Sticking with economics: Building a multidisciplinary economics practice

Economist Schellion Horn has 25 years’ experience working on complex economic issues around competition, regulation and policy. Across industries, she’s worked on market investigations, subsidy control and regulatory remedies, on an advisory and independent expert basis in matters before courts and tribunals. Starting with Big Four firms, Horn’s worked for a range of economic consultants but also spent some time in the NHS.  

She joined S&W this week as a Partner leading its economics team but continues in several trustee and non-executive roles, including public appointments with the Armed Forces Pay Review Body and the Upper Tribunal of the Tax and Chancery Chamber, where she focuses on Trade Remedies Authority appeals. She’s also a champion for the Royal Economic Society’s campaign promoting inclusivity in economics and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 5 Live and other media.  

Yes, I was the National Urgent Emergency Care Programme Director, putting in place long-term plans for supporting A&E and ambulance performance. Most of the time we were dealing with short-term problems, though – ambulances queued outside hospitals at 2am. I learnt a lot about balancing resources and the trade-offs between short-term and long-term interventions. After that, I moved to the Healthy London Partnership to professionalise and grow that organisation.  

I’m very much an economist by trade and training and have spent most of my career in economic consulting, but much of what I have done, even in the NHS, was economics, policy and strategy. I also really enjoyed effectively setting up a business with Healthy London Partnership, and the opportunity to do the same at S&W is part of what makes it so exciting.  I love being an economist and working with clients, but I also really enjoy setting up teams and bringing people together to solve larger-scale problems requiring a multidisciplinary skill set. In economic consulting, that’s very much been my focus, whether it has been advising the government on interventions or acting as an independent expert on complex commercial and competition disputes.  

In S&W, that means building the economics team but also connecting with people across the business. Working in a multidisciplinary firm means you can bring a range of skill sets to work on big, complex issues. That's what's exciting about the role. We’ve got a really strong group of economists to draw on, but also valuation experts, a forensic disputes team, financial services regulatory professionals, operational consultants and many others who will allow us to provide the breadth and depth of technical expertise our clients need. Increasingly, they are asking for more than just economists and want us to partner with those with deep industry and functional knowledge. 

It means, for example, that when we have a regulatory issue, competition dispute or other economic valuation, our contentious valuations expert and economists can work together and support each other. Or we can draw on our consulting expertise to advise on broader business issues our economics experts uncover.  

We’re building a full-service economics practice, so we'll provide both advisory and independent expert services to three key client groups.  

The first is public sector clients – working with central, devolved and local government, alongside economic regulators and arm’s-length bodies on policy, investigations and interventions. For example, we may advise on whether proposed investments provide good value for taxpayers and align with subsidy control requirements or setting price controls.   

The second is our legal channel: independent expert and advisory work on competition and commercial disputes and investigations. We’re seeing increased activity from the Competition and Markets Authority, particularly on consumer protection, and a growing number of group actions. These tend to be quantitative-heavy, and we can combine economics and econometric skill sets to focus on quantum, as well as work with our contentious valuations colleagues, ensuring we put the best expert forward. 

The third channel is our corporate clients. We'll be working with them to respond to competition or regulatory challenges or help them as they work alongside the government on policy. Increasingly, companies want help to understand the risk and growth environment:  how the geopolitical outlook, policy and regulatory risk impact them, and what they should be doing. Boards want a better understanding of early warning indicators and how these risks translate into company performance. We can help them build this into their board governance process.  

As part of that, we’re embedding deep industry expertise in our team. As well as bringing economic consulting experience, many of our economists have worked in industry or in government or regulators and bring experience from telecoms, water, healthcare and other regulated sectors.  

Yes, it began when I was contacted about a story that blew up about dynamic pricing for a concert by the band Oasis. The BBC asked if I could speak with them in the morning, so I began at 5 am and ended up doing about 30 interviews that day. 

That led to speaking on a range of competition issues, as well as the motor finance scandal, and eventually to a regular slot with Wake Up to Money on Friday. 

It’s a great opportunity to talk about economics, because it really does impact everything – from the allocation of healthcare resources and how much we pay for energy to redress for consumers when businesses don’t play by the rules - and how Oasis tickets are sold. I don’t think there is another profession where you get to work on such a range of matters, with such a range of entities, and that has such a direct impact on life.