The leadership team
The CF team is led by healthcare experts — who offer a wealth of experience and provide strong leadership and direction across all our health systems, life sciences and data innovation projects.
Hannah Farrar
Chief Executive
Hannah Farrar
Since 2013, she has steered the development of CF to the award-winning organisation it is today. Building a company dedicated to improving healthcare through the delivery of management consulting and data services and products.
In supporting our clients, Hannah has an exceptional track record of motivating people and organisations to deliver transformational change. She provides in-depth experience of strategy development and delivery, organisational development and change, financial and economic analysis, building capability and motivation, and navigating complex local and national politics. She provides leadership across the breadth of our client services.
Prior to founding CF, Hannah was an executive in the NHS and has also held positions in the Department of Health. Hannah delivered major programmes of strategic change, including ‘Healthcare for London’ a system strategy for health and care in the capital, which is renowned for having delivered considerable improvements in services such as stroke and trauma care.
Hannah is a member of the Kings Fund General Advisory Council, a non-executive director for Lantum and a visiting professor at Imperial College London. Hannah is a co-author of the book Healthcare for London: Reflections on Leadership, Lessons and Legacy. And has been recognised as one of the top 100 women in healthcare leadership.
Ben Richardson
Managing Partner
Ben Richardson
Over the last two decades Ben has worked across with health systems and life sciences companies on multiple continents. He has worked from national to local levels of health systems on strategy, transformation and development. He has worked in many areas including primary care, diabetes, cardiovascular, cancer, mental health as well as population health management more broadly.
Since 2014 he has supported the development of CF as an award-winning healthcare company operating in management consulting and data services and products.
Over the past two years Ben has led CF work to use data to support the UK’s response to Covid, vaccination of the country, recovery and addressing health inequalities.
Ben’s main focus now is supporting life sciences companies with the uptake of innovation in health systems and in enabling the use of data and digital to transform care and improve outcomes.
Prior to CF, Ben was a Senior Partner at McKinsey, where he served healthcare clients all over the world and led Integrated Care across Europe.
Ben is originally from Canada, and studied at both Princeton and Harvard. Outside of his work, he is an occasional cyclist, a consistent wine enthusiast, and a lover of travel and spending time on the water and in the outdoors.
Jo Andrews
Partner & Chief Medical Officer
Jo Andrews
Jo has led clinical services at a regional level, necessitating broad stakeholder engagement, and major service reconfigurations across sites to achieve service sustainability and clinical standards.
At CF, Jo’s major areas of interest are clinical strategy development, pathway and transformation, and workforce planning. Engaging and developing clinical leaders is at the heart of his approach to each of these, and improving the lives of patients and staff in healthcare is what energises him at work.
Away from CF, Jo is a keen cook, enthusiastic member of his local amateur dramatic society and reluctant follower of Tottenham Hotspur. He lives in Sussex with his wife and adult sons, as well as an assortment of animals who regularly appear on conference calls.
Kevin Atkin
Partner
Kevin Atkin
A highly analytical, strategic thinker and change management leader with a drive to make real sustainable improvements in the organisations he supports. With over 20 years of organisational leadership experience, 15 of those within healthcare across the public and private sector. He has extensive experience of supporting organisations to change, including developing strategies, the redesign and reconfiguration of services and delivering operational change at local, regional and national levels. He is experienced in working across the healthcare landscape with leadership, clinical and operational teams alike.
Kevin thrives on working across whole systems and has recently been working with organisations within an ICS to balance community and mental health services to need, he has also supported at place level to implement PHM practical methodologies into PCNs and at a national level to support capacity evaluation of services at local, regional and national levels to support recovery.
Prior to joining CF Kevin worked in supply chain consultancy across Europe, and north and south America and in health consultancy for The Health Works, Finnamore, and GE Healthcare which have enabled him to work for many clients delivering operational change, people change and embedding the enabling technology. He has also worked as a Director in the NHS for 5 years at what is now a place and ICS region ultimately supporting a whole system reconfiguration.
