Ian Harris

Director, Z/Yen Group Limited, BA (Hons) FCA FBCS FIC CMC

Ian has a degree in Economics and Law from Keele University, and is a fellow of three Institutes: The Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Institute of Consulting and BCS The Chartered Institute for IT. Ian is a former chair of the judging panel for the National Payroll Giving Awards and a former chair of BCS's Ethics Group.

Prior to Z/Yen, Ian led Binder Hamlyn's management consultancy's financial management systems work. He co-founded Z/Yen in 1994. At Z/Yen, Ian specialises in strategic planning and systematic performance improvement in both the civil society sector practice (which he leads) and also commercial sectors.

Ian's Z/Yen client work includes reviews and strategies with The Church of England, UNISON, Moorfields, London Stock Exchange, Institute of Fundraising, PDSA, Charityshare, Barnardo's, National Trust, Marine Stewardship Council, Rethink, British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, NSPCC, British Red Cross Society, Action For Blind People, BEN, The Children’s Society, Macmillan Cancer Relief, WWF, Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, the General Social Care Council, PEFC, Deutsche Bank, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.

He regularly leads award-winning work, such as Charityshare’s partnership award, Ideal Hardware’s HR Award for its rewards framework, Marine Stewardship Council’s Best Practice award for its strategic planning and governance review and The Church of England's Energy Footprint Tool, which won an Innovation Of The Year award at the National Energy Awards in 2021.

Ian has been deploying machine learning-based predictive analytics in interesting ways for the civil society sector, including membership retention/recruitment, grant-making effectiveness and improving fundraising returns for nearly 20 years.

Ian is also a regular contributor of articles for the business and not-for-profit press and is co-author, together with Michael Mainelli, of the practical book "IT for the Not-for-Profit Sector", the best-selling novel "Clean Business Cuisine" and most recently the award-winning book The Price of Fish: A New Approach to Wicked Economics and Better Decisions.

Some of Ian's many articles can be found here.