Mike graduated from Warwick Business School where he specialised in organisational behaviour and marketing and spent his early career in sales and marketing, culminating as head of Marketing for Akzo Nobel.
With extensive strategic and operational management experience, including organisational re-structuring and leading cross-functional change teams, Mike attended the Netherlands Business School prior to joining MTP, a leading UK management training company in 1999 as part of their people management team.
At MTP, Mike became an Associate Director and was responsible for the design and delivery of a range of tailored leadership, strategy, and interpersonal skills programmes for Northern Foods, NSK, Unilever, ICI Paints and Thomson.
Mike formed Prescience Business Learning & Coaching in 2003 in conjunction with a number of like-minded colleagues. At Prescience Mike is responsible for the design and delivery of leadership development programmes for clients including British Gypsum, Eurotunnel, Sherwin-Williams, Jewson, Doncasters and Saint-Gobain UK. Mike has extensive experience in developing managerial and leadership skills and capability in a range of operating environments and prevailing organisational cultures providing clients with tailored learning solutions that deliver real and identifiable performance improvement, in areas of:
- Leadership
- Performance Management and Coaching
- High Performance Team-working
- Project Leadership
- Strategy and Organisational Culture Change
- Relationship Sales and Client Management
Mike is a certified INLPTA NLP Practitioner and is accredited to conduct a number of personal style and psychometric assessment tools including the Thomas International PPA, Personal Strengths Publishing Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) and the MHS Emotional Intelligence EQi 2.0.
Mike also provides 1:1 coaching for people from middle-management level through to senior directors helping individuals address particular issues and challenges, adapt their approach to be more effective in their respective role or in transitioning to new roles and responsibilities.
The main focus of Brian’s work is in talent and leadership development and strategic alignment. Brian’s approach is underpinned by his belief that the primary function of leadership is to develop strategy, culture, capacity and capability within an organisation in the service of its stakeholders. Core to this is how learning and value is co-created.
Brian’s consulting work has included the design and development of bespoke change programmes and learning interventions from graduate induction to board level coaching and support. He is experienced in supporting senior teams in strategic facilitation, executive coaching, 360° feedback instruments, competency frameworks, talent succession and leadership skills development. Over the course of his career he has worked with a wide range of organisations in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. Examples of this are end-to-end design and delivery of OD interventions with organisations such as McKinsey, Unilever, Deloittes, Saint-Gobain, Aviva, and RBS.
Over recent years, Brian has developed his portfolio of work to include relationship development in supply chain management focussed on supplier engagement strategies, stakeholder management and negotiating. Including coaching for significant behaviour change at senior project management level with multi-organisational teams recent clients include; Caterpillar USA, Babcock and various local authorities.
Brian has also worked in the arena of bid support and competitive dialogue with firms such as Deloittes, BAM and Skanska and he has recently made contributions to the Executive MBA programmes at Cambridge University Judge Business School, Warwick University Business School and Cranfield University School of Management.
Brian has conducted client assignments in Russia, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Qatar, Azerbaijan, South Africa, Angola, Canada, the USA, Egypt, Turkey, Oman and throughout Europe.
Key Areas of Expertise
Vertical learning and corporate maturity
Strategic alignment and leadership development
Team coaching and process consultation
Executive coaching
Change management and immunity to change
Negotiating skills
Supply chain relationship management
Performance management
Learning design in support of competency frameworks
Bid team development and support
Qualifications
BA Management and Business Studies
Post Graduate Certificate in Education – (Distinction – FE/HE)
Post Graduate Diploma in Psychology (Surrey University)
Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Leadership Development Framework accreditation (Harthill)
Emotional Intelligence EQi-2 and EQi-2 360 accreditation
OPP MBTI Accreditation
Margerisson/McCann Team Management System Accreditation
Additional Professional Development
Gestalt International Study Centre – Cape Cod systemic interventions
Sources of Authentic Leadership (Centaur Leadership)
Ethical Politics in Corporate Culture (Centaur Leadership)
Coaching accreditation training (Management Futures)
Leading Organisational Change (Tavistock Institute)
Brigid has a strong corporate background having focussed in the area of Talent Management and Organisation Development for the past 25 years. Most recently she worked in Rentokil Initial as their Group Talent Director and over a 10 year period was mainly responsible for the design and delivery of award winning leadership programmes to improve business performance. Her particular focus and passion is about building personal capability and credibility in the leadership role. She believes that the quality of leaders and managers has a direct impact on the quality of working life, and importantly a major impact on all our communities.
Central to her effectiveness is her ability to connect the development agenda with the business agenda so that leaders are better equipped in their broad capabilities to meet the challenges of our time whilst also ‘getting a lot done’. Whilst at Rentokil Initial Brigid led the work to develop a leadership framework with the Executive Team which was designed to help leaders and managers make a fundamental shift in how they lead the business. The subsequent developmental approach emphasised the need to build strong ‘relational’ leadership’ in order to build a special workplace – and one that would consequently achieve great business performance.
Having initially studied Organisational Behaviour at Lancaster University, Brigid has extended her own formal development to include a masters degree in Executive Coaching from Ashridge Business School and has placed a coaching philosophy at the heart of her approach. She would describe her own ambitions as being firmly rooted in helping people to grow, to develop, and to connect more deeply both with themselves and each other so that we can all thrive in the increasingly chaotic world in which we live.
Volker graduated from Mannheim University (Germany) having specialised in organisational structure and behaviour, marketing and business English.
He started his career in marketing with the consumer adhesives division of Henkel KGaA, the world market leader in adhesives. In more than 25 years with Henkel he held various marketing positions with increasing responsibility in national marketing in Germany and the UK, as well as in international marketing. Target groups covered included school children, private householders, DIYers and professional craftsmen.
As Global Marketing Manager for two of Henkel’s most profitable product categories, he was responsible for global category development and innovation projects, running multi-national and multi-functional teams with focus on Western Europe, Central & Eastern Europe and Asia. Volker and his team were awarded the Fritz-Henkel Prize for Innovation, a prestigious award for a successfully launched and sustainable innovation project of international significance for the Henkel Group.
In 2010, Volker set up his consultancy based in Germany, supporting his clients in the following areas:
- Market strategies
- Branding strategies
- Innovation Management
- Project Management
- Concept Development
Nick has over 20 years’ experience as a business learning professional, specialising in the development and delivery of financial and business learning at all levels and for all functions in major organisations in over forty-five countries. As well as training face to face in a classroom environment, Nick is a skilled facilitator in the virtual environment and has been delivering virtual programmes for over ten years. He has also had a leading role in the development of e-learning, business simulations and interactive podcasts and has co-authored a book on financial analysis.
Currently based in the UK, Nick has also lived and worked as a trainer in the USA for two years. Prior to becoming a business trainer, he spent nine years working in industry and held a number of Finance and IT positions in the UK and Germany for Reuters, Abbott Laboratories and De La Rue. Before this he qualified as a Chartered Accountant with BDO Binder Hamlyn in London, having previously achieved a BA (Hons) in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford.
