Richard Stones

An interim Change & Transformation Director with over 20 years’ experience leading complex strategic transformation, change and turnaround projects impacting people, process and technology.

A specialist in implementing large-scale business wide change to release £multi-million cost and operational savings across FTSE 250 companies within the Financial Services sector including NatWest Group, Direct Line Group and Lloyds Banking Group.

Interim Skills Summary  

Interim Career & achievements 

Health Shield Friendly Society 

Interim Director of Transformation                                                                                           Nov 2021 to Apr 2023

Recommended to the Board initially to assess the existing Change Portfolio and prepare a detailed report with recommendations for critical reform. Subsequently invited to accept a new role to lead the resulting £10m Transformation Programme encompassing People, Process & Technology. Member of the executive team, with a dotted line into the Chair of the Board.

• Influenced the Board and Executive Team in understanding and accepting the need for a refreshed business strategy and the need for a full-blown business wide transformation.
• Analysed the current state of the business, mapped the existing operating model and business architecture. Identified 90+ pain points, cost drivers, bringing to life inefficiencies, waste and complexities.
• Designed, built and led a £10m business wide transformation programme impacting people, process and technology from the ground up including a 'to be' target operating model and blueprint to reassert Health Shield as the leading UK cash plan provider. Re-engineering all business processes to remove waste and increase efficiencies.
  • Designed the Programme Structure with roles and responsibilities and recruited a suitably skilled Programme team, including a Project Management Office and workstream structure to support delivery of the agreed outcomes.
  • Successfully managed the overall programme budget consistently coming in under budget across each phase.
  • Developed future systems architecture and digital capabilities, including automation and mobile apps.
  • Identified opportunities to reduce Net Premium Income from 36% to within 25%. 
  • Led a £4.5m technology RFP, establishing Salesforce as the platform and appointed a partner.
• Translated findings into revised vision/targets, identified £7m of benefits & formulated a case for change. 
• Swiftly delivered >25 ‘quick wins’ to obtain wider business buy-in and drive momentum; cut process cycle times by three days, hand offs by 50%, banked savings of c£230k, increased multi-skilling by 20% and reduced downtime by 35%. 
• Pioneered a Digital Portal app securing >£1m worth of business with new clients and renewals, an interim solution and pilot ahead of the full transformation programme. 
• Revolutionised the change management capability introducing a new change governance framework, portfolio management office and equipped the business to land change successfully and repeatedly.
• Decreased the number of non-value add projects by 50%, saving £1.2m, undertaking a comprehensive review and introduced a prioritisation method and approach. Reduced the number of small change tickets by 64% and reduced the overall number of contractor resources saving £735k.
• Provided leadership and oversight of all Business-as-Usual change, including regulatory projects, PROD 4 (product governance) and consumer duty, all delivered on time and within budget.

NatWest Group

Interim Head of Change Delivery & Portfolio Management                                                 Nov 2018 to Sep 2021

Headhunted to create a new delivery function to oversee a £multi-million portfolio of programmes, projects and digital change initiatives incorporating 7 centres of excellence. Leading a global team responsible for unlocking >£75m in benefits across the bank. Accountable for delivery, embedding governance and control, generating robust roadmaps and presenting valuable insights to senior stakeholders, outlining methods to increase efficiency, drive down costs and accelerate deliverables.

• Initiated and headed up delivery of a portfolio of change initiatives worth c£98m from 2019-2020, on time, within budget and attaining quality metrics.
• Repeatedly achieved month on month cost forecast variance targets of +/- 5% and increased resource utilisation >80%. 
• Transformed the Portfolio Management Office (PMO) and outlined innovative structure for Enterprise Engineering including, stakeholder engagement, roles and responsibilities and sourcing of high calibre talent.
• Successfully designed & implemented robust processes, controls and guides aligned to a more controlling, proactive, value add PMO able to challenge quality of deliverables and providing insight to support senior management decision making.
• Challenged the effectiveness of programme steering groups and relaunched to ensure more decision focused with correct membership including clear responsibilities of the programme sponsors.
• Transformed MI reporting resulting in a radical improvement in reporting of insight, trends, and analysis.
• Played a lead role in the move to adopting idea to value and agile methodologies.

Directline Group

Interim Head of Business Change                                                                                                May 2016 to Aug 18

Reported to the MD Personal Lines, responsible for leading the Personal Lines Change Agenda, across Pricing & Underwriting, Marketing, Digital, Home, Motor, Partnerships, Pet, Travel, Rescue & the Contact Centre Change Team. Removed waste, increased efficiencies, reduced manual intervention, explored automation, and introduced cutting-edge technologies (Artificial Intelligence, robotics), as part of the overall digital strategy & customer experience enhancement. Senior Leadership Team Member, overseeing 3 Functional Heads, 20 managers, plus PMO, project & programme managers and business analysts. 

