UK consultancies dream of glory at 2019 MCA Awards
Hundreds of professionals from across the UK consulting industry are set to convene in London to celebrate another year of achievement at the annual Management Consultancies Association Awards. The ceremony – which will be held this evening in Westminster, London – is aimed at providing a platform to showcase the value provided to clients in the private and public sectors by consultants across Britain.
As the representative body for the UK’s leading management consulting firms, the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) has been its industry’s collective voice for more than six decades. Its members make up more than 60% of the UK consulting industry, and employ roughly 45,000 professionals, while working with more than 90 of the leading FTSE 100 companies and the vast majority of the public sector.
Organised by the industry body, the MCA Awards are now entering their 22nd year, and have long been seen as the benchmark for quality within Britain’s consulting industry. The event commends best practices and high-quality performance in the UK’s £10 billion consulting industry across three areas, with awards for client excellence handed out in the process. As well as demonstrating the value of consulting, the event also shows how clients and consultants working together can achieve the best results in the future.
Since January 2019, a team of expert judges* has assessed which nominees across 21 award categories will win the battle for the prestigious industry prizes. In the 2019 nominations, PwC leads with 11 nods, closely followed by Big Four rival EY, which received nine. The ceremony is a long way from being monopolised by the professional services industry’s biggest guns however, with Coeus, Arcadis, Arup, GE Healthcare, NHS England, PA Consulting, Atos, BAE Systems, Curzon Company, iMPOWER, Jabobs, North Highland, Parker Fitzgerald, Elixirr, Sia Partners, Simon Kucher, Vendigital and Atkins all having picked up multiple nominations.
The winners will be announced at this year’s award presentation, which takes place at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel. Some 700 guests from consulting firms, their clients, the media and representatives from across all forms of government are expected to take in the proceedings, while the ceremony will be hosted by BBC journalist Clive Myrie. Working for BBC News as London World Affairs Correspondent, Myrie is also Presenter of the BBC Weekend News, while anchoring the famous 10pm slot for BBC News on alternate Sundays.
Looking forward to the event, MCA Chief Executive Tamzen Isacsson said, “After months of preparation, marking and interviews, all eyes are now on the MCA Annual Awards ceremony – which is one of the key events in the UK consulting calendar… The judges have told the MCA the standard has been very high this year and over 40 of the UK’s leading management consultancies will be competing for 21 prizes, including 5 individual awards and 12 project awards. BBC Presenter Clive Myrie will host the awards, which will be promoted in our MCA social media channels, so do please follow us @TheMCA_UK if you are unable to attend on the night.”
Last year 16 different consulting firms managed to scoop a prestigious MCA Award. PwC Advisory and Deloitte Consulting dominated, with the two members of the Big Four grabbing a total of 12 accolades between them. Among the other consulting firms celebrated at the 2018 MCA Awards were Simon-Kucher & Partners, Coeus Consulting, Jacobs, OEE Consulting, PPL, Thales Cyber & Consulting, Arup, Egremont Group, Carnall Farrar, IBM, GE Healthcare Partners, Proudfoot, Turner & Townsend Suiko, and Atos.
* The jury for the MCA Awards 2019: Andreas Credé (Director at Credé Associates), Andy Gannon (Executive Coach and Mentor), Carol Smith (Director of Client Services at Combat Street), Charlotte Sweeney OBE (Founder at Charlotte Sweeney Associates), Christoph Marr (Managing Director at Marr Procurement), David Bailey (Advisor to Professional Services Firms), David Smith (Board Level Commercial and Procurement Advisor), Dr. Duncan Robertson (Fellow in Management Studies at Oxford University), Edward Bickham (Managing Director at Extracting Value LTD), Jan Gower (Partner at Medway Consulting), Jen Stevenson (Head of Category Indirects at Your Housing Group), Julie Hodges (Associate Professor in Management at Durham University), Kirsty Birks (Strategy Director at Boost Drinks), Lesley Wilkin (Director / Co-Founder at Smart Space Learning Ltd), Mitchell Leimon (Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy at BEIS Corporate Services), Patrick Newberry (Non-Executive Director at Paragon Bank and Shepherd & Wedderburn LLP), Paula Sussex (CEO at Student Loans Company), Paul Collins (Chairman at Equiteq), Paul Vincent (Managing Director at Sapient Professional Services), Rachel Sanders (Director & Co-Founder at Westmount Partners Ltd), Rob Garner (Advisor | Director | Investor), Sally Scutt (Strategic Advisor at International Compliance Association), Sandra Macleod (CEO at Mindful Reputation), Simon Atkinson (Chief Knowledge Officer at Ipsos MORI), Simon Clark (Adviser), Stefan Stern (Columnist), Vicky Pryce (Board Menber at CEBR), Vlatka Hlupic (Professor of Business and Management at University of Westminster), William Etchell (CFO at Education Placement Group), William Johnson (Managing Director at The Openside Group).
