Case Studies

Corporate Sustainability

• Initiated a Global Consulting Group’s first attempt as a sustainable reporting programme.
• Collated a group of internal stakeholders and formed a core Sustainability team to carry out the research required and develop the necessary framework.
• Developed in-depth knowledge of the various United Nations, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures measurement frameworks and unskilled the various stakeholder groups on the insights they would need going forward for their areas of interest.
• Delivered a preliminary annual report and informational content to be used on the Group’s website for investors, clients and potential employees.

Not-For-Profit Digitisation

• A local community group focused on sustainability was facing closure because they were no longer receiving annual contributions from members. In addition, officers of the group performed a number of manual, time-consuming processes and there was a lack of understanding across the group on how processes worked.
• I volunteered to build the group a new digital platform and website which would act as a foundation upon which to build future functionality and member engagement.
• I undertook in-depth research on the latest best practices in not-for-profit fundraising, reviewed the platforms of similar organisations, and the functionality that was available from digital tools and respective costs. Having selected a tool which provided the functionality required, I designed the new website and payments platform based on the existing design and branding of the organisation. Alongside launching the new platform I developed a communications strategy which involved weekly emails to mailing list participants to build engagement and a social media plan to increase awareness.
• The result of this transformation was a 50x increase in website visits and a 10x increase in donations from members. Furthermore, officers now saved significant time performing their roles and the Steering Group was able to focus on the core objectives of the organisation.

Company Performance Evaluation

• Having joined a company when it had been operating for 7 years, it was clear there were some cultural disparities between locations and the organisation was lacking direction.
• Bringing together the membership of the leadership team, I led a workshop to redevelop the organisation’s values, vision and mission. We then co-created the sales and product strategy to meet these goals within the target timeframe.
• Taking this strategy, I then developed the organisation-wide and team-specific Objective and Key Results (OKR) framework. This was rolled out across the business, embedded with training, the setting up of regular reviews, and the implementation of a performance management tool.
• The company was then able to establish directly how they were performing against target, provide training or support for underperforming team members, and move forward with a cohesive culture and purpose.

International Expansion Business Case

• Having recently joined the company as the Head of Finance and Operations, the business needed a review of its strategy and growth plans.
• As the owner of the financial plan and business case, I was responsible for developing these plans and producing the investment rationale for prospective investors.
• Working across functions, I gathered the information required to compile the assumptions for the financial plan on a 5-year basis and gathered industry comparables to evaluate the validity of the plan. This was then updated monthly with actual figures and iterated as and when assumptions changed.
• On behalf of the CEO, I developed the background story for the organisation, presented the market trends and company achievements to complete the business case.
• We were then ready to introduce the business case to Venture Capital firms and family offices to commence the seed fundraising round.

Disability Confidence

• A global consultancy firm had a gap in its support for employees with disabilities, having previously established employee groups on race, LGBTQIA+, gender, mental health, and class.
• I initiated the organisation’s set-up of the Disability Workstream and led a team as one of the key pillars of the organisation’s Diversity & Inclusion programme. This involved undertaking analysis to understand barriers to requirement, provision of support for existing employees, and an education programme for the whole organisation to destigmatise and create awareness.
• This included understanding and achieving the Government’s Disability Confident certification and working towards being verified as a leader in this space from a leading industry organisation.
• As part of this initiative, I undertook specialist training in Hearing Loss Awareness and Autism.

ESG Commercialisation Strategy

• A global asset manager was looking to improve the market perception of their ESG and Responsible Investing procedures.
• I was tasked with understanding the underlying causes of the issue, including performing a market analysis, identifying and prioritising the remediating actions required and rolling-out these improvements across the client-facing functions of the organisation.
• I conducted a series of stakeholder interviews, gathered all existing documentation and conducted proprietary market research on the status of ESG and Responsible Investing issues. Together with the client I prioritised the programme of work according to the budget available, and then developed an implementation plan to achieve the large number over tasks. Over the next 6 months, I collaborated with multiple teams across the organisation to deliver a global training programme for all sales teams, review their product pipeline, create new sections of their website and create a suite of new marketing collateral.
• At the end of the project, the client had a strong understanding of their market positioning and had the tools necessary in order to increase their market presence on this topic within their existing client segments.

