Deloitte UK partner Alex Woodhead joins Baringa
London based consultany Baringa Partners has recently expanded its banking practice with Alex Woodhead, who has been appointed as a partner. He joins from Deloitte Consulting, where he spent the last 18 years. At Baringa Woodhead will focus mainly on growing the firm’s operational transformational capabilities across the banking sector.
After obtaining his MSc. In Economics from the University of Cambridge, Woodhead started his career at Barclays, where he worked for five years, in his last role as Corporate Relationship Manager. In 1997 Woodhead decided to exchange the banking sector for the consulting industry, and joined Deloitte. During his 18 year spell at the Big Four, he worked on dozens of clients engagement centered around the design and delivery of operating model change. Over the last seven years he led operational transformation in retail banking and became a partner in 2010. During that time, he grew the team from eight to over 70 staff and was actively involved in numerous banking transaction and change programmes.
According to Claire Paisley, Partner and Head of Banking at Baringa, Woodhead’s addition to the partner team will be “invaluable” for both the consultancy as well as its clients. “Now more than ever, firms know they must take a hard look at the way they do business. As they face some tough questions around the sustainability of the universal banking model, our aim is to guide them to the next stage. Alex has worked at the heart of the banking industry for many years and his experience will be invaluable to us and our clients.”
Asked for the motivation for moving from Deloitte to Baringa, Woodhead states: “I’ve been aware of Baringa’s work for many years; the company has an impressive track record. Part of what attracted me to this role was Baringa’s exceptional pool of talent and its culture of collaboration and commitment.” Looking forward, Woodhead says he “relishes the chance” to help shape Baringa’s future.
For the London based consultancy it is the third partner addition in the space of a few months, reflecting the firm’s ambition to boost its footprint in the two key markets it serves: Financial Services and Energy & Utilities. Earlier this year the firm hired James Belmont, also a former Barclays banker, to head the firm’s newly launched Risk Analytics practice. And more recently Guy Dent was added, who similar to Woodhead also joined from Deloitte. Dent has been tasked with developing Baringa’s footprint in the Telecoms and Media consulting space, which if all goes to plan in the coming months, will grow to become the third major industry the firm serves.
