P3M within a variety of business settings. James is rightly proud of the breadth of experience he has built, across defence domains, capability lifecycle and business function operations.

Will Penaliggon

Associate Risk Management Consultant

Will is a business owner and risk management consultant, specialising in providing trusted risk management support to major programmes and bids. He has worked as a consultant in the UK defence, rail/infrastructure and capital delivery sectors for 13 years, specialising exclusively in risk management and project controls. Will has a deep knowledge of risk management requirements in bids, and has supported an impressive number of bids from industry, across multiple domains including surface ships, submarines and space. He is skilled at quickly building rapport and relationships within teams and also has a strong awareness of the client side environment and standards, having experience assuring risk management artefacts in CAAS and Defence Digital. Will is APMPQ qualified and a SaFE practitioner.

Kate Elliott

Associate Coaching Psychologist

Kate is a Chartered Coaching Psychologist (CPsychol) with over 20 years of experience in change management, learning, and organisational development. She partners with senior leaders to foster compassionate, psychologically informed leadership that drives meaningful change. Kate holds an MSc in Psychology and an ILM Level 5 Coaching and Mentoring qualification. She is an Accredited Senior Practitioner with the European Mentoring & Coaching Council, a Roffey Park Advanced Facilitator, a Strengthscope® Master, and an APMG-qualified Change Management Practitioner. With more than 600 coaching hours with a range of clients, Kate helps leaders navigate complexity and lead with clarity, confidence, and compassion.

Testimonials

Gareth and Phil have been instrumental in supporting our programme. They have helped develop our risk and benefits management processes from the ground up alongside supporting us in growing our risk management capability to the point where we are recognised as setting the example across our complex programme. Throughout their time with us, they have seamlessly integrated into the team and represented our organisation externally to the client and wider enterprise: this has been key to building excellent relationships and cementing our reputation on the programme. With their open minds and positive attituded they took the time to understand our requirements and the complex operating environment we are working in to develop a bespoke solution to meet our needs. Read More

Dan – Project Manager, client in Defence Engineering Industry

The knowledge, experience and proactivity from the Pelorus team elevated our risk management capability. They brought experience from risk improvements at numerous other organisations and had an established method and coherent structure for assessing our state, developing and improvement roadmap and delivering a range of quality interventions. These raised our risk management baseline across the entire business allowing us to focus on the things that mattered instead of process compliance.

What impressed me most was their ability to own the risk activity and represent the function with external stakeholders including at the 3* Board. They recognised themes and connected the dots to identify key Strategic Risks and introduced novel methods for articulating and reviewing them at the Board. This enabled engaged discussions, insights and purposeful actions that previously hadn’t been possible.

If your risk management isn’t providing the value you’d like, I’d recommend getting in touch with Pelorus. Read More

Jim – Head of Portfolio Management Office, client at a Defence Delivery Agency