22 North

About

Gary Walker

As a Future of Work Architect, I transform organisations drowning in digital chaos into streamlined, productive environments. I go beyond design, actively collaborating with organisations to revolutionise their ways of working. This involves designing and embedding digital working practices while boosting the adoption of digital tools.

With a profound focus on streamlining information access, optimising digital tools, and fostering a culture of remote-first excellence, I contribute to enhancing communication, productivity, wellbeing, and work flexibility. My approach unites remote and hybrid teams, unlocks hidden productivity, and future-proofs organisations in the evolving landscape of work.

Recognised as one of the top 50 world experts in the 2023 and 2024 Remote Innovator Category in the Remote Report, I bring over two decades of experience. My expertise lies in architecting cohesive digital workspaces that facilitate seamless adoption of both culture and tools, positioning organisations for sustained success.

As co-author of "Ready for Remote," a book crafted long before the pandemic made remote work a necessity, I've been at the forefront of remote work strategies for over a decade. I'm passionate about fostering wellbeing and championing humane technology, collaborating with leaders to reshape work cultures and create vibrant digital environments.

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Consultancy

Services

As a Future of Work Architect, I offer comprehensive, long-term engagements (typically 6-24 months) designed to transform your organisation's digital landscape and work culture. My approach involves co-creating tailored strategies and implementation plans to deliver long-term, sustainable transformation.

‍1. Digital Workplace Transformation
‍Transform your organisation from digital chaos to a streamlined, productive environment.
/ Architect cohesive digital workspaces that unite remote and hybrid teams
/ Implement knowledge management systems that enhance information accessibility
/ Design and embed new digital working practices
/ Drive adoption of digital tools through strategic change management
/ Foster a culture of remote-first excellence

‍2. Strategic Digital Adoption and Change Management
‍Ensure your digital investments translate into tangible business outcomes.
/ Develop comprehensive adoption strategies for new or existing digital tools and platforms
/ Create and implement change management plans to support digital transformation
/ Design and curate tailored learning experiences to boost digital literacy
/ Establish and nurture digital champions communities within your organisation
/Measure and optimise adoption rates and user engagement

‍3. Future-Ready Workforce Development
‍Prepare your teams for the evolving world of work.
/ Craft bespoke playbooks and handbooks for new ways of working
/ Design programmes to enhance asynchronous communication and collaboration
/ Develop strategies to optimise meetings and reduce digital fatigue
/ Create frameworks for maintaining work-life balance and employee wellbeing in digital environments

‍4. AI Integration and Optimisation
‍Leverage AI to enhance productivity and streamline workflows.
/ Assess opportunities for AI integration in your digital workplace
/ Develop strategies for ethical and effective AI implementation
/ Design AI-enhanced workflows that complement human capabilities
/ Create guidelines for AI use that align with your organisational values

‍5. Long-Term Digital Workplace Strategy
‍Ensure your digital transformation efforts are sustainable and aligned with business goals.
/ Develop roadmaps for digital workplace evolution
/ Establish governance structures for ongoing digital workplace management
/ Create metrics and KPIs to measure the impact of digital initiatives
/ Provide ongoing consultation to leadership on emerging workplace technologies and trends

Through collaborative partnership, we work together to diagnose challenges, identify solutions, and actively transform your ways of working. The result is a future-ready organisation equipped to thrive in the dynamic digital landscape.

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What MY CLIENTS SAY

Testimonials

“Gary is a world-class operator and innovator. He played a pivotal role in implementing and scaling a knowledge management system + culture at Andela, taking the company from zero to one in an area that's critical for shared understanding and collaboration. He then led function leaders to build out Team Workspaces, spearheaded AMAs and Office Hours to bring the team along for the journey, and worked cross-functionally to ensure alignment. He also led the interview and creation process for Andela's Enterprise Guide to Remote Work — a comprehensive resource for getting distributed environments right.

As anyone who has partnered with Gary will tell you, there's no scope too narrow nor wide for him to up-level when it comes to strategy, operations, ways of working, and collaboration.”
‍Darren Murph— VP Workplace Design & Remote Experience, Andela
(Now Senior Director, Cloud HQ Experience at Zillow)

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"I cannot recommend Gary highly enough if you want to take your business to the next level. At Andela, Gary has been instrumental in getting us to remote workplace excellence through the optimisation and adoption of processes, a gSuite to Microsoft M365 migration, creating a centralised approach to knowledge sharing, guidance and tools, as well as a vision for excellence within the digital employee experience. His work with us has been nothing short of transformational.

There aren't enough superlatives to describe how truly outstanding Gary is, and what he doesn't know about the world of remote work you could write on a postage stamp - he is a legit Future of Work expert."
‍Ricky de Ruiter — Senior Director, Global Head of Recruiting & Employer Brand, Andela

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“Gary’s work at ACCA to lead the adoption of Microsoft 365 and Teams and to develop the strategy and content for future ways of working was effective and impactful — he led the work bottom up, creating buy-in through the development of an adoption community whilst also providing a strategic steer at leadership level. Gary quickly established himself as a go to person for people at all levels within the organisation.

His ability to quickly build rapport, establish credibility and add value is impressive. He has a calm and understated manner, he listens actively and delivers high quality content, guidance and analysis in response to business problems.

Gary is a pleasure to work with, he is exceptionally talented and a pioneer in the world of remote / hybrid working — he would add value to any organisation and I would not hesitate to recommend him.”
‍Nicola Parkes — Head of Market Execution, ACCA

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"Gary understood the aims and was able to help us position the technology to support our culture change. It was not technology for the sake of it; Gary was able to help us use the technology in the best way for the purpose of meeting our objectives.

Very quickly, Gary became a trusted partner, working alongside all our people but especially those in our Culture & Engagement and People teams. He worked not only as a partner, delivering some of the change, but also as a trusted advisor to many. As a result, we moved the needle much faster than we otherwise would have and always felt we had an expert on hand."
‍Julie Hotchkiss — Executive Director of People & Transformation, ACCA

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"Gary's leadership and vision made the launch of a crowdsourcing platform at Three possible. He saw the potential for open innovation and had the knowledge, expertise and influence to make it happen. He was instrumental in providing technical and strategic support, always giving us his time and attention to solve problems and offer ideas. It's always a pleasure working with Gary."
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Brooke Rutherford— Director of Marketing, Comms and Operations, London App Developers

“The Wellbeing in Tech session was amazing. Honestly, even better than the LinkedIn Learning courses. Super actionable with great ideas!”
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Stacey Overturf — Director, Training and Enablement, Ansira

"Gary has been instrumental in changing how teams at ACCA work. Through a period of huge disruption and change his ability to inspire, advise and support practical changes has seen us completely shift our ways of working to become remote first. He was pivotal in the creation and rollout of our ways of working playbook which teams across the globe use as a reference point to improve meetings, productivity and better adopt the technology we've invested in.

Gary seamlessly connects the dots and encourages use of the tools to ensure that remote and digital first are not at the expense of work/life balance."
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Amber Kirkbride — Change & Implementation Lead, ACCA

"Gary is a great ideas person. He is constantly in touch with new innovation in ways of working and technology. He's business savvy with a strong delivery mindset. Gary grabbed the opportunity to build the people digital tools area in Three, creating a digital employee experience and fully distributed teams from nothing."
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John Hayes— Director of Engineering, Spotify

"Gary spoke at our Employee Experience Forum in London and was the most highly rated speaker among his peers. Both his content and presentation style were excellent and he added valuable experience and knowledge to our 100+ senior HR attendees looking for ways in which to enhance their employee experience."
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Sakhi Spencer — Gartner

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