Bill West

"Bill is a founding partner of QFI. Bill's working career, for the first twenty years, was in the financial services industry, starting with Hambro Life which later became part of Zurich Financial Services, where he applied many of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) applications into all areas of the business. It was through the success of these TOC implementations that Bill became convinced of the power and applicability of TOC in the service industry.

"During these years Bill held many different positions. As the sales and planning director, he built a strategic approach based on TOC principles which when implemented led to a significant increase in production. As the director of sales operations he led the implementation of the £80m acquisition of Abbey Life sales force. Bill also led a £20m project to re-brand the organisation, requiring changes to more than 200 computer systems, several hundred branch premises and many thousands of documents. In 2002, Bill was appointed to the management board for the Zurich Life businesses in the UK, where his responsibilities were extended to include sales operations and the corporate development programme where TOC featured heavily in his thinking.

"Bill has been involved in the Theory of Constraints for nearly two decades, including several years with Goldratt Consulting under the Chairmanship of Dr Eliyahu M. Goldratt where Bill was involved in the thinking and development of TOC at a global level. Bill has participated in many developments of TOC applications in healthcare and other industries. He is a certified TOC practitioner in operations management, project management, strategy and the TOC Thinking Processes.

"Bill is involved in many of the QFI TOC implementations and developments in healthcare and financial services. His consulting work has included a national financial services organisation, Zurich Financial Services and AXA, many NHS implementations including as programme lead for the development and delivery of a new model for community healthcare management. He has also worked in other industries including charity organisations such as the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) where, working also with the King’s Fund, Bill facilitated a workshop process that led to proposals for new models of maternity provision for the UK. "