David has twenty years’ experience in roles including operations director, programme manager and management consultant. He has a track record of driving measurable improvements across metrics such as service satisfaction, financial efficiency and income diversification. His leadership and management experience cuts across sectors including higher education, local government and international trade.
David is one of the sector’s leading experts in the area of organisation design and particularly the co-creation and implementation of fit-for-the-future target operating models. A snapshot of his key achievements include increasing satisfaction levels from 85% to 96%, reducing a large university’s recurrent cost base by £10m whilst accelerating progress against key metrics, unifying two schools with 300 employees into one single, high-performing unit, and consolidating 34 departments into 5 larger hubs connected by real-time systems and data. An experienced advisor to senior leadership teams, David has overseen capital projects with a budget in excess of £200m.
Prior to joining SUMS Group, David was Director of Operations at one of the UK’s largest universities where he held the strategic brief for service enhancement across all professional service areas. He also had management responsibility for c200 staff across areas including corporate operations, academic administration, business transformation and continuous improvement. Prior to that, David directed the delivery of all projects, initiatives, team members and external consultants within the institution’s transformation programme which released capacity of 200 FTE per annum and made cash savings in excess of £10m.