Business
Every business and organisation needs, at some time or other, to bring fresh thinking and an independent view to a business matter. Rafford Consulting can offer that help, based on experience gathered in over sixty years of working in senior positions for one of the world’s best known consultancy firms, top London law firms and a FTSE 100 company, while, at the same time, helping run small and very small organisations.
So if your business is in need of a helping hand, contact us to discuss how we can help.
Not for Profit
From treasurer to auditor, from committee member to chairman, from churches to youth groups, housing associations to professional regulatory bodies, Rafford Consulting has experience of the specific challenges faced by the not for profit sector.
One of those challenges is creating effective organisational structures and processes. It is often felt that volunteers can not be required to follow guidelines on how to perform certain tasks, financial or otherwise, but the lack of process may actually be creating additional risks for those volunteers and staff. Creating and developing “business” processes for not for profit organisations requires tact, experience in risk management and understanding of the drivers behind the organisation and its resources, both financial and human – especially volunteers and staff. Rafford Consulting has the experience and skills to unravel the most complex issues.
If your organisation might benefit from a helping hand, talk to us and discuss how we can help. Sometimes it is possible to offer services pro bono but regrettably this can not always be the case.
Event Management and Tourism
As members of the organising committee of the highly acclaimed European Pipe Band Championships in Forres from 2013 to 2018 Peter and Joanna have used their business experience to help deliver six very successful events and been a key part of the development of Forres Events Ltd into an event management company with a well deserved reputation. Combining the experience they have now developed in this area of activity with their pre-existing understanding of business process and risk management Rafford Consulting is able to offer advice in event planning and management.
Through promoting Piping At Forres, and Moray, with Moray Speyside Tourism, working with the Forres Area Tourism Network to enhance inter-working between tourism businesses in the area and playing a role in the launch of Visit Moray Speyside as a Business Improvement District, Rafford Consulting has continued to develop its experience in the tourism sector.
Broadband and Economic Development
Broadband as a springboard for economic growth is a concept that Joanna is helping promulgate, together with the importance of understanding and addressing barriers to adoption, including digital exclusion.
Telecommunications
Joanna, Rafford Consulting’s managing director, was until December 2010 the Head of BT Global Services’ regulatory team; a vice-presidential role that underpinned BT’s activities in over 150 countries. The development of regulatory strategies to complement business objectives on a case by case basis was at the heart of her approach to regulation. Her experience in the theory and practical application of telecommunications regulation is immense. She was closely involved in the development and application of a range of regulatory issues including accounting separation, functional separation and margin squeeze tests.
She was Chairman of the European Competitive Telecoms Association (ECTA) Business Services group, which focuses on the potential benefits of competitively supplied ICT to companies and consumers and, prior to that, ECTA’s Regulatory Finance and Accounting Separation working group for a number of years. In both roles she was at the forefront of lobbying the European Commission on behalf of the European telecoms industry, not just BT, for the development and application of appropriate regulation. She developed and ran similar campaigns at local level with national regulators for BT worldwide.
Economic Pricing and Competition
Joanna has a keen appreciation of the importance of costing issues and the price cost relationship in markets where there is market dominance and very considerable experience in both the theory and the practical application of regulatory tools, such as functional separation, and economic competition law issues such as pricing. Market definition is critical to competition and regulatory issues and is also familiar territory to Joanna.
As a recognised expert in the concept and application of accounting separation as a regulatory mechanism for remedying market power, she was heavily involved in its development in the UK and, later, in Europe.
While her expertise was developed in the telecommunication sector this expertise is equally applicable in other sectors, wherever pricing might be an issue or access pricing or non-discrimination issues arise.
Insurance
Peter practiced law in the insurance sector after leaving the Bar in 1980 until his retirement in 2012, gaining a recognised international profile both as a litigator and a transactional lawyer. His clients included policyholders, insurers, reinsurers, underwriting agents and brokers. Their casework covered the whole range of activities of the insurance world, from start-up through sale, coverage and defence, down to managed insolvency, and from personal lines to heavy commercial casualty and product liability.
Reinsurance
Peter began his career in reinsurance in Paris, with the insolvency of the Oceanus P&I Club. The Insurance Corporation of Ireland and the tightening of DTI regulation of unregistered foreign reinsurers brought him back to London, where he dealt with many of the largest and most persistent issues of the reinsurance community; Lloyd’s, asbestos, schemes of arrangement and exit solutions for long-tail carriers have been at the heart of his practice.
Dispute Resolution
Peter has represented clients in most forms of formal and alternative dispute resolution, including arbitration, mediation and litigation, with hands-on direction and resolution of disputes before the courts and tribunals of many states, particularly in the UK, France, Germany, Scandinavia and the USA.