We caught up with Saleem who leads our Delivery Excellence Service Line; which encompasses Moorhouse’s Programme & Project Leadership, Portfolio Optimisation and Assurance offerings. Saleem is passionate about continually improving the team and individual experience of achieving significant change together.
Tell us about your Moorhouse Journey
When I first joined Moorhouse (back in 2008), I was its 50th employee; I had previously worked in the big 4, and I thought I had had my fill of consulting. But I got to know of Moorhouse as a specialist PPM consultancy and knew I could continue to lead bigger, more complex change programmes with Moorhouse. I joined a firm which stated “we take our work seriously, but not ourselves” – and that’s exactly what I found! I was fortunate enough to be involved in some significant transformation programmes over several years and when I wanted to re-balance things for a few years with a young family I moved being a contractor always retaining a strong relationship with Moorhouse. Eventually, I moved to industry in a Head of Portfolio role within financial services, but then re-joined Moorhouse in December last year to lead our Delivery Excellence Service Line. The company I re-joined was much bigger, more successful, and more impactful for its clients and there were a sea of new faces, but somehow it had retained the vibrancy and togetherness I experienced all those years ago.
Why Delivery Excellence?
Delivery is the beating heart of Moorhouse, it’s in our DNA. Everyone in Moorhouse does ‘delivery’; and the company is full of brilliant delivery leaders at all levels. The Delivery Excellence Service Line encompasses our Portfolio Management, Programme Leadership & PMO offerings and Programme Assurance capability. I have a great role whereby I have the opportunity to ensure the Moorhouse delivery capability is best in class and support the Delivery Excellence team and the wider business fulfil exciting delivery roles. I believe that leading transformational delivery is some of the most exciting work a consultant can aspire to and achieve in their career. I’ve would describe leading a challenging Programme as akin to having a General Manager / mini-COO role – in that you have the opportunity to not only lead a team but to build a team culture, manage a budget, deal with various stakeholders, manage an array of suppliers and partners, to be involved in everything from cultural adoption of change through to priority bug fixes – and to be a part of getting something really significant over the line! My previous experiences of being in my ‘work zone’ have been when leading a major Programmes – and I love the fact that I can play a role in helping others in Moorhouse attain the same sorts of experiences.
What brought you back to Moorhouse?
First and foremost I missed working in a consulting environment with consulting people – which for me is an environment and culture of people genuinely interested in and getting stuck into solving complex client challenges – and then having the people skills to get things done and make a difference! And there is simply no better consulting environment and culture, that I have seen, than Moorhouse’s.
Finally, can you summarise your first month back at Moorhouse in 3 words?
Welcoming, inspiring and ‘the same-but-bigger’!