Director, Health Systems Consulting, London + UK

Carnall Farrar (CF) is a growing consultancy which works across all aspects of the health sector from supporting the NHS to serving major life science companies. We are passionate about, and experts in, health and healthcare.

Founded in 2013 we have grown to a core staff base of management consultants, technical consultants, a data operations team and corporate functions. We have a strong reputation with the NHS, and are actively seeking to spread awareness of our brand and offers across the health sector more broadly. We are highly regarded both internally and externally for the level of support and development we give our people. As a professional services business, CF has three primary assets – its people, its knowledge and its data and associated products.  

Our Director role provides the opportunity to join our Health Systems consulting team at a senior level, focusing on public sector healthcare. You will work with the Managing Partner and wider CF Health Systems leadership team to develop and run the business, including selling and delivering work for some of the leading NHS organisations to optimise health system performance and improve population health. You will bring a developing brand and growing reputation in the market built through extensive experience in healthcare consulting delivery at Senior Manager or Director level or through a combination of consulting and senior healthcare industry experience.  Areas of expertise may include: design and execution of major strategic transformations; development of healthcare business models and model of care; quality, performance and financial improvement; workforce development; and digital and data programmes.

This role will see you leading client delivery teams and ensuring high-quality, impactful client services and requires excellent relationship-building skills and the ability to manage projects within scope, time, and cost constraints. The Director oversees commercial aspects, resource management, risk management, and problem-solving for client needs.

Our strategic intent 

We are focused on building the leading consulting company dedicated to the health sector. We serve the entire sector including healthcare systems (providers, payors, regulators), life sciences (pharma, biotech, devices, and diagnostics), health investing, health tech (data, digital and apps) and the wider suppliers to the sector (infrastructure, consumables and supporting services). Our clients include public sector organisations, private sector companies and investors.  

We provide consultancy across a broad spectrum of services, which reflect the expertise of the CF leadership team and their ability to act as trusted advisors to chief executives, directors, and boards on the most important issues they face. We help organisations to improve population health and the effectiveness of life sciences and healthcare through understanding their aspirations, helping them to identify the opportunities to create value, spotting and applying innovation in practice, adopting best-in-class management approaches and providing hands-on support to deliver improvements.  

Our consulting is renowned for its use of data and the insights this creates. We have access to more UK healthcare data than any other company and are expert it its safe use for delivering healthcare, improving health, managing services, supporting uptake of innovation, undertaking research, and generating evidence. Our access to data and our engineering and data science capabilities supports our consulting, and they are also available for direct client services including in multidisciplinary teams.  

We are growing a team of expert consultants who want to be at the leading edge of the profession and who have a passion for health. With structured career development from Analyst to Partner in a model of apprenticeship, mentorship, and formal training alongside opportunities to work in industry we are cultivating the leaders of the future. We support future leaders to grow and develop their own unique focus that builds on their expertise, our capabilities and creates value for our clients. 

The role

The Director leads the delivery of high-performing client teams, ensuring high-quality, impactful services. They excel in relationship building and management, drawing on significant client delivery experience to complete work within scope, time, and cost parameters. They manage commercial aspects, resources, and risks effectively while directing problem-solving approaches and consulting teams. In addition to client delivery, the Director plays a key role in securing future work by building relationships, identifying opportunities, and developing high-quality proposals. This role has a revenue target, known as a “bid support target” which recognises the contribution the Director makes to securing work, and is largely expected to be done in collaboration with the Accountable/Anchor Partner for the bid.

Responsibilities 

The responsibilities of the role are categorised across four pillars: client delivery, securing future work, knowledge and thought leadership and people leadership. These responsibilities will include, but are not limited to: 

Client delivery 

• Act as Delivery Partner on multiple client engagements simultaneously
• Lead the orchestration and delivery of complex and multi-workstream projects to agreed scope, quality, timeframe and resources,
• Lead the project team, monitoring and evaluating team performance, and actively developing team members
• Address risks and issues that may arise during the course of client project delivery
• Work in collaboration with the Accountable Partner for delivery, ensuring they are kept up to date on progress

