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About Us

Great folk with great expertise

We’re award-winning

Chuffed to be Professional Services StartUp of the Year for the North East & Yorkshire, as well as a UK Finalist (fingers crossed for September’s final!)

Great place to work

Scoring a whopping 97% in both Job Satisfaction and Average Happiness, we’re delighted to be named as one of the Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2024

Community is in our DNA

We’re founders/co-founders of BA School Day, Public Sector Product Leaders, Cumbrian BA Network, and have a dedicated Director of Community.

Led by experience and non-consultancy vibes

Between us, we’ve worked with dozens of different consultancies as clients over the years. And to be frank we’ve seen a few too many cookie-cutter, one size fits all approaches. We wanted to do things differently. Experienced folk who’ve been there and got the t-shirt. Who are focussed on achieving outcomes and doing the right thing, not just another slide deck. Folk who are true specialists, as well as being nice to have a natter with. Basically a consultancy we’d have loved to work with as a client.

We’re proud to be:

About our team

Meet some of the Herd

Jamie Toyne

Founder & CEO

Jamie has established and led some of the largest business analyst practices in the country, having worked in digital and tech for over 15 years. Prior to Herd, he was Consultant Head of Business Analysis at the Ministry of Justice. As well as, former Head of Business Analysis at the Department for Work and Pensions, and Plusnet/BT. With practices varying in size from 20 to 300.

He is also an active member of the wider digital and BA community, regularly speaking at conferences & events, writing articles & blogs, and an occasional book reviewer for the BCS.

Jamie lives in Derbyshire, near Sheffield and the Peak District, with his fiancée, two sons, and his two dogs, Polly and George. He’s a keen foodie, beer geek, music & stand-up comedy fan, and aspiring whisky connoisseur. Oh, and a shockingly poor German speaker who should know more given it’s his fiancée‘s nationality.

Scott Colfer

Director of Product

Scott’s been a product leader for almost a decade, building a profession of 70+ product managers from scratch before leading 350+ specialists working across Business Analysis, Content, Delivery Management, Design, Product Management, and User Research. Alongside this, Scott is a specialist in use of the GDS Service Standard having been a Lead Assessor for GDS, contributing to the current Service Standard, and running Service Standard for a large Government department. He used this to introduce value-based prioritisation of opportunities. He has particularly deep skills in Discovery – because things that start well normally end well. 

Scott has worked in Digital Transformation in multiple organisations since the 2000s successfully leading change, transformation and the introduction of ‘product ways of working’. He likes to lead through coaching, context, common sense, and compassion.

Scott lives in Hackney, London, with his wife, three year old daughter, and normally a couple of foster cats too. He’s a coffee and loose leaf tea geek, enjoys reading and writing, and is learning to knit.

Christina Lovelock

Director of Community

Christina is an experienced BA leader, consultant, author and qualified coach, with over 20 years in public sector organisations at a local and national level, including local authority, NHS and higher education. She has built BA communities ranging in size from 5 to 120 people.

Christina champions entry level roles having chaired the development of the national Business Analysis Apprenticeship standard, is co-founder of BA School Day, and a director of the BA Manager Forum. She regularly attends and speaks at international conferences & UK events. She writes for online and print magazines, and co-authored the BCS book Delivering Business Analysis.

Christina lives in Sheffield with her family and two anti-social cats. As a family they are fans of board games, Harry Potter, travel, ballet, movies, reading and Taylor Swift… not necessarily in that order!

Simon Churan
Simon Churan

Account Director

Info coming soon!

Info coming soon!

Matt Cameron

Principal Consultant Business Analyst

Matt began his career at a global engineering firm where he developed a passion for continuous improvement, and realised when combined with business analysis, it can significantly improve ways of working and better outcomes for colleagues & customers. He has experience in numerous sectors including charity with NCFE, the public sector with the NHS, and higher education at Northumbria University.

Prior to joining Herd, he was Head of Business Analysis and Architecture at Northumbria University where he led a team of 10 Business Analysts & Continuous Improvement Analysts, as well as working hands on with Business Architecture.

Despite lacking any sort of artistic skills, Matt always strives to engage people in his work with pictures and interactive diagrams. Thankfully, none of these methods require him to physically draw!

Matt lives in Newcastle upon Tyne, with his wife, 3 year old son and labradoodle Archie. His favourite distractions from every day life are football, music, running, photography, pizza and beer (order dependant on the day in question!).

Richard Harrison

Principal Consultant Business Analyst

Rich has over 25 years experience in change and IT delivery, beginning his career as an application developer before finding his home in business analysis. He’s held permanent and contract positions in a number of different private and public sector organisations, spanning various industries.

He has a keen enthusiasm and experience for developing capability and talent, having been part of the practice leadership team at DWP Digital (c. 300 BAs) where among other initiatives he successfully designed and delivered an Associate BA Development Programme.

Rich lives in Sheffield along with his partner of over 25 years, and is a proud bridge owner. He’s into board games and tabletop role-playing games, and also enjoys other creative pass-times as well as being into his food and music.

Dan Ford

Principal Consultant Business Analyst

Dan’s years of varied admin and support experience in the private and public sectors before becoming a BA shaped his appreciation of the pain that comes from bad processes and poorly-defined problems.

Before joining Herd, he spent nine years in various roles at the University ofCambridge, gaining valuable experience in the UKHE sector as a BA, Senior BA and, most recently, as the Lead BA on a major transformation programme.

Dan enjoys unpicking complex problems and communicating them in a way that’s understandable and relatable. He’s prone to analogy and will not hesitate to draw to get a point across!

Dan’s enthusiastic about development and loves peer review and knowledge sharing across disciplines – he’s a big fan of the ‘power of the Herd’

Dan lives in Cambridgeshire with his wife and two girls, Helena and Reenie. He loves food, history, and languages and will attempt to speak Polish at any given opportunity. When he’s not doing that, he’s making up bad songs on his guitar, at the gym or, more realistically, just being a dad.

Connor Kennedy

Consultant Business Analyst

Connor started his career as a dog trainer, before originally moving into tech as a tester for a well known retailer, where he was responsible for the E2E testing of colleague and customer facing applications. Following this he quickly moved into business analysis, and worked in multiple areas ranging from reward applications and supplier portals, to logistic system transformations. Before joining Herd, Connor moved into the consulting space. This is where he found his true passion, where he was able to work with multiple charities, helping to guide them to implement meaningful, important change.

Connor is passionate about helping people start careers in tech. In the past year, he’s supported multiple individuals develop, network, and land their first roles in tech. Something that he’s keen to continue doing for many more years to come!

Connor lives just outside of Selby, North Yorkshire, with his soon to be wife, and miniature poodle (dog child) Ziggy. He loves staying active. Whenever he gets the chance, he will be out for walks with his family, at the gym, or jetting off somewhere for a week of sun, food and culture.

Casey Taylor

Business Manager

Having studied English at the University of Oxford, graduating in 2022, Casey then spent just over a year in a Sheffield-based marketing firm before joining Herd at the start of March 2024.

Casey lives in Sheffield and is one of the more common frequenters of Herd HQ. She is a lover of  theatre and live music (especially Taylor Swift) and spends most of her free time at shows or trying not to be trampled at gigs. She can often be found around Sheffield either in the pub or with a Béres pork sandwich in hand.

120yrs

Years Experience

5-350

Team Sizes Led

100+

Discoveries

30+

Organisations

7

Dogs
Just some of the places we’ve worked before joining herd

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