The BHF is entering a pivotal phase, midway through a major transformation, as it launches its strategy for 2030. Technology is central to accelerating impact, particularly through data, digital and AI. The organisation must deliver a complex, in-flight programme built on Microsoft platforms, while supporting a diverse operating model that spans retail, fundraising, and research. With the CTO departing, the immediate challenge was to maintain momentum, manage risk and ensure adoption.
This was a true stabilise and deliver mandate, not a placeholder. The individual needed to step in quickly, take control of a live, high-stakes transformation, and build trust at the executive and board level. The scale was significant, with a 220-person technology function, and a complex operating model spanning a 700-store retail estate, fundraising, medical and research, and digital products. In reality, the British Heart Foundation operates more like a mid-sized enterprise with multiple business models than a typical charity. This was not strategy design; it was execution, integration, and value realisation. At its core, the role was about holding the organisation steady, ensuring transformation delivered, and translating technology into fundraising impact. It required credibility, judgement, and leadership, someone who could combine grip and empathy, not one or the other.
Savannah delivered a detailed market analysis, mapping the shape and depth of the interim talent pool and identifying a number of high-calibre, relevant profiles. We focused on targeted engagement and rigorous screening, ensuring only the most credible and well-aligned candidates were introduced into the process. This enabled the client to build a strong shortlist of aspirational individuals, combining proven delivery track records with a blend of permanent leadership experience and high-impact interim assignments.
At a pivotal moment, securing a leader to stabilise and support the organisation was critical. Savannah’s blended search approach, combining executive search with direct sourcing, produced a high-calibre technology leader who has been able to convert seamlessly to a permanent hire, ensuring strong leadership through a complex transformation agenda.
Key achievements of hire:
– Successfully delivering a full POS rollout across around 660 stores, completing it on time and on budget, which is rare at this scale and complexity.
– Stabilising and progressing a multi-stream transformation programme, advancing finance, CRM and martech workstreams in parallel with clear structure and momentum.
– Establishing an effective partner-led delivery model, including mobilising a martech managed service with a Big 4 consulting partner.
– Strengthening leadership capability by reorganising underperforming areas, making decisive changes, and securing a senior enterprise and data architecture hire.
– Driving meaningful AI adoption at scale through the rollout of Microsoft Copilot, embedding practical usage across the organisation, alongside delivering tangible AI use cases in retail and operations, and introducing stronger governance around data and AI.
– The CTO remains at BHF, having decided to continue beyond the interim term, providing valuable continuity and stability for the organisation.
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