A personal touch in a digital world
Our story
TWC was founded in 2012 by Tanya Pepin and Mike McGee, driven by a passion for the wholesale channel, a forensic understanding of this route to market, and a determination to see it thrive.
Having spent ten years encouraging suppliers to sign up to data services on behalf of wholesalers such as Bestway and Landmark, the duo started TWC to support suppliers wanting to mine the wholesale shipments data that they purchased.
Analysing the data to identify opportunities drove sales for the supplier and the wholesaler, driving a tangible return on investment.
Mining this data on behalf of their clients, the TWC team also identified an opportunity to develop a platform that was simple and easy to use so that time-poor sales people could get the sales reporting they needed quickly. The lightbulb moment was watching the general election coverage on the BBC in 2015 and realising that if Peter Snow could make live reporting of constituency results by political party easy to understand to the average member of the public, then TWC could manage to do the same with wholesale sales data where the only real measures are volume, value, customer distribution and rate of sale. From this, our donut charts and colourful dashboards were born.
Now more than ten years old and growing rapidly, we remain committed to the wholesale channel but have also expanded to serve related channels including foodservice and convenience retail operators. Our mission is to harness data to empower these channels. Our way of doing business has not changed and we continue to work with transparency, especially when it comes to costs and timelines; we strive for long term partnerships and put our customers front and centre. We are ambitious, which fuels our vision for a channel that is truly data led, with TWC at the heart of it.
Everything that we do is underpinned by our values:
Transparent
We have a clear cost model and we’re realistic about timelines. We aren’t afraid of a candid conversation, based on mutual respect, so that we know we are on the same page.
Ambitious
We are driven as a business and as individuals, taking pride in what we do. Our drive fuels our vision for a channel that is truly data-led, with TWC at the heart of it.
Loyal
We are a data partner, not a data broker and we strive for long-term partnerships with our clients. We passionately champion the whole of wholesale and are proud to call it our channel.
Customer-centric
We are nothing without our customers and our growth is due to their support. This goes both ways – in return, we aim to delight our clients and be the best at what we do.
Meet the team
Mike McGee
Chairman
Mike is co-founder and Chairman of TWC. A well-respected industry figure, Mike spent 15 years at Landmark Wholesale, with seven of those as Managing Director. He has a breadth of knowledge about wholesale derived from years of experience at the sharp end – running wholesale operations; coupled with a strategic skill set that was honed by his senior management roles with Del Monte, Imperial Tobacco and Lonsdale and Thompson.
Tanya Pepin
Managing Director
Tanya is co-founder and Managing Director of TWC. Tanya spent the early part of her career at Landmark Wholesale – her role focussed on data, promotions and loyalty. As an early adopter of “Big Data”, Tanya’s team focussed on leveraging data to grow sales. Tanya is a highly respected and frequent visitor to the boardrooms of UK wholesalers, ensuring insight is at the heart of industry planning.
Tom Fender
Development Director
Probably best known as managing partner of Him! (now Lumina Intelligence) prior to its sale to WRBM, Tom is a well-known member of the convenience retail community. A serial entrepreneur, Tom invested in Bolt Learning after selling Him! which grew rapidly prior to acquisition by Aliter Capital in 2020. Tom has joined TWC because of his interest in the power of data and insight and an ongoing drive to be a force for positive change in the channel.
Andy Donnelly
Board Member / Investor
Andy worked with Philip Morris International for over 30 years, in both senior sales roles (Sales Director, Commercial Director) and, more recently, Strategy Director roles. Andy has vast international experience, having worked for PMI in market specific roles (UK, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria) and Regional roles (Africa, Middle East, Asia, Australasia and Mainland Europe). Andy brings a blue chip manufacturing mind-set and a wealth of hands-on experience leveraging data to drive strategy and growth.
Matt Chick
Head of Development
Matt combines an in-depth knowledge of wholesale with extensive technical know-how. With extensive experience of data transformation, storage and reporting as well as best in class digital design and execution skills, Matt makes customer data management look easy. Matt has a team with broad skills: MS SQL, RESTful APIs in PHP, JS and REACT Native .NET and any JS framework.
