Curriculum Vitae Steve CANT
Stephen CANT
Steve is a senior executive with over 25 years’ experience of leading global transformation / business change programmes and successful project delivery. He is a hard hitter, used to challenging and influencing at Board level, and not afraid to confront ordinary thinking by changing mindsets from ‘what does the business want’ to ‘what do we need to achieve, and how are we going to make it happen’. A successful problem solver and solution architect, with a strong track record in developing and sustaining successful long term relationships with senior executives in client organisations, Steve is results driven, with proven abilities in effecting and driving through organisational & technological change, and in solving problems. He is notably talented in re-invigorating transformation programmes and possesses a significant political and cultural awareness, enhanced through working overseas. He has a wide experience in the private sector as well as both Central & Local Government. He is a practising strategic change consultant with a strong financial benefits realisation and performance management bias. He is an experienced “peer reviewer”, having been accredited as an OGC Gateway review team leader for High Risk programmes since 2001. Steve is a credited contributor to the OGC publication “Managing Successful Programmes”.AREAS OF EXPERTISE
· Business Transformation – Steve has excellent knowledge and practical experience of business change techniques and approaches, and has applied them successfully in a range of environments. His personal approach includes working with clients and stakeholders to understand the change process, and to develop a detailed stakeholder analysis, communications strategy and plans, the latter capable of conveying complex messages in a straightforward way to a wide range of stakeholders ranging from Ministers to senior executives, local politicians, senior civil servants, staff, suppliers and customers.
· Programme and project management – Credited contributor to the OGC publication “Managing Successful Programmes”. Responsible for developing and managing a diverse range of programmes as described below, from purely profit focused transformations in the private sector, through resource accounting and data cleansing in the central government sector to wholesale transformation in local government. Steve has an innate understanding of the strategic, technical, human and business implications of such undertakings, which arises from over 25 years management consultancy experience. His focus is on integrating programme management, change management and benefits realisation into a coherent approach to transformation.
· Performance management and benefits realisation - Steve is a performance management practitioner with many “Balanced Scorecard” type engagements to his credit. Clients include ITSA, ATSA, PW MCS World Firm, RAF Logistics, Heinz, Shanks & McEwan & BG Group. Benefits realisation is a key part of any change programme and Steve brings his wide range of performance management experience to bear in terms of identifying, and developing a “dashboard” of measurements around the desired outcomes of transformation programmes.
· OGC Gateway ReviewsÔ & Health checks – Accredited OGC Review Team Leader for high risk reviews in central government. Has led several high profile Gateway reviews in politically sensitive environments (e.g. Delivering 21st Century IT Support for the NHS - National Strategic Programme, the DOH Electronic Recruitment Project, the Child Support Agency transformation programme (twice), implementing Oracle in the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the National eCAF programme within the Department for Children Schools and Families), National Accounts Programme for the Office for National Statistics, BASS 3 Project for Ministry of Justice. Also a “health check” of the Home Office Payroll & Pension Service (HOPPS) transformation programme.
· Agile Development – Steve set up ChangeAgility Limited to bring the principles of Agile Software Development to the disciplines of business change and transformation. He lead an Agile software development programme for BG Group’s intranet for 15 months in 2009-10 and understands the challenges involved in establishing appropriate governance for such projects.
· Strategy development – Worked with a range of clients, often as the precursor to a major programme. This usually involves planning and facilitating workshops aimed at the design and development of their Change Vision, Objectives and Blueprint. Steve has broad experience of working with executive management teams in the role of workshop facilitator, and with senior individual executives in the role of coach / mentor.
· Business Case development – Steve’s experience of business cases goes back 35 years. As a qualified management accountant, he is well versed in developing and presenting business cases using the latest Green Book guidance and the OGC 5 case model, with a strong track record in financial appraisal, financial modelling, options evaluation, risk assessment and conveying the strategic purpose of the investment.
CAREER SUMMARY
A former Director of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Steve has wide experience of transformation, programme management and general management consultancy. This comes from his extensive work in the private sector, Central & Local Government. Reporting at Board level, he has led a number of international performance improvement change programmes for leading companies and organisations.
CAREER HISTORY
Steve has worked with a number of leading management consultancies and now runs his own business. The following shows only the key assignments in a long and varied career.
Director, ChangeAgility Limited
· Gateway Qualifications – 2012 – present. Programme Manager of the wholesales transformation of this Awarding Organisation as they moved from being part of a national network (and a reseller of other organisations’ qualifications) to developing and selling their own and being an independent financially successful company. (Part time role)
· Also currently supporting charities through major transformations via the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants where Steve is Chair of the Pro Bono Committee.
