Have you ever wondered what a typical day looks like through the lens of those responsible for overseeing and optimising a company’s operational efficiency and strategic direction? Meet Dave Rush, or as he’s known in the office, Rushy, who in his capacity as Head of Business Strategy & Operations at Perform, will help us explore what drives the pulse of the business. Dave takes us through his evolution, sharing insights gained from years of industry experience and the pivotal decision to join the Perform family. Read on to uncover the stories that shape our thriving community.
What does your day-to-day look like?
Key part of the role is about making sure that the business operates efficiently and at a level that supports our current size whilst being flexible enough to scale. Most recently we have evolved the organisational structure and as a result part of my current focus is reviewing how the next iteration of our ways of working overlay.
Alongside this, and as part of our continuous review and improvement cycles, we have implemented a new process on how we manage our own internal business change through our Business Initiatives process. It’s important to us as a growing business that we provide a method for ideas to form from all areas of the business whilst applying some levels of prioritisation and structure to how those ideas form into fully fledged change. The process is around a month in and seems to have made a difference with plenty of scope for improvement.
Additionally, I continue to be involved in supporting our customers and am currently working as part of one of our teams in an operational design / ways of working initiative for one of our financial services customers. Some of this consultancy work has parallels with the work we are doing for ourselves as such it is good to see our methods translating into larger corporate environments as suggests our thinking can scale towards that level.
How long have you been with Perform Partners?
I joined Perform Partners in August 2022. Prior to that, I was working as an independent consultant. I had worked with Perform for about 3 years on that basis for some of our clients in the Real Money Gaming space and before that, I had worked with Paul and Shaun, two of our Co-Founders on other projects so, I had a good understanding of the personalities and their plans.
The time was right for a conversation around joining Perform on a permanent basis and having spent the majority of my career working in or with larger corporations I liked the direction that the guys were taking perform in from a culture perspective and could see the opportunity for me to add value in the role both from a Perform internal perspective but also our customers.
Has your role with Perform Partners evolved over time and if so, how?
When I first joined, I looked to put some overarching structure in place in key operational areas such as process design, risk management as well as how we would look to plan forward. The initial framework has moved on through various iterations and alongside this have started to build out the team. Cloë came on board around 12 months ago and we have looked to blend our time between moving the business operational methods forward and supporting customer projects predominantly in the analysis space.
How did you get started in the industry and what did you do before joining us?
I worked in a Financial Services organisation in an operational function as a bit of a Subject Matter Expert. As with most organisations, they began changing its systems and processes, and they needed someone who had the knowledge to help with testing and validating that the new go-to systems were going to provide the right capabilities which was me.
I was seconded into the Business Change team for 3-6 months, which introduced me to business analysis roles and really enjoyed the work to the point that when I went back to my other role, I spent the next 12 months trying to get back into that team.
I worked in this organisation until around 2007 when I took redundancy and quickly moved into a bit of a hybrid role in analysis and delivery with a company who I had been previously a partner.
This was one of the best learning periods of my career, the business provided services to larger corporates and my role evolved into one which needed a broader appreciation of how a business operates. These are valuable all experiences which I have started to call on now in my day to day. I had some great mentors who gave me the benefit of their experience and time, allowing me to learn a lot in a brief period.
I then moved into contracting, providing analysis and delivery management services. This was across a mix of transformational changes and regulatory and compliance initiatives across financial services, real money gaming and business process outsourcing.
Building onto that, has there been anyone in particular who inspired you to pursue the career that you have today?
Not one single individual more working with groups of people that recognised my potential and provided me with opportunities to develop, which has influenced where I have ended up. I have been fortunate to find good people who supported me, and this is something I am keen to promote in my own approach, aiming to offer support and coaching to my colleagues in areas I can help.
What is the best advice that you can give someone who’s just starting their career?
I’m a big fan of being prepared to learn from the people that you are working with and to learn by doing vs too much time in the classroom. Do not be scared to ask questions regardless. I see the culture of an organisation being key to this, so that the environment encourages people to learn, sometimes fail whilst learning, but supports the approach.
Certainly, in an analysis-type environment, you often end up being the person who has to be the first one to break the ground. So being comfortable with the fact that you might not get everything right the first time, but that you are willing to move the conversation on.
What’s your favourite part about working at Perform Partners?
I enjoy the fact that I am close to the overall objectives of the business, in that I understand very much what we are trying to achieve. That then means that I can zone in on where I can add value and ultimately, I think it helps me with my sense of purpose. You know how you can help, and you feel like you’re involved.
When I’ve worked in bigger organisations where there’s been a bit more of a corporate feel, you are potentially 3 or 4, if not several steps away from the real Why. If it doesn’t quite come down to you in the right manner, if you haven’t got the right leaders in between, then you may realise you don’t really know why you’re doing things and become quite disengaged.
I think this also transcends in to how we operate with our clients, we look to try and identify the Why early and promote that into the teams we work with.
In terms of successes, are there any accomplishments that you want to share that you’re proud of? Either work or personal.
Linked to the evolution of my role and the team forming, the area I am most proud of since joining Perform is how I have encouraged people within my team to develop by providing opportunities.
I had the opportunity to enable this when Cloë joined my team. Cloë was already in the business and looking at what her options were to develop her career. We settled on joining my team where the role provided primarily an opportunity to develop on the core skills of a business analyst whilst leveraging and strengthen on Cloë’s existing skill sets and knowledge of our business.
During the last 12 months from building an initial plan focused on working on Perform initiatives to taking on opportunities to develop whilst working on customers and with our partners. The entire process has I think added value to the business through developing our people, me as a manager who has had little previous experience of developing others, Cloë in terms of her own purpose and value to the organisation and finally challenged some perceptions around our ongoing people strategies.
What is the one word you would use to describe Perform Partners?
Supportive.
I think it has got two contexts to it from my perspective. The guys, from a leadership perspective, have provided me with the support to enable me to get going in my role with that autonomy to be allowed to do, but also feel like I can get the help I need.
Also Perform is very much a community who come together to support each other when needed, be it my peers, my direct team, or the broader group. A good example of this is back to the team development call out which has relied on support from internal and external parties who have gathered around the plan and helped it be a success.
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