MCA Awards 2021: UK’s top consulting projects and consultants
At a black-tie gala event in London, the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) has revealed the winners of the 2021 MCA Awards. Prizes were presented to eight consulting firms and eight individuals throughout the night.
Held for the 24th time this year, the annual MCA Awards is the most anticipated event for members of UK’s consulting industry. This year’s event saw 14 project awards, 7 individual awards and 3 overall awards handed to consulting firms and individuals, in front of industry peers and high-profile guests including Ministers, government officials and executives from across the private sector.
Project awards
Awards for the Overall Project of the Year, and the International category, were handed to Deloitte for its work with Mologic; a UK based pioneer in the development of rapid diagnostic tests. Weeks before Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic, Mologic wanted to scale production in the UK and secure a supply chain for product development and distribution to low-income countries and fostering self-sufficiency.
Drawing on their expertise in programme management, operations transformation, finance, manufacturing and supply chain, the Deloitte team leveraged its global network to bring its Covid-19 test to market four weeks earlier than originally planned and expand production by 1,000%.
The Strategy award went to Strategy& with The Courtauld Institute of Art, while winner of Social Value was EY for its work with the National Forensic Mental Health Service. The Commercial Excellence award went to PwC for a project with the Ministry of Defence.
Exceptional Support and Delivery to a client during Covid-19 was awarded to IBM Consulting for its work with the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) while other recognised projects in the public sector include Atos with Sussex Police for Data and Innovation and PwC with the Metropolitan Police Service for the category Performance Improvement in the Public Sector.
Other winning projects included Unleash & Engage with Tata Steel, EY with Boots, and BearingPoint with Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water.
Consultant awards
A number of consultants at different stages of their career were recognised for their achievements including Young Consultant of the Year awarded to Hannah Steiner from EY, David McIntosh from KPMG as Best New Apprentice and Rising Star to Simon Calderwood from Simon-Kucher & Partners.
Team Leader Consultant of the Year was awarded to Pamela Thomas from PwC, Thought Leader Consultant of the Year to Leo Jones from Impower, Outstanding Achievement to Simon Geale from Proxima, and Innovation Consultant of the Year to Nele Van Buggenhout from PwC.
The Consultant of the Year prize was awarded to Kevin Hall from IBM Consulting, who was part of IBM Consulting’s team that worked on the Vaccine Manufacturing and Innovation Centre engagement.
Other awards
The Thought Leadership award went to Deloitte, which teamed up with oil giant Shell to conduct research and develop a seminal piece of thought leadership on the topic of decarbonisation in the shipping industry.
The Best New Consultancy went to Mason Advisory, a digital and technology transformation consultancy which has over the past period despite the Covid-19 pandemic grown its team to over 60 employees.
About the MCA Awards
The MCA Awards 2021 was the largest ever according to the MCA (the representative body of consulting firms in the UK), with an increase of 72% in entries compared to 2020, while the event – hosted this year by comedian and broadcaster Sandi Toksvi – brought together the largest ever audience ever.
Commenting on the 2021 edition, Tamzen Isacsson, Chief Executive of the MCA, said, “So many of the entries tell of the ingenuity, commitment and skill of our consultants which makes us a world leading industry. And so many show how the consultancy sector responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. The ability to deliver more services remotely released talent around the country and saw those talents being used not just in this country but around the globe. The faith clients have shown in the consulting sector in the most difficult of times has been vital.”
