Embedded Experts to Full-Stack Innovation Partners: The Story of Consult Red

“We’re still a team of pragmatic engineers who care about doing great work,” says Tim Sheen, Chief Delivery Officer – and one of our very first employees at Consult Red.

And he’s right. That mindset of curiosity, staying grounded, and being quietly relentless has carried us from a five-person startup building early video telephony systems to a 200-strong team helping global brands tackle their most complex engineering challenges.

Consult Red began because we were tired of seeing great ideas fail in execution. Two decades later, our roll-up-your-sleeves attitude still defines how we work across embedded systems, AI, and edge innovation. We’ve grown alongside the technologies we help bring to life, always guided by the same principle: solve meaningful problems in a way that drives long-term impact for our customers.

And at a time when rapid tech evolution is accelerating complexity, we believe that approach is more relevant than ever.

A Company Built by Engineers

The founding of Consult Red in 2003 was as much about conviction as it was about opportunity. Co-founders Stuart Griffin and Rahul Mehra had been working at another company when they pitched a bold idea around broadband video telephony.

“We went all the way up to the board and said, ‘Here’s an opportunity around forthcoming technology.’ They said ‘no’. So, we said, fine. We’ll go do it.” reflects Rahul Mehra, now CTO at Consult Red.

They left to form a new company and soon delivered an H.264-based video telephony product for BT and Telecom Italia, well before video communication became a mainstream feature in the home. Though arguably ahead of its time, the project showcased something that would become core to our identity: an ability to make cutting-edge technology work in the real world, long before the market fully caught up.

That first project set a precedent for Consult Red to take bold ideas, ground them in practical engineering, and deliver something that works.

A Culture of Problem Solving

“We’ve always been about pushing the limits of what’s possible on embedded devices, solving problems that others might walk away from,” says Stuart Griffin, CEO of Consult Red.

That pragmatic engineering mindset has really shaped a company culture that’s grounded in openness, quality, and curiosity, and has remained constant even as the business has grown.

Whether we’re integrating third-party apps or untangling complex deployment issues, we’ve built a reputation for being the team that gets things over the line.

“We deliver on time, on the hard projects, again and again. That’s also why customers stay with us,” says Stuart – including one that we’ve partnered with for over 20 years.

Evolving with Our Customers

Our transition from embedded engineering specialists to a full-stack innovation partner didn’t happen overnight. But it did happen deliberately.

As Stuart explains, it was customer demand that drove the shift from product-based licensing to consultancy: “Our customers were trying to build software platforms they could own and control. They didn’t want another vendor licensing IP to them. They needed a trusted engineering partner to help bring their vision to life.”

This shift enabled Consult Red to support major transformation programmes for Tier 1 operators, playing key roles in projects like Sky Q, Sky Glass, and Liberty Global’s multi-country CPE rollout. To date, we’ve helped launch hundreds of connected devices and scaled platforms serving tens of millions of users.

Opening an engineering centre in Poland in 2015 has helped accelerate our growth while maintaining the same high standards.

“Our goal wasn’t to save money. It was to replicate the same engineering excellence we had in the UK,” says Rahul. “From the very beginning, we wanted it to be a centre of capability, not just capacity.”

Today, our teams are fully integrated across locations, with engineers in the UK and Poland working side by side. Every hire is still vetted by Consult Red’s most experienced engineers, ensuring the company’s commitment to technical quality remains consistently high.

Engineering the Future: AI and Beyond

We’ve always embraced what’s next. From the early adoption of containerisation in embedded devices to supporting cloud-scale media services, we have consistently engaged with emerging technologies, but never just for the sake of it. That same balanced approach is now shaping how we work with AI.

“We’re moving towards a world where engineers collaborate with AI every day, from coding to testing to requirements refinement. It’s going to touch everything,” says Tim Sheen.

This belief led to the launch of a company-wide transformation programme, designed to help our engineers adapt and thrive in an AI-enabled workflow while continuing to deliver quality real-world outcomes for our customers.

At the same time, we are partnering with leading players in the AI ecosystem to help customers bring intelligence to the edge. This includes use cases such as anomaly detection, video analytics, and low-latency interaction.

“AI is transformative, but it’s also noisy. There’s a lot of hype, and a lot of real opportunity,” says Rahul. “We’re seeing demand across sectors, from broadband to automotive to consumer electronics. What we’re focused on is identifying where we can add value and building solutions that customers can trust and deploy.”

Built to Last. Built to Solve.

For all the change and growth, we’ve remained grounded in our engineering DNA. Today, Consult Red is employee-owned, a reflection of our deep-rooted belief in shared value. It’s something Stuart and Rahul are particularly proud of as founders.

“We started this company to push the limits of what was possible. Whatever the platform, whatever the challenge, we’re still doing that,” says Stuart. “We get the quiet satisfaction of knowing we’re building things that matter. Even if others get the headlines,” adds Rahul.

As we look ahead, we’re focused on supporting our customers’ innovation journeys from idea to implementation, with trusted engineering, technical leadership, and solutions that deliver real-world impact at speed and scale.