2017 Strategy Consultant of the Year

Four consultants from four individual firms have been announced as Strategy Consultant of the Year finalists for the 2017 MCA Awards. This award demonstrates exceptional performance in strategy; for example, corporate recovery and turnaround, business strategy, market analysis and strategy, mergers and acquisitions, policy formulation, value management, and corporate venturing.  It could also include work in scenario planning and future-proofing carried out to test organisational resilience. Crucially the consultant must demonstrate a positive impact on shaping the strategic assumptions, goals or strategic preparedness of the client organisation.

The winners will be announced at the MCA Awards Ceremony & Dinner, held at the Park Plaza Westminster on 27 April 2017. All MCA awards are judged by an independent expert panel of judges who have experience of working in the public and private sectors, universities, consultancy or journalism.

The summaries of all the finalists can be found below:


Josef Hargrave, Arup

Josef is one of the world’s leading corporate foresight consultants. As Arup’s Global Foresight Manager, Josef helps clients understand the trends shaping the future of their business and their impact on corporate strategy and innovation processes. Josef aims to ensure the long-term success of organisations, by supporting the development of corporate strategies that build on a deep understanding of future risks and opportunities. Josef has delivered projects for clients from a broad range of sectors and geographies. With both sector expertise and specialist foresight skills, his key strengths include:

* Strong client relationships built on trust and understanding of priorities.

* Keen grasp of the factors shaping the future of an organisation

* Delivering structured, integrated and engaging consulting processes

* International expertise acquired by delivering projects globally

Over the past five years, Josef has helped one of the foremost vehicle manufacturers realise a new concept for the provision of urban mobility, and has supported one of the leading chemical companies in identifying innovation opportunities within a new market.

One of Josef’s most significant recent projects has been the delivery of a strategic foresight programme for the Executive Committee of a leading urban mass transit operator in East Asia. This resulted in a coherent strategy for the management of future trends and implementation of strategic initiatives that will enable the company to actively manage future risks and opportunities.


Matthew Locsin, Deloitte

Matt is a Director within Deloitte’s global strategy and innovation practice where he leads the innovation agenda across a number of essential client relationships.

Matt has designed and implemented multiple engagements that have helped senior executives grow their enterprises.

By focusing on their most strategic challenges he helps them understand emerging risks and opportunities to inform and challenge their strategic thinking. He works with clients to design, build, and launch innovative solutions that meet these risks, capitalise on opportunities, and create new engines of profitable growth.

Matt embodies and brings to market a very distinctive and effective proposition: creating new sources of growth and strategic options through innovation. Using disciplined methods and globally recognised IP, he brings a unique blend of strategy and operational expertise, human-centred design methods, and organisational know-how to meet his clients’ most pressing challenges.

At Deloitte, he is building and leading a practice of exceptionally talented and diverse experts. Working around the world as an inter-disciplinary team, this practice shows Deloitte what the future of consulting could be, and Matt’s role as teacher, leader, and practitioner is central to its success.


Tim O'Hanlon, GE Healthcare Finnamore

Tim O’Hanlon, a partner and COO at GE Healthcare Finnamore has been a management consultant since 1988.He led the MCA award winning team in 2013 and 2016 for Change Management in the Public Sector and was selected as the Change Management Consultant of the Year in 2016. Tim has worked in 46 countries and uses this global experience to develop and deploy strategies across multiple sectors and global footprints. His clients return for his advice over many years, for example a client has used Tim as a strategic advisor since 1992 over which time their business has quadrupled. Moreover, he is able to:

* Capture the reality of the current situation

* Vision the desired future based on evidence

* Work collaboratively across stakeholders to build the strategy and deliver it

Tim supports and motivates people to participate and add value to the strategy development and deployment processes creating a collaborative and rewarding experience for those involved.

Tim brings an impressive range of strategic development and deployment skills.

* Market and competitor analysis

* Stakeholder mapping and engagement

* Financial, activity capacity and demand analysis/modelling

* Risk assessment

* Organisational and cultural alignment

* Talent, pricing and product alignment

* Use of strategy maps and business scorecards

* Definition and optimisation of value propositions

* Delivering results, monitoring and improving performance -optimising processes, the supply chain, customer interaction and technology.

Recent strategy development projects for private sector and public healthcare organisations have delivered transformational results for example delivering a £25m gain in market share.


Jamie Ounan, Inner Circle Consulting

Jamie is a founding Director of Inner Circle consulting. Jamie specialises in strategy, the development of complex business cases and the translation from concept to project implementation. Jamie leads on a number of complex commissions across the public and private sectors. Jamie’s experience covers the fields of planning and regeneration, life sciences, economic development, capital build projects, and corporate change.

Over the past 18 months no one will have had a greater impact on the end user and public life than Jamie. His strategic advice has lead to the expansion of the UK’s largest integrated cancer research and treatment hub, and progression of a £600 million pound regeneration programme in outer London among other projects. However, Jamie feels his best recent achievement is setting up and growing the outstanding team at Inner Circle Consulting, who’s relentless focus on innovation and delivering change has resulted in us working hand in hand with the UK’s most progressive businesses and public bodies.