· BG Group - 2006 – 2011. As a fast-growing organisation FTSE top 20 Company operating in the highly competitive and safety-critical petrol chemical environment, BG Group has to be able to access and share information quickly. Steve successfully held a number of delivery focused roles within the Global IT department, and delivered many projects successfully:
o Portal Projects Manager. Steered the development of the BG Group Portal (intranet) for 15 months and facilitated the evolution of Portal governance – to suit agile development - well as managing a number of Agile Portal development projects including a major content renovation programme.
o Project and Change manager – Documentum programme – Over two years Steve lead several document management implementations (Mumbai, Trinidad, Houston) and spent 9 months working in India on the first implementation.
o Business Change Manager – Enhanced Scorecard Reporting Project – global roll out / implementation of an electronic dashboard for leadership teams.
· Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club In 2006/07 used Financial management and modelling experience to built a complex and very detailed model for the construction of the Club’s new stadium and for the Operation of the Football Club in the long term, to demonstrate affordability, cash flow requirements and to test alternative scenarios. The Amex Community Stadium was opened in the summer of 2011 – a very satisfying outcome.
Director, Capita Consulting, 2002 – 2005
· Bolton MBC - Steve spent some 2 years on their large scale transformation programme, focusing on CRM and Oracle Finance and HR implementation, creating shared service centres for these functions. Working with the Chief Executive and Executive Management Team, Steve was the architect of a major transformation programme – “Shaping Future Services”. This programme aimed to put customers (the citizens of Bolton) at the heart of everything the Council (and its strategic partners) does, while successfully addressing a range of external drivers. Established team methods, Governance, approach to benefits realisation and general modus operandi.
This was a large and complex transformation programme including the creation of shared services centres and is seen as the single most significant change in the Council for 30 years. Steve’s role was that of management team facilitator, programme manager and architect.
Associate Director, Cornwell Management Consultants Ltd, 2000 – 2002
· MoD Defence Logistics Organisation – led a major Data Management Programme during 2001. The objective was to clean up static data prior to implementation of major new supply information systems for all three Services. As programme manager Steve researched and designed innovative approaches, using “fuzzy matching” techniques, and planned, co-ordinated and managed the activities of 30 or more staff spread across all three Service environments and other stakeholder groups. As a result Steve gained a good understanding of data management theory and practice. Helped to establish “the Cleansing Project” team that went on to succeed in meeting all its objectives and achieved a measurable saving of over £15m in the process.
Director, Price Waterhouse and PWC management consultants, 1990 - 2000
· Jefferson Smurfit - Finance Function Transformation. Lead all the change management activities associated with the core design and pilot implementation of a major SAP programme based in Paris, mainly driven by the need to take cost out of the finance function by creating country specific finance shared service centres. The overall team size was 80+ with a mixed team of ten on change management. Member of the Management Team, Lead the work to design a generic country based shared service centres and to implement a pilot in the Netherlands. Lead all benefits planning and realisation work.
· Fisher Rosemount GmbH - Programme manager for this international engineering group on a large-scale, tax-driven transformation. This “sales commissionaire” programme covered most countries in Europe, and had a mixed team of ten. It required a detailed planning and design phase, including a core design and, followed by a country-by-country roll-out across Europe.
· Boots the Chemists - Managed a large scale business / BPR / culture change programme. The programme was an attempt by the Chief Executive to energise his Head Office. Steve had line management responsibility for a mixed team of fourteen, and regular Board level engagement. Successfully challenged the status quo and initiated a comprehensive change programme using a tailor made methodology which (of course) addressed the benefits questions.
· Ministry of Defence – Information systems strategy for the Finance function.
Olympics & Paralympics Games Maker, - Team Leader - London 2012
Project Management of the construction of a new home – most of 2014.
PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
Qualification
/Awarding Body/Institution
/ DateOGC Gateway Review Team Leader / OGC Gateway™ Reviewer Accreditation Cert no. 0679
Certified Management Consultant / Institute of Management Consultants / 2002
Fellow of the Chartered Institute of
Management Accountants (FCMA / CGMA) / Chartered Institute of
Management Accountants / 1983
Member of Institute of Logistics and Transport / Institute of Logistics and
Transport / 1978
BSc - Economics with Technology (2:1) / City University / 1970-74
Key Search Terms
Accounting / Business Change / TransformationWorkshop / Workshop planning / Facilitation
Workshop facilitation / Project initiation / Scoping & Shaping
Information systems / Agile / Agile change
Agile software development / Strategy / Gateway Reviews
Review Team Leader / High Risk Projects / Stakeholder engagement
Change management / Programme management / Mentoring
Information management / Document Management / Data Cleansing
Steve CANT June 2017 1 please use the footer to show last update