Rob Wherrett
Fellow @Royal Society of Arts
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WORK HISTORY
Fellow @Royal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges.Having been elected a Fellow in 1996 I got involved in a number of initiatives to promote human well-being. For several years I have been the Chairman - RSA Fellows\' Well-Being Network. We work to bring together partner organisations to develop health improvements and promote social justice. Included in this we have enabled various university research projects to go ahead - including sponsoring projects in the Erasmus Program at Glasgow Caledonian University.Having helped set it up I was also Chairman of the RSA Scotland Venture Fund which promoted seed funding for Fellow-led projects. The idea continues via the RSA\'s Catalyst Fund which took up the model and expanded it internationally.Overall there\'s been quite a lot of Project Management of various initiatives to improve social well-being and initiate change. In 2006 I also effectively acted as Management Consultant to the Scotland Committee on restructuring, with a view to producing more worthwhile outcomes rather than just running lecture series.I continue to intervene and support wherever appropriate. It\'s a good way of putting something back into society. The great thing is that it also opens a few doors to get conversations started.
EDUCATION
The Open University
MBA, Creativity Innovation & Change
University of St Andrews
Bachelor of Science (BSc), Life Sciences
SKILLS
ABOUT ROB WHERRETT
It\'s all about getting change and transformation right first time. Helping clients identify the REAL problems that underlie the ones they think they have and then designing great solutions.Early in my career I had a series of roles taking me to different parts of the UK and internationally. I saw on the one hand how not to over-expand a business and on the other how to build complex products that were understandable.Years later I was head-hunted to work in the marketing department of a blue-chip financial services business. I designed profitable products that were both market leaders and, importantly, were easy for the customers to understand.I’ve also worked in project & program management, consulting with a wide variety of organisations, ranging from Central Government and blue-chip companies to micro-businesses: • Financial Services • Construction • Manufacturing • Telecoms • Hospitality • Retail. The story was always the same - I was asked to take over the things that were going wrong or were proving too difficult for others to deal with. As a result that meant I developed a range of tools and techniques that never fail.For 16 years I was also a visiting fellow teaching the Management of Creativity Innovation & Change on a triple-accredited MBA program, running workshops on how to combine theory with context to make things happen in practice.If you do all that stuff it becomes ingrained. Add that to the project & program experience and it’s an unstoppable combination.So where do you look for help with this stuff? It’s never easy to find the right pragmatic advice. Add to that the costs of hiring the wrong consultants and the bill can outweigh the benefits. So I have worked out ways to deal with all those challenges and more - it’s very powerful.I’ve prevented a multinational business driving itself off a cliff. Shown SMEs how to plan for certainty. Turned around a huge mail order business that was failing badly. Oh, and the 10 million people? As panel adviser to the former UK DTI I was asked to talk to the Department of Work & Pensions about the design of a new pension scheme to work alongside the State Pension.In my own experience people always find an excuse to spend their money on something immediate and push saving to the back of the queue, so I told them to make it compulsory rather than wasting money on huge incentives that would have had negligible effect.No-one else had suggested that this should be the way forward. So to all those millions of working people - “Happy Retirement when it comes!”Want help? Give me a call.
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