Kevin is a keen cyclist, with the last year putting more miles on his bike than his car. Good for both his waistline and our commitment to being carbon neutral.
Phil Livingstone
Associate Partner
Phil Livingstone
Phil brings over 10 years of consulting experience working with NHS commissioners, providers and care systems. Phil has a particular interest in the development of Integrated Care Systems, working at place, provider collaborative and system-wide levels. He helps people connect population need with strategic priorities, care model design and collaborative working. He also supports work on population health management and organisational design. Phil also acted as a tutor on the NHS Leadership Academy, supported senior managers and clinical leads to develop their leadership capabilities.
Prior to CF Phil worked at KPMG in the UK advising NHS clients. He has a PhD in neuropharmacology and is a qualified management accountant.
Outside of work Phil enjoys running several times a week, getting through as many books as possible and travelling again now that the pandemic is receding.
Will Browne
Associate Partner – Data Science and Analytics
Will Browne
Will brings together the consulting toolkit with agile product management and data science to help CFs clients make better decisions with data. He brings over ten years of experience embedding statistics and machine learning in software solutions.
Will’s interests lie in democratising data to enable local decision makers to provide optimal care. He has lead the development of solutions for simulating hospital performance, demand and capacity planning for the pandemic and delivering equitable vaccine uptake.
Prior to CF will worked at BCG as a Senior Data scientists as well as two machine learning startups. He has BA in Physiological Sciences from the University of Oxford, an MSc in Medical Statistics from UCL and is an RSS Chartered Statistician.
Zahra Safarfashandi
Associate Partner
Zahra Safarfashandi
Prior to working at CF, Zahra was a core member of the Deloitte healthcare team working with regulators, providers and commissioners to deliver complex transformation programmes.
As a junior doctor with experience working in a clinical setting, designing and regulating healthcare apps and conducting pharmaceutical and clinical research, Zahra has developed a a good understanding of the multi-faceted challenges facing the NHS.
Her skills include strategy development, programme management and change management in addition to strong problem solving skills, communication skills and a broad knowledge of healthcare in the UK.
Feargus Murphy
Head of FP&A and Data Ops Lead
Feargus Murphy
Guy Cochrane
Senior Manager
Guy Cochrane
Libby Dixon
Senior Manager
Libby Dixon
Charlotte Osborne
Senior Manager
Charlotte Osborne
Asha Patel
Senior Manager
Asha Patel
Kaitlin Wolcott
Manager
Kaitlin Wolcott
Kaitlin is a Manager at CF with healthcare consulting experience in the UK and US. She has a background in strategic planning, organisational design, facility planning, and strategic partnerships and has worked for both national and system level clients. In her free time, Kaitlin enjoys running, skiing, watching cooking shows and traveling.
Joel Lever
Commercial Director
Joel Lever
Joel is responsible for the Business Development function at CF. He works with Partners and Principals to develop CF’s responses to competitive tenders and identifies potential new opportunities for the business.
Joel graduated from Cardiff University where he attained a BA in Business Management and Economics.
Joel previously participated in the management consulting graduate scheme at KPMG where he was focussed on finance transformations of FMCG and retail clients. Joel has held roles for a small consulting firm supporting telecom clients.
Kirsty McGuire
People and Operations Director
Kirsty McGuire
Kirsty is responsible for CF Corporate Operations, including overseeing governance for the company, the assistant function and facilities management. She works closely with the Chief Executive and Chairman to ensure that the strategy is being delivered effectively, with sound governance arrangements in place to achieve this.
Kirsty graduated from UCL where she attained a BSc in Human Sciences.
Kirsty has spent most of her career in the NHS, with roles ranging from clinical duties to private office roles. She joined CF permanently in 2017, after leading recruitment and development of the corporate team for the company on an interim basis during the period of rapid growth.
Evelina Butkute
Head of Recruitment
Evelina Butkute
She is passionate about equity, diversity, and inclusion, and creating a level playing field on opportunity for all. Evelina likes to ensure first-class candidate experience and
challenging the hiring status quo.
