Companies often make ambitious promises about customer experience, but many are not organized to deliver them. The friction can sit between the brand vision, the marketing function, and the operating model needed to turn ideas into consistent customer outcomes. As a Partner at Gate One, the business transformation practice within Havas, Suzi Bentley Tanner helps clients connect those pieces so that strategy, customer experience, data, technology, and delivery can work as one system.

Suzi brings more than 25 years of experience across customer strategy, digital transformation, innovation, proposition development, and marketing effectiveness. She began her career within integrated agencies including Grey in San Francisco and DDB in London before moving into leadership roles at Bupa, the BBC, and Engine Group. Prior to joining Gate One, she served as a Partner at PA Consulting, where she led digital strategy and transformation work. 

In this conversation with The Consulting Report, Suzi discusses why transformation requires strong design before delivery, what it takes to modernize marketing functions, and why AI only creates value when it is connected to operating model, governance, skills, data, and ways of working.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

The Consulting Report: Can you provide an overview of Gate One’s core areas of specialization?

Suzi Bentley Tanner: Gate One is a global consultancy specializing in growth transformation design and delivery. We help leaders across the private and public sectors navigate complex business and digital transformation, whether driven by growth, disruption, regulation, or changing customer expectations.

Our focus is on making sure strategy delivers real and sustained value and impact. We do that by looking at transformation as a connected system rather than a set of separate initiatives. Strategy, organization, culture, customer, brand, data, technology, and delivery all need to work together with the right balance for each client’s context.

We bring deep sector expertise across the public sector, transport, energy, financial services, and life sciences, combined with strengths in transformation delivery, customer and commercial excellence, operating model design, digital, and data. What sets us apart is how we bridge strategy and execution, working shoulder-to-shoulder with clients to make change happen, embed it, and realize benefits in practice.

“Unlike many consultancies that start with initiatives, we start with design.”

The Consulting Report: How does Gate One differentiate itself from competitors?

Suzi Bentley Tanner: First, unlike many consultancies that start with initiatives, we start with design. Before we mobilize anything, we take time to understand the client’s ambition, the realities of the organization, and the conditions needed for change to succeed. We pressure-test the path from ambition to delivery, looking at the whole system: strategy, organization, culture, customer, data, technology, and delivery, so transformation succeeds by design rather than effort.

Second, we are highly focused on delivery and outcomes. We do not just define strategy; we work alongside clients to make it happen, translating ambition into measurable results and ensuring change is embedded and sustained in practice.

Third, our senior-led model means clients work directly with experienced practitioners who bring deep expertise and real-world perspective. That combines strategic insight with hands-on delivery judgement, enabling faster decision-making, greater accountability, and more pragmatic solutions to complex challenges.

Finally, how we partner is different. We integrate seamlessly into client teams, build trusted relationships quickly, and work shoulder-to-shoulder to drive change from within. This helps align stakeholders, accelerate progress, and create impact that lasts beyond the life of the project.

The Consulting Report: Can you share one or two client projects that demonstrate Gate One’s capabilities?

Suzi Bentley Tanner: With Boehringer Ingelheim, we helped embed its “Our Behaviors” culture through an immersive VR experience centered on a patient story. It is a strong example of our life sciences expertise and our ability to make change meaningful. The work helped people connect their day-to-day behaviors with the impact they ultimately have on patients, driving strong adoption, high satisfaction, and measurable improvements in understanding, inspiration, and retention.

With Wells Fargo, we supported a major customer, brand, and marketing transformation, helping the organization design the operating model required to deliver more connected, customer-led marketing at scale. Our role focused on the design of a robust target operating model which clarified how teams work together across functions, where ownership sits, how decisions are made, and how marketing can operate more effectively in service of better customer experience and stronger growth. This is a standout example of our marketing transformation expertise and the distinctive advantage of being part of Havas, and understanding how brand, creative, media, experience, data, and technology need to work together as an integrated growth system.

“You cannot simply overlay AI onto the status quo and expect transformation.”

The Consulting Report: How is AI changing what clients expect from marketing transformation partners?

Suzi Bentley Tanner: AI has changed the conversation, particularly in our marketing transformation work. Clients are not just asking what AI can do; they are asking how to make marketing functions more adaptive, effective, and efficient. Our view is that you cannot simply overlay AI onto the status quo and expect transformation. You need to look holistically at what needs to change: strategy, customer understanding, operating model, skills, governance, content, data, technology, and ways of working. Only then can you identify where AI can genuinely support better decisions, faster delivery, or more personalized customer experiences.

We believe in human-led, AI-supported transformation. AI can be a powerful accelerator, but the value comes when it is connected to clear outcomes, strong human judgment, and the organizational change required to make it stick.

“Transformation work is rarely neat, so for me, leadership is about being clear-eyed about reality.”

The Consulting Report: Is there a book, mentor, or mantra that has influenced how you lead your organization?

Suzi Bentley Tanner: My leadership style has been shaped less by one book or mantra and more by working with brilliant people across agencies, consultancies, corporations, and public service organizations. The common thread for me is clarity, curiosity, humanity, and humility. People need to understand what they are trying to achieve, why it matters, and how their work contributes. But they also need space to challenge, experiment, bring their own judgment, and grow in confidence.

I think good leadership is about creating that space while still being actively supportive. It means removing barriers, advocating for people, giving honest feedback, and helping teams navigate complexity without taking over. Transformation work is rarely neat, so for me, leadership is about being clear-eyed about reality, generous with people, and giving them the confidence that progress is possible.