Jayne Webb
Director of Insight
Jayne has core responsibility for our TWC consulting and research services, working with both our wholesaler and supplier clients to drive their category management agenda through trade and consumer insight, creating tailored analysis and recommendations. Jayne has worked with TWC for many years and has previously worked with Hallmark, Bacardi Brown-Forman, Nestle, Precima, and Constellation (now Accolade). She started her career working at an econometrics agency.
Sarah Coleman
Product Director – SmartView Convenience
A graduate in hospitality and passionate about food and drink, Sarah has worked at several research agencies including Kantar, Nielsen, IGD and Lumina Intelligence, as well as client-side at Unilever. After many years working as an Insight Director, Sarah made a move into comms (bolstered by a master’s in journalism and media) and was our Marketing & Comms Director for 2 years. She has now moved into a brand-new role as Product Director for SmartView Convenience, our market read for the independent convenience sector.
Richard Barr
Head of Commercial Strategy
Richard Barr joins TWC on a consultancy basis to support the implementation of the company’s ambitious new growth strategy, “Destination 2030.” Richard Barr’s tenure at Unilever as Sales Director was marked by significant achievements in sales growth, market expansion, and strategic partnerships. His leadership and innovative approach to commercial management are expected to play a crucial role in TWC Group’s strategic initiatives aimed at enhancing market position and driving sustainable growth.
Becky Thomas
Client Services Manager
Becky is a stickler for detail and loves a process so she’s the ideal person to keep on top of our clients’ requests. With a background in food & drink as a pricing administrator for Fresh Direct, she understands the importance of data accuracy. She’s also worked in various customer facing roles, so she lives and breathes our company value of customer centricity, going above and beyond to delight our clients.
Vicky Davies
Data Quality Executive
With forensic attention to detail and the utmost diplomacy, Vicky is responsible for data quality and cleansing, ensuring that our clients’ data is consistently and accurately coded to their customised product hierarchies, as well as providing support to platform users via our helpdesk. Vicky is one of our longest serving team members and prior to TWC, she has run her own pet service and worked at a debt collection agency for 18 years.
Olly Brown
Sales and Insight Executive
A recent graduate in Business with Modern Languages from the University of Nottingham, Olly has joined the TWC team keen to get hands-on business experience and further develop his passion for technology. Having worked in a number of hospitality roles as a student, he has plenty of customer-facing experience which he can draw on as he provides frontline support to our clients.
Kelly Pye
Head of Client Services
Kelly has extensive wholesale channel experience gained from many years working in the channel supplier-side at AG Barr, and more recently at Millenium Group as Head of UK Sales. She passionately believes in the importance of building great relationships and her role will be focussed on helping our clients maximise the return of their investment in data, as well as building engagement with our supplier community.
Chloe Bradford
Client Services Executive
Chloe has recently transitioned to the client services team after a year of working on data cleansing within our Data Quality team. She holds a Level 3 AAT qualification and brings a strong background in finance and accounting . Chloe’s detail-oriented approach and commitment to accuracy make her an invaluable asset in her new role, where she continues to ensure exceptional service and support for our clients.
Elaine Baker
Category Insight Manager
Elaine brings extensive market experience, having worked with leading brands such as BrewDog, The HEINEKEN Company, and C&C Group. Her strengths include the ability to ground strategic decisions with insights, and delivering ROI-driven results, making her a trusted advisor and thought leader. With a strong background across FMCG category, consumer and shopper insights, at TWC Elaine leverages her expertise to focus on delivering market leading data consulting and research projects.
Alex Foster
Dara Quality Assistant
Alex brings a keen eye for detail and a dedication to data integrity, supporting data quality and cleansing processes to ensure our clients’ data is accurate, reliable, and tailored to their specific needs. Drawing on experience as a data analyst in digital marketing, she works closely with the team to identify and resolve inconsistencies. Combining technical expertise with a passion for problem-solving, Alex helps maintain the highest standards of data quality across all projects.