Walker Business Transformation was founded in December 2018 by Lee Walker — a Lean and Lean Six Sigma specialist with over 20 years of experience delivering operational improvement across some of the UK’s most complex organisations.
Lee has worked with world-leading scientific research institutions, NHS trusts, local authorities, housing associations, life sciences companies, and manufacturers. That breadth of experience shaped a simple but powerful conviction: most organisations already have the capacity to perform significantly better. They just need the right framework, the right expertise, and a partner who will get their hands dirty alongside them.
At the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Lee led the improvement programme that reduced Covid-19 genome sequencing turnaround time from 19.5 days to 2.5 days — while scaling throughput from 1,500 to 64,000 samples per week. That result wasn’t achieved through reports and recommendations. It was achieved through embedded, collaborative, hands-on work with the people doing the job every day.
That is the WBT approach. Evidence-led. People-centred. Focused on results that last.
Based in the Tees Valley, WBT works with organisations across the UK — helping them eliminate waste, build internal capability, and deliver measurable improvement that sticks.
We map your processes, find where capacity is being lost, and show you exactly where to act first. Hands-on, evidence-based, and focused on results you can measure.
From White Belt to Black Belt, our programmes build real Lean capability inside your organisation — with 1:1 coaching and a focus on immediate, practical application.
Senior Lean expertise embedded in your leadership team on a part-time basis. All the strategic capability, without the full-time overhead.
At WBT, we start by mapping the gap — the difference between how work is supposed to flow and how it actually does. That gap is where capacity disappears, costs creep up, and good people get frustrated.
Our approach is evidence-based and hands-on. We work directly alongside your teams to understand the root causes of operational friction, prioritise the highest-impact interventions, and implement changes that hold. We don’t hand over a report and disappear — we stay until the improvement is real and the capability to sustain it is built in.
Every engagement is tailored. Whether you need a rapid diagnostic, a full transformation programme, or someone to coach your team through continuous improvement, we shape our support around what your organisation actually needs.
The results WBT delivers are measurable and lasting. At the Wellcome Sanger Institute — one of the world’s leading scientific research organisations — WBT reduced Covid-19 genome sequencing turnaround time from 19.5 days to 2.5 days, while scaling throughput from 1,500 to 64,000 samples per week.
Similar improvements have been delivered across NHS organisations, local government, and UK manufacturers — streamlining operations, reducing costs, and building the internal capability to sustain improvement long after the engagement ends.
Lee’s work has helped organisations save hundreds of thousands of pounds, free up significant staff capacity, and implement changes that their teams actually own and maintain.
WBT’s commitment is straightforward: to be the kind of partner that organisations actually want to work with. That means being honest about what’s achievable, rigorous in how we work, and genuinely invested in your success — not just the duration of the contract.
Every client relationship is built on trust, transparency, and a shared focus on outcomes that matter.
If you’d like to find out more about how Walker Business Transformation can help your organisation, get in touch. We offer a free 30-minute diagnostic call to understand your challenges and explore whether we’re the right fit.
