Team Leader Consultant of the Year
Shilpa Kanchan is the kind of team leader every consultancy needs – strategic, values driven and relentless in delivering public value. She led a team of 21 specialists to transform the financial dimension of the UK Home Office’s cloud operations – the most data‑intensive departments protecting borders, supporting asylum decisions and delivering citizen services. This programme saved government £70 million over three years, reducing costs by 41%, enabling reinvestment into automation for faster triage of immigration cases and tackling organised crime. Furthermore, it reduced carbon emissions by 23%, benefitting the environment and created an operational model that is the envy of other government departments.
Shilpa is rigorous but empathetic, open-minded but intellectually critical, and extremely focussed on results. Leslie Stephens, Home Office FinOps lead, says: “Shilpa’s leadership has developed a strong-performing team and made us the exemplar for FinOps in the Home Office”. A supplier lead adds: “Shilpa might be the most driven person I’ve ever met – tenacious would be a good word!”
For Shilpa, everything is about the team and nothing can be achieved without trust and commitment. Andy Gregory, deputy director for data services and analytics, summarises: “A huge thanks to Shilpa and the team… This is the best FinOps practice across UK central government.”
From having no formal FinOps capability, the Home Office now has an embedded practice, supported by permanent recruits, and a Champions Network influencing cross‑government adoption with a blueprint for delivering greater public value per taxpayer pound.
View the profile in the MCA Members Directory.