Outside of work, Evelina’s young family keeps her active and busy. She enjoys an occasional Zumba and is passionate about DIY and upcycling furniture.
Our Advisors
Mike Parish
Chair
Mike Parish
Currently, Chair of Care UK Health Care, Care UK Residential Care and Unity Schools Partnership Trust.
Previous non-executive roles: Chair of NHS Partners Network, Trustee of the NHS Confederation, Non-Executive Director of Sidra Medicine
Previous executive roles: Group CEO Care UK, Divisional CEO and CEO Europe for Exel Plc, Managing Director Tradeteam.
Anne Rainsberry
Advisor
Anne Rainsberry
Anne has over 35 years experience of working in all parts of the NHS. She’s held a variety of roles and was latterly a Chief Executive in London before moving to run the capital’s health system as Regional Director. Here she led a number of major service changes across the Capital including the reconfiguration of cancer and cardiac services across north east, north central London, Essex and Hertfordshire, the re-designation of a number of A&Es and the reconfiguration of both maternity and paediatric services. Working with the Mayor of London oversaw the development of a London wide health and care strategy which formed the basis for a new compact between health and local and city-wide government. She is widely credited with delivering the first devolution agreement for the capital focusing on new powers to release estate, transform local communities and drive integration between health and care. Anne was awarded a CBE in the 2017 New Year’s Honours for services to the NHS.
She has an interest in organisational culture, design, development and has led many large organisational change programmes within the NHS, as well as undertaking research in the area of organisational culture and its impact on successful change.
Anne current works as an independent consultant and is a fully accredited executive coach.
Matthew Swindells
Advisor
Matthew Swindells
Matthew is the Chair of the Board for the four acute hospitals that make up the the North West London Acute Collaborative – Chelsea and Westminster Foundation Trust, Hillingdon Foundation Trust, Imperial College Hospital Trust and London North West Hospital Trust. He also runs his own consultancy, MJS Healthcare Consulting, through which he provides strategic advice on digital transformation in global healthcare to a small number of innovative companies.
He has spent his entire career in healthcare, most recently as Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer for the NHS in England. In this role he led the NHS’s operational management, emergency response, major transformation programmes and the creation of Integrated Care Systems, to move the NHS away from a market system towards population health management. He was also responsible for the development of the NHS’s digital strategy and launch of the NHS app, which enables people to access their GP health record and provides the national vaccine passport.
Vernon Baxter
Advisor
Vernon Baxter
Vernon has an extensive background in the UK’s health and social care investment market, reporting on UK M&A activity for over 15 years and convening major industry events. With a network spanning health investors, executives, funders and advisors he previously led Investor Publishing and HealthInvestor UK for over a decade.
Vernon is a health investing specialist at CF, connecting leaders in private equity, healthcare and banking with the team at CF. Vernon brings extensive market intelligence to the team, who advise clients on commercial and operational due diligence, value creation and growth strategy. Vernon also advises a range of stakeholders across health and social care, including HolonIQ, a leading provider of global impact intelligence, having established its healthcare division in 2022.
Dorinda Hickey
Advisor
Dorinda Hickey
Dorinda has over 15 years’ consulting experience as a market access specialist; with expertise in pharmaceutical pricing and reimbursement, healthcare policy analysis, advocacy, payer engagement and value communications.
Prior to consulting Dorinda had a long career at Novartis where she held positions in business unit and country management, including Head of Oncology and Dermatology for Novartis UK, Head of Business Intelligence and Director of Healthcare Marketing. She has broad consulting and corporate experience in market access, marketing strategy and clinical development in a variety of therapy areas including Haematology, Endocrinology, Neurology, Mental Health, Respiratory Medicine, Cardiology, Organ Transplantation and Infectious Diseases.
Dorinda has developed industry leading mass market promotional campaigns and award winning programmes in the areas of Dermatology and Sexual Health. She has an MSc in Health Economics from the London School of Economics and a PhD in Haematology from Trinity College Dublin.