Partnerships For Plastic Reduction

• At the start of the first Covid-19 lockdown, I was charged by my company with maintaining the engagement and wellbeing of all UK employees as we entered remote working for the first time. Our company charity partner for that year was Plastic Oceans, a charity which aims to raise awareness of and reduce the plastic in oceans and seas around the world.
• Together with the rest of the charity partnership team, I developed a series of activities which could be completed by the team at home while adhering to the Government’s health restrictions.
• To kick-off the challenge, I split the organisation into teams based on marine animals. The first phase of the challenge was for teams to complete at-home exercises for which they could score points – this was chosen because the organisation already had a record of competitive sports. I worked with the Slack developer team to create a custom app that individuals could use to submit their activities automatically and an internal dashboard on which we could monitor progress and engagement. Alongside this, I developed a communications plan to maximise traction and participation. Each week the winning team was selected, and a prize was allocated to the winners over the month. Once people were engaged, we moved on to the second phase of the challenge with the aim of educating the workforce on the relevant issue, this time the challenge was for the team to complete this time in plastic reduction exercises, such as ‘sustainable swaps’ and going ‘waste free’. Again, teams competed on a weekly basis, and a winner was named at the end of the month.
• The campaign had a 70% participation rate across 300 employees. Team members remained engaged, learned about plastic, and felt less isolated as they were able to bond with their team.

Geographic & Proposition Strategy

• esA large European bank and asset manager was looking for support in developing their in-country strategy, specifically whether to pursue growth, focus their product offering or to divest from the business.
• Over a 4-week engagement, the team would conduct both a strategic options analysis and feasibility study in order to provide the organisation’s leadership with a recommendation on the best course of action.
• Using data on clients, headcount, business segment costs and revenues, banking licenses and other regulatory implications, we were able to provide an in-depth analysis of the viability of the organisation as a whole and the profitability of each business. Furthermore, we produced a comparison of each Key Performance Indicator to that of their closest competitors and market best practice. Finally, we assessed the market appetite for a potential purchase of each business and provided an assessment of the implementation costs, high-level planning and risk assessment of pursuing each strategic option.
• Together with the leadership team of the organisation, we produced a recommendation for each business which included merging two business entities, rationalising their client base to focus on their most profitable customers and selling two separate businesses.

Post-merger Integration

• Following a merger, a global asset manager needed to rationalise their UK Distribution function to meet their increasingly diverse range of client needs.
• As programme manager, my role was to lead the end to end consultation process and support the leadership team in developing their new operating model.
• I developed a detailed method to track the ~200 individuals throughout the process, ensuring all HR milestones were completed, risks were understood and mitigated, and client relationships were appropriately managed.
• Furthermore, I was tasked with supporting the leadership to help them define their target operating model and develop their organisational culture, as well as remapping their new market strategy onto their dual Salesforce instances.
• With the support of a team of 30, we completed the consultation process in 7 weeks; furthermore, the leadership team had a strong foundation with which to re-launch their Distribution business.

Middle Office Op Model & Outsourcing

• The asset management arm of a Global Bank was looking to create a uniform operating model across their middle office operations, which had a mixture of in-house, fully outsourced and hybrid models.
• My role was to conduct a detailed Request for Information (RFI) and produce a recommendation for the most appropriate model for the organisation’s middle office, produce a short-list of outsourced providers, and support the production of a business case to determine the validity of this proposal.
• I developed a comprehensive framework for assessing the providers’ responses to the RFI according to the quality of their proposition and the coverage of their services in relation to the asset manager’s requirements. A set of information sharing workshops were conducted to allow the providers to better understand the asset manager’s requirements and ask any questions prior to providing their response to the RFI.
• In addition, I worked with the providers to prepare cost proposals for their services.
• A detailed report was prepared outlining the strengths and weaknesses of each potential outsourced provide and an outline of the impact each would have on their global operating model.