After leaving Abbey in June 2006 I set up my own consultancy business and obtained contracts with The Open University and Coface UK (A subsidiary of Natixis Bank)
• The Open University
The brief from the OU was to review the structure and processes of the Marketing department and in particular online delivery. To make recommendations for a new structure, re-engineer the processes and deliver the change management.

I also had a specific brief to review the online capabilities of the OU in marketing and sales, make recommendations for improvement, propose a new management structure and strategy, recruit and train a team, embed new processes and provide ongoing support. I also reviewed supplier contracts and put some of these to tender, reducing fee costs by £250k per annum, a 25% saving, whilst at the same time improving PPC ROI by 35%.
• Coface UK
Coface is a credit insurance and receivables finance company operating in 50 countries world wide. I have been providing business consultancy on the development of a new global receivables finance system for the management of client sales ledgers, debt collection and financing of clients, utilising my 13 years experience in the receivables finance industry, both as an operational business manager and IT professional.

Achievements
▪ Conceived and managed the development of cross sales capability within online banking, enabling the effective targeting of existing customers with sales messages. This delivered 15,000 incremental sales in the first year saving > £1million in external marketing budget.
▪ Led the cross functional project to increase the number of online banking customers in retail banking. In first 3 months increased online banking population by 10%. On target to deliver a 50% increase by end 2006.
▪ Delivered outstanding sales results against target.
▪ Bank accounts – 135%
▪ Personal Loans – 107%
▪ Credit Cards – 107% of Q2 revised target (Hit full year target in first 6 months.)
▪ Online savings – 100% new accounts 2000% Net receipts
▪ Led the interactivity work stream in the delivery of the new £multi million retail banking website.
▪ Managed the search engine optimisation programme, providing training and coaching to enable staff to increase natural search engine rankings – e.g. Increased visits and sales from this source from <1% to 10% within the credit card market in 3 months.
Responsible for:
▪ Sales development. Led team responsible for delivery of sales through www.abbey.com & online banking, of personal loans, mortgages, credit cards, savings, insurance and banking.
▪ E-commerce strategy development
▪ Strategic planning
▪ Identifying, prioritising and commercially reviewing all strategic and tactical developments.
▪ Supported initiatives with business cases based on rigorous cost-benefit analysis. Presented at board level with100% approval record

Achievements
▪ Developed a new business banking and finance website www.anbusiness.com for Abbey business rationalising 6 websites and integrating 6 brands. Rated by the Financial Times as the best small business banking site in the UK. Also rated as best small business banking site by an independent survey of small businesses, published in Business Money (Jan. 2004.)
▪ The new website has produced 17% of all new business accounts and over 50% of all direct business finance leads = 200% increase.
▪ Initiated & managed a multimedia e-mail marketing programme for acquisition of banking customers in the small business market. Achieving a 10% response rate & 1% conversion to sale.

Responsible for:
▪ E-channel management of sales & service through marketing site, online banking and electronic telephone banking.
▪ Development of all e-commerce initiatives of Abbey National business
▪ Customer experience of business banking through web & telephone channels.
▪ Divisional E-commerce strategy development and implementation.

Achievements
▪ Developed highly successful client extranet information system, which reduced manual processing by 30%. To budget/time/scope
▪ Developed technology to facilitate creation of new Confidential Factoring product, integrating telecommunications and IT, enabling the white labelling of debt collection activity. To budget/time/scope
▪ Developed company wide Document Imaging System linked to the main business systems which enabled immediate recall of all business critical transactional information, increasing productivity by 25%
▪ Managed seamless IT integration to facilitate the merger with First national Factors Ltd. To budget/time/scope
▪ Successfully rolled out company wide new desktop technology. To budget/time/scope
Responsible for:
▪ IT strategy, development & implementation.
▪ Back office processing systems and personnel.
▪ International Trade through FCI trading network
▪ IT systems, support, maintenance and development
▪ Managing team of credit controllers conducting debt collection activity for 500+ clients (30,000 debtors, £350 million + debts outstanding)

Achievements
▪ Developed the UNIFACT factoring IT system on time and below budget, which on implementation reduced headcount in department by 40% by increasing efficiency, through IT innovation.
▪ Reduced days sales outstanding from 52 to 43 days
▪ Managed all IT systems & IT team with 99% systems availability.
Responsible for:
▪ Managing team of credit controllers conducting debt collection activity for 350 clients (20,000 debtors, £250 million + debts outstanding)
▪ Managing team delivering IT maintenance, support and development.
▪ Data processing operations