Our Team.

James Downie

Managing Director

James is a Managing Director of Cove Solutions with more than 25 years' working in health and aged care in Australia, the Middle East and Europe.

James is a former CEO of the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA), where he spent more than a decade at the centre of Australia’s national hospital funding and pricing arrangements. He has also held senior roles within the Victorian health system and continues to advise on major health-system issues, including through his role on the Hospitals Victoria Expert Panel. His experience spans costing and pricing, funding model design, financial sustainability, service strategy, policy development and health-system reform, with deep expertise in the interaction between funding policy, activity, service delivery and system performance.

At Cove Solutions, James helps clients design practical solutions to complex funding, strategy and sustainability challenges. He leads work across costing and pricing, funding reform, service strategy, financial sustainability and performance improvement, and brings a strong understanding of how policy, funding and operational realities intersect across the health system.

Emily Prior

Managing Director

Emily is a Managing Director of Cove Solutions with 25+ years working in health and aged care in Australia, the United Kingdom, the Middle East and the Pacific.

Emily is a qualified actuary and career consultant, with a strong quantitative and analytical background and extensive experience advising on complex health-system problems. Her experience includes advanced analytics, health costing and pricing, evaluation, economic analysis and value for money. She is proficient in a wide range of AI tools and traditional programming languages, and applies these skills to complex analytical, modelling and automation tasks. She is currently studying Modelling Cost-Effectiveness in Healthcare at the London School of Economics.

At Cove Solutions, Emily helps clients turn complex data and evidence into clear, practical decisions. She leads work across advanced analytics, evaluation, AI and data strategy, costing and performance improvement, and works with analytics teams to strengthen core skills and build confidence in the responsible use of AI.

Experts & Analysts

Our Network

For each engagement, Cove convenes a team with the precise mix of skills, experience and capacity required, drawing on local, national or international expertise depending on the needs of the assignment. James and Emily work with a broad, trusted network of senior subject matter experts and technical specialists across Australia, the United Kingdom and the Middle East, with particular depth in:

International health systems and policy – bringing experience from comparable health systems, funding models and reform environments

Research and evidence – including research design, literature reviews, evidence synthesis and specialist capability

Program and change management – providing dedicated program management support and change delivery for complex engagements

Additional specialist capacity – scaling teams with technical analysts, subject matter experts and delivery support as required

This model allows Cove to bring together the right team for each assignment.