Securing future work  

• Develop enduring relationships with a strong, credible and diverse network of key decision makers to drive growth 
• Support the Partner team to secure revenue through spotting and mobilising activities
• Lead the development of high-quality and distinctive proposals and associated pricing strategies, demonstrating excellence in competitive tendering processes  
• Show awareness of the full range of CF services and insights, to support business development

Thought-leadership

• Develop a compelling and distinctive personal brand in an area of technical / advisory expertise valued by CF clients, building a reputation as a trusted advisor and thought leader 
• Role-model and lead teams in the adoption of best practice approaches and the embedding of innovation in all work 
• Provide direction to the codification of the knowledge developed in client delivery and frameworks for approaches and methods used to be leveraged by other teams in proposal development and client delivery 
• Produce timely thought-leadership and knowledge snapshots adopting the CF brand guidelines 
• Determine the impact of work delivered

People leadership and mentorship 

• Lead, facilitate and influence senior clients as their trusted advisor 
• Create effective team working internal to CF and in partnership with clients and wider collaborators 
• Mentor client delivery teams to enable the growth and development of team members 
• Mentor bid managers to ensure continuous improvement and embedding company-wide excellence in the development of high-quality and distinctive proposals  
• Support development and assessment of staff, acting as a development sponsor to up to five team members 
• Act as faculty for a series of training modules which relate to your strengths  
• Role model and create the context for all staff to live the CF values and adhere to the CF code of conduct

Our commitment to Diversity & Inclusion

We are committed to building an inclusive and supportive culture where diversity thrives, and all our people can excel. We only recruit, promote and reward our people based on their skills and contribution, without regard to gender, race, disability, religion, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or other characteristics.

We are Disability Confident Accredited, and we want you to feel comfortable and able to perform at your best in the recruitment process, if you require any reasonable adjustments for any part of the recruitment process, please let us know.

Requirements

To be successful in this role, you are likely to have a combination of the following:

Mandatory:  

• Ideally 10 years+ experience in management consulting in relevant field, but if you're less experienced, and think you could add a lot of value in this role, we'd love to hear from you
• Ideally 5 years of managerial experience 
• Extensive project leadership experience 
• Exceptional team management skills, including leading multi-disciplinary teams 
• Excellent verbal and written communication 
• People development skills 
• Ability to delegate efficiently 
• A strong network in the industry and / or proven sales and business development ability 
• Extensive industry knowledge with an eye towards the future 
• Relevant degree or certification 
• Flexibility to travel 

Flexible working  

We embrace a hybrid working model, combining the best of remote and in-person collaboration. Our consulting team are together in person at least four days a week with flexibility to be in the office between our core hours of 10-4pm. Our default approach is to be in-person with our clients.

In addition, up to four weeks a year each member of staff can work entirely virtually.  

Benefits

• Holiday entitlement: 30 days year for leadership, increasing by 1 day for every year of service up to a maximum of 35 days of holiday per year
• We contribute 7% of your salary into your pension, while you contribute 3% (or more if you like)
• Access to a flexible benefits programme giving you the chance to increase pension contributions, gain access to a cash plan or benefit from a ClassPass subscription
• Annual leave purchase: employees with less than 35 days annual leave entitlement are able to purchase additional annual leave days
• Income protection: in the event of long-term incapacity and a qualifying claim, 75% of salary will be paid
• Enhanced sick pay benefit beyond Statutory Sick Pay for up to a total 12 weeks in any 12-month period
• Life insurance covering four times your basic salary in a tax-free lump sum payable to your beneficiaries in the event of your death whilst in service
• Enhanced family leave policies: additional pay for parents who have a baby or adopt
• Access to an interest-free season ticket loan, repayable by 12 monthly instalments
• Workplace nursery scheme: access to a scheme to help working parents save tax and NI on the cost of the nursery care
• Flexible working policy: including the ability to work fully remotely for up to 4 weeks a year
• An employee assistance and wellness Program: including access to telephone counselling, life coaching, interactive tools online and digital content downloadable from Lifeworks
•  Seasonal flu jabs: provided by Boots annually
•  Eye care tests: vouchers and discounts at Vision Express
•  Ride to work scheme, saving up to 42% on bikes and cycling accessories at Evans Cycles
• Membership to the Health Service Journal (HSJ)