Chartered Manager of the Year 2022

‘I have had an incredible executive career as a Chartered Manager supporting global workforce skills, development and leadership across industries and sectors.

The last 9 years have been tremendous with the opportunity to work with Lord Ara Darzi as a small specialist team, developing a world class health care service. Ensuring international quality standards for positive patient care and outcomes in Qatar.

The Chartership has enabled me to be a trusted advocate to the local executive team here in Qatar. Working closely with passionate and dedicated leaders who value credible expertise and guidance in contributing to vision of Qatar in an inclusive and responsive quality health system. Engaging patients to be part of health care decisions, service improvements and enhancements, and to support community wellness and wellbeing. I am grateful to lead on world first national programs, supported by strategic partners, strong academic and professional body relationships.

Qatar has outperformed in how health teams responded to COVID-19, evidenced by our high vaccination rates and low mortality rates, as advocated by WHO. This was made possible by a strong leadership team, working closely with the Ministry of Public Health and health organizations. Following COVID-19, we continue to work as a strong team to ensure that our health care services are ready for Qatar to host the FIFA World Cup 2022!

I believe everyone has leadership capability. Everyone should have the opportunity to be part of, be developed and be nurtured as inspiring champions for health care improvement or industry change.

The Chartered Manager provides strong and reputable credential, championing continuous professional development, quality management standards and evidence based practice. It is a strong resource for management growth and learning from the reflective experiences shared. Establishing thought leadership with a global network of management professionals representing every sector!’

After graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in Natural Sciences I have navigated various roles in universities, mostly at Keele University. I am currently responsible for the Faculty of Medicine and Health postgraduate portfolio and for the Faculty’s enterprise, commercial, and portfolio development work. I have worked in a range of roles across the University and some early career highlights include running a national pilot project to improve widening participation which I presented nationally and published as a book chapter. Whilst working in the Medical School I set up a sector leading patient and public involvement strategy and a patient feedback system which were both presented nationally. My early roles included managing a suite of events aiming to raise aspirations of young people, managing international agent and partner university relationships and running community placements for medical students. More recently I have delivered a new Faculty of Natural Sciences staffing structure, led workstreams in the implementation of a £34m Central Sciences Laboratory, supported the Faculty through its Covid response and led a transformation project for the Foundation Year.

I am committed to professional development and continuous learning with the aims of driving performance, making a difference and helping my organisation to thrive in the rapidly changing sector of Higher Education. I am a newly qualified Chartered Manager recently achieving accreditation with Distinction. This was accompanied by an MBA Senior Leadership where I also achieved 80% and a Distinction. Outside of work I enjoy tennis, reading, walking and looking after my pet chickens including Clarence the cockerel.

Currently, Riwilo is a Permitting Team Leader in Environment Agency’s National Permitting Service (NPS). He supports and leads a team that facilitates UK businesses and landholders to use water resources sustainably whilst minimising impacts on the environment, people, and wildlife.

Riwilo is a strong supporter of equity of personal development opportunities. He currently leads the Water Resources Licensing Service’s Training and Development group that focuses on ensuring that the Licencing Service has skills to always deliver required tasks.

Riwilo is also part of a 3-member committee that was instrumental in forming his Department’s Technical Leadership Forum, which is a platform that promotes networking and sharing of knowledge and best practice amongst the Department’s 150 technical leaders.

Riwilo was awarded the Environment Agency’s Local Recognition Award for leading the National Permitting Service’s Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Group to devise an inclusive selection criteria and process, within a constrained timeframe, that was fair to everyone who aspired to develop as a leader.

Riwilo is an environmental management expert, with international experience on sustainability, having worked in various roles within environment management sectors in Zimbabwe where he grew up, in Southern Africa and UK.

Because of his international experience and exposure, Riwilo has developed an interest on social environmental justice; good governance and leadership ethics.

He volunteered to be an Advisor to the People Group in his Department. This a self-run group administered by staff for staff, comprising mostly managers and representatives of various business units. It is sponsored by one of the Departmental Deputy Directors. As an Advisor, Riwilo offer a unique perspective to the group, helping to challenge status quo, perceptions and provide support and learning by sharing experiences and information.

Riwilo embraced CMI’s guidance “Moving the Dial on Race” and Environment Agency’s Race Action Plan and used his transformational and inclusive leadership to make the recruitment process used by the Environment Agency’s National Permitting Services’ more inclusive, better for attracting people from across society and in the long term have a positive impact on performance, productivity, and social justice.

Because of the changes and improvements that he led on; the recruitment campaign set precedence on attracting one of the most diverse range of applicants for a similar role. So successful was the recruitment process such that the successful cohort proportionally represented UK’s working age population and protected characteristics.

To share experiences and lessons learnt, Riwilo partnered with colleagues to present masterclasses on inclusive recruitment where he shared his experiences on how to make organizational cultural changes by embedding improvements that attract diverse talent and help Environment Agency serve its diverse customers.

Riwilo is one of the recently qualified Chartered Managers. As part of his executive leadership development, he completed a Master of Business Administration degree at Nottingham Business School, where he received Business School’s Dean’s Award of Academic Excellence for his reflections on how various leadership styles in Environment Agency impact on staff motivation.

He attained a CMI Level 7 Diploma in Strategic Leadership and Management.

He has also previously been awarded the Chevening Scholarship, the UK government’s global scholarship programme, funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and partner organisations, which allowed him to study for M.Sc. in Wildlife Management at University of Reading in U.K.

Captain Allan Youp is a senior leader in the Royal Navy with over 25 years of leadership and management experience across a multitude of complex environments. His current role as the Head of Solent Maritime Enterprise Zone is fundamental to the Royal Navy's contribution to the regional prosperity agenda as well as supporting levelling up within maritime communities. This is being achieved through the mantra 'Connect. Collaborate. Deliver.' bringing together the Royal Navy, industry, small and medium-sized enterprises, academia and government to tackle key maritime challenges. Given its regional success, this maritime enterprise initiative is being expanded nationally to support other coastal communities around the UK, with a focus on innovation, skills, and sustainability. Previously, Allan was the head of the Royal Navy’s Learning & Development Organisation responsible for policy, L&D delivery across the UK and abroad, and the award winning apprenticeship programme, which was assessed as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted.

A life-long learner, Allan holds both Chartered Manager FCMI and Chartered Fellow CIPD status, is a qualified teacher, coach, mentor, programme manager and management consultant underpinned by an MBA, and an MSc in Training Management and Consultancy.

Outside of work he is a keen triathlete, coaching youths and competing, most notably representing the UK Military at the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii in 2019.