1

What’s different about Berkeley for you? 

What’s great about working at Berkeley is that the whole experience, from the interview process to the initial two-week induction to the way you are treated day-to-day, is different from other larger consultancies. We have a very strong, collaborative culture with greater levels of personal freedom and flexibility than other organisations which can be both liberating and also somewhat disconcerting if you’ve always been micro-managed and viewed primarily as a “chargeable asset”. 

Berkeley has a strong code of ethics known internally as “doing the right thing”. This applies as much to how Berkeley looks after its own people as it does for our clients. It may sound clichéd, but doing the right thing is very much at the heart of what we do and how we do it. We don’t have any sales targets, neither at consultant nor at Partner level, and we don’t incentivise the wrong behaviours through financial bonuses. The client’s agenda is always front and centre.

I also particularly enjoy the Partner / Consultant dynamic of “listening” (basically, a structured approach to on-the-job mentoring) which no longer exists in larger, more corporate consultancies. Given the significant challenges we face in our daily work, it’s great to be able to share the load and get things off your chest.

Finally, the socials are good fun with plenty of variety to cater for different interests and tastes.

2  What’s been your biggest professional accomplishment? 

That’s a difficult question to answer as every assignment has its own particular set of challenges and rewards. As someone who owes their eyesight to the amazing work of NHS doctors at Moorfields Eye Hospital, I’m very passionate about the NHS and the work it does under difficult circumstances and constrained funding. I’m proud to say that during my time at Berkeley, I’ve spent a number of years working with fellow colleagues to support a variety of NHS organisations across London and the Southeast to develop healthcare commissioning strategies and new models of integrated care. Many of these have made a real tangible difference to the quality of patient care. I’ve also been involved in supporting the creation of a new CCG Alliance in Sussex and recently helped a Mental Health Trust to mobilise a £200m estates modernisation programme. 

Other highlights in the private sector include the implementation of a large employee recognition programme impacting 70,000 employees in 10 languages across 170 sites in 113 countries, creating from scratch a bespoke Business Change Management Framework and organisational ‘Change’ capability at a global supply chain business, and migrating a very well-known and high profile brand’s ageing web-hosting infrastructure and corporate.com website to the cloud.

3  What might people be interested in knowing about you?

My family and I live in Godalming which is just south of Guildford in Surrey. My wife works full-time as the COO of a professional membership organisation. Out of work, we’re kept pretty busy most weekends by my son’s football team and by my daughter’s amateur dramatics. When we do get a bit of downtime, we’re usually walking or mountain bike around the beautiful Surrey Hills, playing tennis or visiting the Father-in-Law in Herefordshire. Being half English and half Catalan, I’m proudly European with many family members living near Girona on the Costa Brava so we try and visit as often as we can.