Chartered Management Consultant Award hits milestone in 2020

In 2017, the Management Consultancies Association launched the Chartered Management Consultant Award. This year, the association is going to hit a milestone, with over 250 management consultants having been awarded Chartered status, and over 1,500 consultants from more than 20 firms now on the journey towards achieving the same thing.

The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) is the chartered professional body for management and leadership, counting more than 143,000 managers and leaders in its membership community. In 2017, as the UK’s management consulting industry sought to standardise its offering to clients, the country’s representative body for the industry collaborated with the CMI to launch a new professional accreditation.

Unlike the law or accounting professions, however, consulting does not have a protected status – something which is a concern for clients trying to differentiate between players in the crowded marketplace. To address this, the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) and CMI’s new Chartered Management Consultant Award (ChMC)  aimed to raise the professional standards in UK’s consulting industry, and act as a process of quality assurance to help clients find trusted consultants that fit their project.

At the beginning of 2020, consultants from IBM, PwC, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, EY, KPMG, PPL, Arcadis, Mott MacDonald, Atkins and Gobeyond Partners became the first in the UK to receive a ChMC – and the project has progressed rapidly since then. According to a new announcement from the MCA and CMI, more than 250 individuals have obtained Chartered status, while 23 MCA firms are now confirmed as participating in the ChMC, and more than 1,500 consultants are on the way to securing Chartered status as a result.

CMI CEO Ann Francke OBE commented, "I am delighted to see that take-up of the award is going from strength to strength. As this network grows, it will become an invaluable asset to the industry for sharing best practice, developing new talent and retaining seasoned professionals. I believe momentum behind the ChMC is growing, because it represents a clear signal, not only of your professionalism and trustworthiness, but of the strength of your values. Whatever new ways of working we will see come about over the coming years due to the events of 2020, value-driven leadership will only become more important."

Chartered individuals who have been assessed on their experience are benchmarked against their ethics and behaviour, their leadership and management, their personal and professional development and their experience and knowledge of the client operating environment. With the pilot stage of ChMC now completed, the key benefits of the award to various stakeholders, including clients of consultancy firms, will be more widely conveyed in the coming weeks and months. A communications project by the MCA and CMI has been developed and will be implemented across a number of platforms with the help of those firms who have been accredited and involving major clients in the private and public sector.

Firms of all sizes are also now involved in ChMC; including Moorhouse Consulting, North of England Commissioning Support Unit, Arup and Akeso, in addition to those already mentioned in the initiative’s opening cohort. Individuals recently awarded Chartered status meanwhile include the UK and Ireland Government and Public Sector Leader for EY and the Head of Clients and Markets at PwC as well as the Managing Partner of PPL, highlighting the level of expertise and leadership that ChMC recognises.

MCA CEO Tamzen Isacsson stated, “Despite all the disruptive events of 2020, it is encouraging to see the ChMC achieving significant interest and take up throughout our industry with widespread representation of small, medium and large firms now involved. Now, more than ever, this important initiative will help clients, as well as other key stakeholders, distinguish firms and individuals who have been professionally accredited and recognised as maintaining the highest standards. We’ve witnessed a significant increase in individuals wanting to invest time in achieving this award and using this period to show they can meet the highest standards in the management consultancy profession.”