Team Spotlight: Michael Barber
SCL wouldn't be what it is without our amazing team. We're delighted to help you get to know us through our Team Spotlight interviews. Read Mike's interview below:
Mike, tell us a little bit about your professional background...
I left university with an English degree and really enjoyed the subject, but it didn't leave me with a particularly obvious career route. So when I left University, I started to think about what I wanted to do (I probably should have thought about that a little earlier!).
I decided I’d train as a Chartered Account, largely because it would provide that professional qualification and give me good experience and training within business. I joined a mid-tier accountancy firm and started life as an auditor and did all the exams to become a qualified accountant.
I stayed in audit for about 8-10 years which was good, I learnt a huge amount. Then I decided I wanted to do something a bit different. By that point, I’d worked with a few public sector organisations undertaking audits and wanted to work with them in a broader way. I was at Ernst and Young at that point, so I joined the EY team that supported public sector organisations to raise funds for infrastructure projects. That was really interesting and I learned loads on that.
A few years later I decided I really enjoyed working with NHS organisations and it made sense therefore, to join EY’s health practice so that’s what I did. I remained there for about 10 years which was a brilliant experience with a great team and group of Partners.
More recently, about four or five years ago, I’d got to a point in my career where I was either going to stay at EY and complete my career - which would have been great or, if I wanted to do something different then this was probably the time to do it. And that’s when I decided to start my own management consultancy practice, Seagry . And that's been an awful lot of fun!
What made you want to work in NHS and Healthcare Consulting?
To a degree, my motivation to work with public sector organisations was about contributing to wider society. I’ve worked with local authorities, the education sector, some central government units and NHS organisations.
I found working with NHS organisations absolutely fascinating because of the complexity of what they do. To an extent, the theory is simple: a cradle to grave support for both mental and physical health. But the delivery of that and how we do it is incredibly complex. The demands and challenges are always changing.
You can look at the education sector which I enjoyed working with and pretty much what you need to do there is have the right infrastructure, facilities and equipment, design the right curriculum, and train some great people to deliver the teaching. That’s probably an over-simplification, and in any case delivering those things is obviously very difficult. But when you look at what the NHS needs to deliver, it’s incredibly more complex and that's what interests me.
The NHS has always been an ambitious mission, and at the same time the minimum we should be aiming for as a society, and as with the vast majority of people who work in and with the NHS I am motivated by supporting the delivery of that mission. I do also have many family members working in the NHS, my wife is a consultant in the NHS, so there is that as well.
What's your favourite thing about working in NHS and Healthcare Consulting?
It's difficult to pick a single thing. Firstly, as I mentioned, the changing and evolving needs of the NHS and the complexity of delivering health services means every project we support is different. So that inevitably keeps things interesting.
My other favourite thing - and this is potentially a bit clichéd – is that the vast majority of our clients in the NHS are also very dedicated to delivering the ethos of the NHS. That makes our work incredibly satisfying, it's the people we're working with.
And as I mentioned, it’s also about contributing to the endeavour of the NHS.
It’s difficult to pick favourite so I’ll go with those three.
What do you find frustrating/ most challenging about working in NHS and Healthcare Consulting, and how do you address that?
The NHS is a very large and complex beast so we often come across the same problems and challenges that we may have dealt with previously. This causes us to think “Well, why haven't we solved this yet?”. Because of the size of the NHS and the changing and evolving needs of the people and patients, I don't think we're ever going to get to the point where we've delivered on all those challenges.
The other frustration is the element of politics which will always come into how our NHS is run. This leads to a degree of obfuscation around the status of our NHS. Any incumbent government will want to articulate a story of how well our NHS is performing under their watch but that’s not necessarily reflective of what we see on the ground. And that happens with every administration.
We also find at times, a short sightedness with our political masters. Our election cycle doesn't necessarily lend itself to medium and long-term planning of capital, workforce and so on – which is what our NHS needs.
To deal with these challenges, we first must accept that they are going to happen, to a degree they’re inevitable.
Secondly, if we can demonstrate to NHS leaders and beyond, the recurring challenges that we should be solving, then we're partway to dealing with that issue.
And, if we can convince our NHS leaders and political masters that a short term political cycle does not lend itself well to medium and long term planning, then we should do that as well.
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At Seagry, alongside delivering solutions for our clients we try to enable them to build capability in addressing issues should they arise again, so they can deal with them internally rather than needing external support. I'm proud that we’re dedicated to doing that.
We also need to speak the truth when we see the disparity between political rhetoric and what’s going on, on the ground. Perhaps we need to do more of that.
What would you love to achieve in your career in the near future?
Staying afloat would be good! My principal aim when I left EY and started Seagry was, from a commercial perspective, to get enough work in for myself to pay the mortgage, the bills and put food on the table. Even though we’re a few years in now and have a growing team, I'm still getting used to the idea that we do have a growing and successful business! Perhaps there is a risk that I look at it too short term, I'm thinking; “my ambition is to make sure we're still here in six months’ time, doing what we're doing because I really enjoy it”.
But, we do have a medium term plan and my personal ambition is very much intertwined with delivering that.
We're a team of about a dozen now, we'd like to double that over the next year or so and, continue delivering work that we’re proud of both in the technical quality of our services and how we deliver our work - I'd never want to compromise on that.
I’d like to still be leading Seagry in a few years time and to see the organisation being recognised as a leading provider of finance focused consultancy services to the NHS. I’d like to see it being recognised for the quality of the work that it does and the way that it delivers it. As we grow, I’d also like to retain what my colleagues tell me makes working for Seagry special, and that's the X Factor. I wouldn't want to lose that as we become a larger organisation.
What's one thing you'd like everyone to know about you?
Know about me? I guess it’s that when I left university, I wasn't looking like a typical trainee accountant! I had lots of piercings, dreads which went halfway down my back and probably dressed in a manner which matched the piercings, dreads and all the rest of it.
When I decided to embark on a career, I faced up and thought I better cut my hair and take the piercings out, which I think back then was probably the right thing to do because I'm not sure they were handing out jobs in mid tier accountancy firms to people who looked like what I did back then. Perhaps things have changed now - I don't know. But how about that? There we go.
Mike is looking for a photo of himself during the dreads and piercings phase, and has promised to post it if he does!
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