I would like to nominate Andy Woodfield for his outstanding service to the Consulting industry.

 

More than any other partner in my experience, Andy has pioneered new and inclusive Leadership, Culture and Talent programmes, within the firm and with clients, with a focus on helping individuals to be the best that they can be in safe and welcoming working environments. He was also the founding and first sponsoring partner for the PwC UK inclusive business network, GLEE@PwC.

 

Andy is also Lead Partner for the International Aid Development Consulting practice in PwC. Working primarily with the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), he coordinates the global network of PwC member firms to improve the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world. He is also a very committed partner within our Government & Health Industries (G&HI) Leadership team, looking after clients, markets and purpose.

 

As if that wasn’t enough, he also leads our Sales & Marketing function as the firm’s first-ever UK Chief Sales & Marketing Officer. It’s a role that he loves, working with a team that inspires him every day, helping to ensure PwC’s Sales & Marketing function is absolutely world-class.

 

On a personal note, I’ve been delighted and often humbled to work alongside him. He truly breaks the mould. He’s fascinating, inspiring, unconventional, challenging, respected and immeasurably likeable. To be honoured by the MCA Outstanding Achievement award would be a fitting tribute to his fabulous contribution to our firm our industry and everyone touched by it.

 

Marco Amitrano, Head of Consulting, PwC

 

I started my career straight from school, working as an Engineering Design Apprentice. After studying Computing, I spent the next few years working in IT consultancy and IT management, and in 1998, I joined PwC as a cybersecurity consultant focused on ethical hacking. I was admitted into the PwC partnership in 2006.

 

Being a partner isn’t a big deal – it’s actually an anti-climax – but it does afford you the opportunity to make a difference, as long as that’s what you want to do. So, from day one I promised myself I wouldn’t conform and be ‘average’ – that is, a typical, predictable, Big 4 partner. I’d encourage people to be who they are; to focus on their strengths.

 

My schoolboy dream was to become an architect, but as I developed I found I was more attracted by connecting with people and trying to do things that add value than I was by maths. To this day, the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that I’m part of a movement to help people focus on their strengths and their positives, rather than all the things they’re bad at.

 

In practice, that means not presuming I have any of the answers, but instead creating a space where everyone has a voice for the goal they’re trying to achieve. That way, I’ve been able to put great groups of people together and let them have a voice and create a movement that effects change.

 

To do this well means leading from the middle; empowering colleagues to get on with their roles knowing I have their back. It’s about working hard and having fun, but doing something that really matters to you.

 

I’m a partner, but I’m not going to be miserable and uptight. You don’t need to be strident to be successful. When I’ve had opportunities to build diverse teams, I’ve taken them – often going against what’s ‘expected’ of me. That sense of inclusion and fairness has run through everything I’ve done, and I’m happy to be accountable when I get it wrong, because that’s an opportunity to learn and move forward. Without the mistakes I’ve made, I’d have achieved nothing of real value in my career.

 

I learned about that during international development work in the Conga, and getting 100,000 kids off the streets in Pakistan. We achieved things we never imagined we could. A lot of managers think leadership is about saying they know better. I’ve never been encumbered by a desire to be right, and that has really helped me. That creates an opportunity for everyone to have a voice; that’s why we’ve managed to do everything we’ve done with the LGBT network; and that’s why as a firm we now understand more about inclusion.

I’m proud of every member of every team I’ve been part of, but it might help to illustrate our achievements by looking at some specifics…

 

I’m proud to say I was a founding partner and sponsor of GLEE@PwC. It’s an inclusive business network for gays and lesbians and everyone else. It’s open to everyone, including clients and those in our extended networks. You don’t have to be gay or lesbian to join it, you just need to be passionate about valuing and exploring difference as something we all have in common.

 

Since July 2018, we’ve been on a radical journey to change PwC’s sales and marketing function to deliver more value and impact. We’ve added the very latest technology from Salesforce and Google, and invested in our people to provide greater commercial focus, energy and innovation. All whilst delivering business-as-usual sales and marketing activities for our key stakeholders and, just to keep us on our toes, transforming the way we deliver campaigns, embrace digital marketing and approach CRM.

 

I’ve also developed a number of quite different human development programmes, including ‘Building Strength in Leaders’ – a programme that uses positive and cognitive psychology to help leadership teams deal with traumatic business change. At the heart of the programme is a workshop I developed for PwC’s Global Talent programme. This workshop, ‘Genius | Power | Dreams’, aims to help individuals and teams understand and respect their unique strengths and talents, learn how to use them more often, be happy, perform well, and consider their life legacy. I’m delighted to say the work has been made available online at geniuspowerdreams.com.

 

I see our alumni as still very much part of our family, so, as Alumni Partner Sponsor, I’ve been leading an initiative to make our alumni programme all the more special by offering our network more of the firm. This means giving them access to all our latest research, insights and technology, and running more meaningful events. For example, ‘PwC Alumni Live’ allows staff past and present to exchange ideas and innovations simultaneously in person or via our live-stream platform. An incredible 1,000 people attended the first event, and we reached 250,000 more on social media.

 

The net result of these efforts is that we’ve been able to maintain and nurture the incredible richness of our network. Our tagline, #YourNetworkForLife, has been picked up by the firm globally, and we have just shy of 25,000 active alumni in the UK.

 

Of course I do client work too, and I’m fortunate in that a lot of it is with not-for-profits. Working with DFID and the FCO, I use brilliant people across PwC’s global network to promote sustainable economic development and prosperity, working on initiatives that directly benefit some of the poorest and most vulnerable people alive.

 

One notable example is our work with the Business Innovation Facility (BIF). BIF is a six-year, £33.5m programme working in Malawi, Myanmar and Nigeria to generate increased incomes for the poor. Projects range from bamboo farming in Myanmar to opening pigeon-pea markets in Malawi, and to date we’ve achieved higher incomes for over 400,000 poor people. 

 

I get the feeling this is the moment for much of my thinking – everything I’ve always talked about is starting to be appreciated. I think the main reason for this is that we’re in such an uncertain space. In a world of absolute disruption, where everything is unknown, the only thing you can know is yourself – and you can use your ability to bring people together and move forward and deal with whatever challenges you’re facing.

 

The big thing for me is people will remember how you made them feel, not what you did. It’s about building a movement as opposed to intellectual authority over other people. I hope more than anything that that’ll be the legacy I leave when I finally depart the profession.