• Successfully managed a £45m change budget across the Personal Lines directorate including mandatory/regulatory, contractual and strategic change initiatives.
• Built a new enterprise change function/operating model in support of 60 Programmes/Projects impacting people, process and technology. Created the team structure, portfolio management office (PMO), change framework, governance processes, insight reporting and change governance forums.
• Set the benchmark for team engagement at >90% for 2 consecutive years. 
• Chaired the Change Board alongside other senior leaders up to Board level, to review delivery progress, RAID analysis, programme financials and benefit delivery.
• Directed a series of transformation programmes, focusing on driving customer benefit and reducing Contact Centre costs. Designed and owned the change roadmap.
  • Successfully implemented Speech & Data Analytics across six UK Contact Centres and 2 offshore to transcribe voice calls to text, realised £1.5m in savings within the first year, with a further £3m projected. 
  • Back-office Robotics Automation: Reduced offshore headcount to save £1.5m, with £800k in Phase 2. 
  • Led the self-service strategy for Directline Group realising >£10m of business benefits, driving automation and elevation of online customer experience, underpinned by web chat, robotics automation and artificial intelligence.
  • Virtual Assistant using AI: Led the design, supplier on-boarding process, development and delivery of a virtual assistant using artificial intelligence to drive increased adoption rates and keep customers on the digital channel of choice. adoption rates were >15% and ahead of plan in just month 3.

Directline Group

Interim Programme Director – Contact Centre Workstream                                                Jan 2014 to Feb 2016

Lead player in the Contact Centre workstream of a £300m business-wide Transformation Programme, focused on revolutionising insurance and transforming the entire business, touching People, Process and Technology.

• Identified £30m of revenue generation benefits and £20m of cost savings.
• Defined and developed a refreshed set of brand and channel strategies, re-engineered all customer touch points to remove waste, increase efficiency. Increased agent multi-skilling and designed and developed a customer centric culture.
• Implemented new technologies to support an omni-channel vision influencing people, processes and technology, incorporating Salesforce CRM/Single View of Customer, Guidewire, telephony, web chat, social media, robotics process automation and digital self-service capabilities.
• Successfully implemented a target new operating model and CRM platform (Salesforce) affecting 3,500 FTEs, reduced Call Wait Times by 7%, Net Workload Reduction by 5% and Telephony Conversion +4%.
• Dramatically improved New Promoter Score (NPS) by 6% through the implementation of Brand Alignment Activity, trained call centre staff to handle multiple enquiries via Universal Agent concept.

Directline Group

Interim Head of Contact Centre Strategy                                                                                Mar 2013 to Dec 2013

1. Headhunted by the Chief Customer Officer to lead on the development of the future contact centre strategy and the move away from siloed channels to multi-channel and then omni-channel. Acted as the contact centre subject matter expert.

• Outlined a business case to inject new technologies into the business and three new capabilities, with around £7m in benefits within three years, and £15m over five years, and this involved a series of changes/transformations:
  • Generated £18.4m savings over 3 years implementing a cloud-based AVAYA Telephony solution.
  • Reduced the calls abandoning in the IVR by circa 10% on main own brands.
  • Simplified inbound telephony call steerage IVR & reduced customer times by 75 secs, 8% decrease in call transfers.
  • Reduced telephony skills from 90 down to 20, increasing efficiencies and balancing service levels. 
  • Supported the Operations Director in the reduction of attrition rates by 8%, increased recruitment fill rates up to 22% this removed £2m in planned recruitment. 

Coventry Building Society

Interim Contact Centre Lead                                                                                                      Nov 2011 to Dec 2012

1. Recommended to the Chief Operating Officer to conduct an end-to-end review of Business Operations, People, Process and Technology, identifying opportunities to streamline the business, increase efficiency, remove waste and save cost. A specific focus areas were the operating model and to look at how they forecast all operational workload and effectively plan and align resources to meet customer demand to achieve service level agreements.

• Reduced Staff Costs by £1.2m through the introduction of a work allocation tool to increase the number of automated tasks and the implementation of an adherence tool to track worked hours.
• Increased overall automation across operations by circa 45% from 5% and reduced lost hours by 20%.
• Achieved service level targets for mortgage applications (15% increase on prior years) during peak, doubling the flexible resources available and increasing the level of multi-skilling in the department.
• Reduced mortgage application processing costs by £6, and increased mortgage clearance rates by 30%. 
• Identified savings of £3.5m over 5 years to introduce a new workforce planning tool.

Lloyds Banking Group

Interim Resource Planning Lead                                                                                                Apr 2010 to Nov 2011

1. Headhunted into the role to lead the design and build of a new resource planning function for the internal IT service desk following the merger between Lloyds and HBOS. Consolidating the two service desks, the largest UK in-sourced service desk, and reduced FTEs from 1,200 to 650.

• Delivered a new resource planning capability, and increased agent productivity by 10%, reduced abandoned calls by 5% and increased multi skilling by 40%, driving greater levels of efficiency.
• Identified 50,000 worth of avoidable calls saving £200k through the implementation of self-service and automation.
• Recommended a further £400k of cost saving opportunities to the Executive Team through further changes to the operating model and utilisation of technology to support back-office activities.
• Implemented a new set of key performance indicators, balanced scorecard and baselined all reporting metrics. 

Early Career

• 2006 – 2010:         Head of Resource Planning, Freemans Grattan Holdings Ltd
• 2006 – 2006:         Head of Resource Planning, MyTravel
• 2004 – 2006:         Head of Resource Planning, Capita

Qualifications & Certifications 

BSc (Hons) Computer Studies, Leeds Beckett University 

BTEC National Diploma in Computer Studies, Airedale & Wharfedale College

Training

Degree in Computer Studies. 2:2.