Airwalk Reply’s Amit Mehta on the ingredients for a leading transformation consultancy

As clients turn to consultancies to make the most of their digital and AI transformations, Airwalk Reply’s services are coming under growing demand. Partner Amit Mehta explains what makes the firm both a leading consulting firm in the digital transformation space, and a great place to work.

Around six months ago, you became a partner of Airwalk Reply. What motivated your move?

I was attracted to Airwalk Reply because of its reputation as a standout player in the consulting space, one that’s been recognised consistently for its culture, delivery excellence, and impact. The firm is known for tackling complex technology challenges and succeeding where others stall, whether that’s in regulatory-driven programmes like operational resilience, or platform transformation areas like ServiceNow and service management.

In addition to the capability the people made a huge difference, and I was lucky to have the opportunity to work alongside many of them in my previous role. The team are sharp, collaborative and passionate about doing great work and evolving how consulting is being delivered.  Joining a business that’s winning awards and building real momentum across these areas was a real easy decision for me.

How do you look back at your first period and what has surprised you most?

It’s been an incredibly energising period. What’s surprised me most is how much impact can be made in a short space of time when you work with the right people and a clear strategy. The calibre of the team, the openness to change, and the pace at which we are constantly challenging ourselves to make sure our clients are getting the best outcome. The way we’re thinking about and applying AI and how we are evolving our propositions, it’s all been impressive. There’s a real culture of momentum here, which is refreshing.

At Airwalk Reply, what are your key areas of focus? And what projects are you overseeing/working on currently?

Our key area of focus is on helping our clients navigate complex change, particularly in financial services and the public sector, through technology-enabled transformation.

Our current work includes shaping operating model transformations and embedding operational resilience in regulated environments, with a particular focus on IT and Data resilience. This is through modern backup and data vault solutions, IT supply chain mapping and by augmenting configuration data to enable better resilience decision-making via risk measures and the CMDB.

We are providing assurance of large-scale technology transformational programmes, enabling clients to drive positive change, at pace, and within risk tolerances. We drive service management improvements within highly regulated environments for End User Computing, Configuration Management, infrastructure, and cloud resiliency programmes. We have a particular focus on implementing highly efficient practices, operating models, and tooling, which includes ServiceNow. I also contribute to evolving our consulting capability, particularly around how we use AI to deliver more value-driven outcomes.

You’ve been focusing on the financial services industry for over a decade. What draws you to the industry?

Financial services is a sector where transformation truly matters. It’s tightly regulated, deeply embedded in everyday life, and constantly evolving.

Our clients need to ensure they are using the latest cutting-edge technology to ensure they are providing the best and safest experience to their customers; I enjoy the challenge of balancing innovation with risk and helping clients modernise legacy environments while staying compliant. There’s always a need to think strategically, deliver at pace, and drive outcomes and that’s the space I love being in.

Your career track record in the sector includes leading large-scale transformation programs for several banks and financial services clients. What are some highlights you’re most proud of and can share?

A common thread throughout my career has been delivering complex, technology-led transformation in highly regulated environments, exactly the kind of work we specialise in at Airwalk Reply.

One example is my work at a Tier 1 global bank on consolidating collateral trading systems across Fixed Income and Equities. It was a front-to-back transformation aimed at enabling mixed basket trading, critical for reducing collateral costs. The project had previously failed multiple times, but by aligning technology, operations, and trading objectives, we delivered a solution that broke long-standing silos and added immediate value.

At another Tier 1 European bank, successfully embedding Agile delivery practices across 12 product teams, creating a sustainable operating rhythm across 150+ global resources. This brought structure and consistency to a fragmented delivery landscape, something that’s increasingly important in today’s fast-paced, regulated financial markets.

I also led a multi-year global operating model transformation focused on workforce strategy and capability management across 100,000+ employees. Partnering with senior leadership, we defined the approach, introduced a data science-led model to assess roles and skills, and built a technology platform that transformed the employee and manager experience. The end product was a reimagined colleague and manager experience led by technology enabling more strategic work force planning.

What I’m most proud of is not just the delivery, but the ability to navigate complexity-whether it’s regulatory pressure, legacy systems, or stakeholder alignment and driving programmes, that enable real change. That’s very much at the core of Airwalk Reply’s proposition: strategic delivery, resilience, and innovation in some of the most demanding sectors.

You’ve been with Reply for longer – how does Airwalk Reply team up with its parent to build a more differentiated offering?

The Reply network gives us access to a global ecosystem of deep tech capability. At Airwalk Reply, we can bring specialist teams into engagements, whether that’s deep AWS, Google or Microsoft engineering capability, specialist architecture or the latest in advanced Agentic AI solutions. The wider group allows us to scale quickly and deliver end to end solutions without the overheads of a massive firm.

It’s the best of both worlds, boutique agility with enterprise-grade depth. What also sets us apart is the exposure our group companies have to fast-moving, innovation-led sectors outside of regulated environments. That insight allows us to bring fresh thinking and leading-edge approaches to our clients in financial services and the public sector, bridging compliance with innovation in a truly differentiated way.

Finally, Airwalk Reply recently was named a great workplace. What are elements of the culture that you value most and why?

There’s a genuine belief here that strong relationships drive strong outcomes. It’s a people-first culture, collaborative, supportive, and unafraid to challenge the status quo. I also value how we empower individuals to lead from the front, regardless of role. There’s no ego, just shared ambition and that’s powerful when you’re trying to build something special in a competitive market.