Information Technology category winner
Will Cooper/Ernst & Young

Will Cooper has spent the past two years working on a multibillion-pound IT project for the Government. He cannot disclose details of the scheme but says: “It’s big, it’s complex and it’s going to impact on millions of people, which makes it exciting. We have set very clear objectives because. in a project of this kind, it is only outcomes that matter.”

Cooper, 34, director of UK and Ireland advisory services for Ernst & Young, is managing a team of IT consultants and advising an executive board of high-ranking civil servants on the procurement, outsourcing and delivery of the information online.

He was made a director by Ernst & Young last year in recognition of his success in running one of the company’s biggest consultancy contracts and for a positive and smoothly run client relationship. In addition to his role in fulfilling the government contract, he is responsible for the learning and career development of Ernst & Young’s 110 IT advisory staff.

Cooper loves his job. He says: “I joined Ernst & Young in 2007 to help to set up a new advisory business. It is different from the big systems integration that most of the big consultancies do. It is a client-side advisory role, which I enjoy.”

He had started out on a different path. After graduating in 1997 with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Birmingham, he appeared to be heading for a safe, predictable technical career. He had applied for a job with a petrochemical company when a friend persuaded him to go on a four-day consultancy taster with Arthur Andersen. The experience was enough to inspire a passion for problem solving and building client relationships. Cooper says: “Engineers make good consultants. They have this inquisitiveness about how things work; they love getting to the root of problems and fixing them.”

He spent the next nine years at Andersen, subsequently Accenture, where he was promoted to lead major IT transformation projects, learning at first hand how businesses operate and the impact technology can have on improving the bottom line.

“To be a good IT consultant you have to understand how businesses operate and to know what drives them,” he says.

“You start with a vision. Companies commonly make the mistake of putting the technology first and overcomplicating things. In my experience IT should support the process, not drive it.”

Cooper recalls that the biggest achievement in his early career was leading an IT transformation project for a UK food manufacturer. Managing a team of six IT engineers, he set about introducing new systems and processes, including the implementation of a company-wide training programme to re-educate staff in how to use a new operating system.

“Over the space of 18 months the company transformed the way it was doing business and was building relationships right across Europe. I learnt some very valuable lessons about how to build relationships at all levels and how to get decisions made. It was a huge learning curve for me.”

Winning the Consultant of the Year award, Cooper says, would be a major feather in his cap.

He says: “If I were to win, I would be delighted and grateful. But you have to remember it is not all down to you. It is down to the people you work with and to your clients. You can really only do good things if your clients support you.”

If there is one simple message from Cooper, it is about the power of relationships. To be an outstanding consultant demands passion and the willingness to go the extra mile: “You are not going to succeed simply by being very good at what you do. It is about the relationships you build.”

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