HG Welcomes Emma Hay

31 Aug 2026

We are delighted to welcome Emma Hay to HardyGroup as Principal Consultant – Medical Specialist, bringing extensive healthcare experience across clinical practice, governance, quality and risk, organisational improvement and healthcare transformation.

Emma’s career has spanned acute, peri-operative, community and specialist healthcare environments, working closely with executives, clinicians and multidisciplinary teams. This breadth of experience has given her a strong understanding of the complex leadership, workforce and operational challenges facing healthcare organisations today.

We recently caught up with Emma to learn a little more about her career journey, what attracted her to HG and what she is looking forward to in this next chapter.

My career journey has been shaped by a combination of clinical experience, healthcare leadership, and a genuine passion for improving the way healthcare organisations operate and support their people.

I started my career clinically and had the opportunity to work across acute, peri-operative, community, specialty and overseas healthcare settings. That experience gave me a strong understanding of the realities of healthcare delivery and the importance of keeping patients, clinicians, and communities at the centre of decision-making.

Over time, my career evolved into broader leadership roles spanning strategic transformation, project and change management, clinical governance, quality and risk, learning and development, product implementation, and business development. I’ve particularly enjoyed working at the intersection of strategy and execution—taking an idea or a complex challenge, bringing people together around a shared goal, and turning it into meaningful and sustainable change.

What has always been consistent is my focus on relationships. I enjoy working with executive leaders, clinicians, clients, and industry partners, and I’ve found that the best outcomes come from building trust, listening well, and bringing different perspectives together.

That’s a big part of what attracted me to HG and the Principal Consultant role. HG has such a strong reputation for working alongside health and care organisations on some of their most important leadership and transformation challenges. The opportunity to bring together my clinical background, strategic and commercial experience, and passion for developing people felt like a really natural next step.

I’m also drawn to the variety of the work. I enjoy being challenged, learning from different organisations and leaders, and having the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution across the health sector. For me, joining HG is about using the experience I’ve gained throughout my career in a different way—helping organisations and leaders navigate complexity, build capability, and ultimately deliver better outcomes for the people they serve.

What I’m most looking forward to as I step into my role with HG is the opportunity to contribute to something bigger than any one organisation or individual. My ultimate why is really about system health helping create healthier healthcare systems where organisations perform well, leaders feel supported and capable, and ultimately patients and communities experience better outcomes.

Throughout my career, I’ve seen how interconnected everything is. Strategy, culture, governance, operational performance, workforce capability and patient outcomes don’t sit in separate silos. When one part of the system isn’t working well, it has a ripple effect across the whole organisation. Equally, when leaders are aligned, people feel engaged and supported, and there is clarity around purpose and direction, you can create meaningful and sustainable change.

That’s what I hope to bring to the leaders and organisations I work with a whole-system perspective, grounded in real healthcare experience. I bring clinical credibility, strategic and commercial thinking, and experience navigating complex change, but equally, I bring curiosity and a genuine interest in people. I want to understand what is really happening beneath the surface, build trust, challenge thinking where appropriate, and help leaders turn complexity into practical action.

I’m also passionate about the connection between healthy people, healthy organisations and healthy systems. My experience as a yoga teacher has reinforced for me that sustainable high performance isn’t about constantly pushing harder; it’s about creating the conditions for people and organisations to thrive.

So, ultimately, my why is to contribute to system health to help strengthen leaders, build organisational capability, foster cultures where people can do their best work, and support the health system to deliver better outcomes for the communities it serves. That’s what makes this opportunity with HG particularly meaningful to me.