Meet the Herd
We’re a friendly bunch, here you can find out a bit about each of us.
Jamie Toyne | Founder & CEO
About
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.
Experience
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. Recently as 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.
Christina Lovelock | Director of Community
About
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!
Experience
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.
Scott Colfer | Director of Product
About
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.
Experience
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.
Matt Cameron | Principal Consultant Business Analyst
About
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!).
Experience
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!
Richard Harrison | Principal Consultant Business Analyst
About
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.
Experience
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 recently held a practice lead position at DWP Digital (c. 300 BAs) where among other initiatives he successfully designed and delivered an Associate BA Development Programme.
Sinead Torley | Principal Consultant Business Analyst
About
Sinead lives in West Cumbria, near the Lake District with her husband, 2 children and their black & white whippet, Kevin! She enjoys coffee, wine, baking, and has recently bought a paddleboard to better explore the Lakes.
Experience
Sinead has 20 years experience of working in IT projects and business change in the public sector. Starting out in a testing role, then involved in developing and implementing Government E-channel services, before formally moving into the Business Analysis profession almost 9 years ago. She introduced and embedded the BA Service framework in her previous organisation, continuously improving the BA Service offered. Also an experienced leader, she’s enjoyed developing new Apprentice BAs.
Sinead is enthusiastic and passionate about business analysis and the value that it can bring to organisations, as well as being a BCS member, and mentoring through the IIBA mentorship programme.
Andrei Gulevskis | Senior Consultant Business Analyst (Associate)
About
Andrei has been working as a business analyst for over 7 years. He started his business analysis career within the Supply Chain Management sector, moving into Higher Education and then into consulting and contracting work. With experience in public and private sectors, as well as working with clients in various areas such as manufacturing, engineering, pharmaceutical, medical, recruitment, software development, scientific research and delivering projects of all shapes and sizes, Andrei has a deep knowledge of business analysis and how to correctly apply it to deliver excellent results in any situation.
Connor Kennedy | Consultant Business Analyst
About
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.
Experience
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!
We’re experienced BA and digital leaders, having grown and led practices of 5-300, across different sectors including Telecoms, Financial Services and Central Government.
We’re passionate about attracting and developing new people into digital. We’ve designed internal academies, launched multiple apprenticeship cohorts and we’re an active member in helping to shape the BA Apprenticeship standard in England.
We believe in the power of communities of practice, having both introduced new ones and matured existing ones.
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