Consultants UK & Europe
Alan Gilchrist
A degree in Chemistry and Masters in Petroleum Engineering led to 15 years in the oil industry with I.D.F, British Petroleum and Expro Group Integrated Services (E.G.I.S.). Alan was part of the E.G.I.S leadership team that grew the business from start-up, to a 140 employee, £10 million turnover international organisation in 3 years. In 1997 he re-trained in Personal and Organisational Development and most recently qualified as a Professional Coach with the Academy of Executive Coaching Advanced Diploma.
Alan has worked as a consultant with Impact and Sheppard Moscow before setting up his own business in 2005 and simultaneously becoming an Associate with Harthill. Alan is currently consulting with Argyll & Bute Health, ROK Group, Royal Bank, Standard Life, the Scottish Executive, Skanska, and the Children's Panel.
Alex Steele
A well known motivational speaker, consultant, trainer, coach, author and jazz pianist, Alex works with teams, organisations and communities to facilitate change, creativity and innovation. His work blends leading edge management thinking and practices with live improvised jazz performances. The premise of these sessions is that by understanding how jazz musicians work together, communicate, create and sustain change, there are valuable lessons which can be applied to organisational and personal development.
For the last 25 years Alex has worked as a business leader within industry and government, Business Schools, research centres and universities in Europe, Asia and Africa. He is a Visiting Professor in Transformational Learning and Sustainable Development at ULAB University, Bangladesh.
Alex is Founding Director of Improwise, an organisation supporting leadership development, sustainability and community development projects throughout the world. Alex offers a range of leadership development programmes taking professionals from UK organisations out to rural locations in Uganda, Kenya and Bangladesh, to participate in community development projects.
When he’s not doing any of this, Alex leads his own jazz trio and quartet, performing at jazz venues worldwide. He continues to have the privilege of performing with many of the world’s most outstanding jazz musicians.
Bernie Brooks
Bernie is an English Literature graduate with a Postgraduate Diploma in Group Facilitation and an MSc in Counselling Psychology. His career spans working as a practitioner, manager and consultant in the public and voluntary sectors at local, regional and national level in NHS London, the Irish Health Service Executive and the States of Guernsey Health Board.
Currently, Bernie is on the faculty for the Cabinet Office Top Manager Programme at the National School of Government. Before that, he was Head of Leadership and Organisation Development for a Strategic Health Authority (80,000 staff across Kent, Surrey and Sussex) and previously a Senior Fellow in Leadership at the Kings Fund where he directed the Top Manager Programme and coordinated the consultancy practice. He has served as a Non-Executive Director on the Board of an NHS Acute Trust.
His professional interests include the role of leadership in culture and place shaping, governance and organisational form in human services, the role of groups and teams in organisations and the use of narrative and story in leadership development. His publications include Managing Change in the NHS, Open University Press and Practice Based Primary Care Development, Kogan Page.
Caroline Goyder
Caroline worked for ten years as a voice coach at Central School of Speech and Drama, coaching actors and business people on all aspects of voice, speech, body language and influential communication.
The current focus of Caroline’s work is with senior individuals, supporting them to use their voice, speech and body language to communicate to all their audiences with clarity, confidence, presence and power. Her client list is diverse, spanning political parties, finance, and the creative industries. Clients have included Aviva, Fallon, Wieden and Kennedy, Legal and General and Goldman Sachs.
Caroline holds a BA in English Literature from St John’s College Oxford, and an MA in Voice Studies from Central School of Speech and Drama. She is a PPD accredited Master Practitioner of NLP. She is the author of “The Star Qualities”, Sidgwick and Jackson, 2009.
Elaine Herdman-Barker
Elaine holds a masters degree in psychology and is completing her doctorate in mentoring high potential leaders, building on years of ongoing research with Professor Bill Torbert.
In her work Elaine specialises in helping executives become more aware of their current ways of working, their approaches to problem solving, innovating and interacting with others and the gaps in their thinking which open the door to their development. Extending this to organisations, Elaine helps to identify and support their emerging talent pool and create the conditions in which the high calibre leaders of the future are retained. Her sector experience reaches across the utilities, oil and gas, financial services, motor manufacturing, leisure and IT industries.
Glyn Fussell
Glyn graduated from London University with honours in English Literature and is trained to postgraduate level as an executive coach. With a creative edge developed from his background in performing arts, his approach empowers people to be confident and impactful in their leadership, to embrace change and be courageous in their choices.
Glyn has a track record of delivering innovative leadership development across a diverse range of sectors. In his high profile work with international leadership development organisation, Common Purpose, Glyn has been privileged to work with some of the UK's most influential leaders. He was also lead consultant for the award winning Responsible Leadership Programme with PricewaterhouseCoopers and The Full Circle Programme with KPMG - both merging experiential learning in a wide societal context with a deep immersion into dialogue and self-reflection.
Howard Lockwood
Drawing on a career as a Chief Executive and many years as a coach, Howard works mainly with leaders in public sector organisations. His wealth of experience and expertise makes him ideally placed to operate with a degree of objectivity and at the same time be supportive, empathic and challenging to those with the responsibility of leading their organisation.
Howard uses his considerable energy and enthusiasm to assist senior managers to bring about major quality improvements and enable them to lead excellent organisations. He has always taken a keen interest in diversity and ensures race and gender issues are given appropriate attention. Howard made a significant contribution to bringing the European Excellence Model to the public sector and is a qualified external assessor.
Karen Ellis
Karen graduated in Chemistry from Bristol University and, after completing her doctorate, studied with the Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy Education in London and the Human Potential Research Group at the University of Surrey.
Karen has been a senior consultant at Harthill since 2002 bringing over fifteen years’ consulting experience. Her work has been with large public sector organisations (including local and central government and the UK National Health Service) and with large private sector clients. In addition, Karen draws on her experience of working for two 'Big Four' consulting firms to understand and consult to knowledge-intensive businesses from the technology and professional services sectors.
Liz Straker
Liz is a highly motivated and experienced OD and leadership consultant with a background in the private and public sectors. She has a wide range of experience of leadership and management development at all levels, executive coaching, talent management, organisational change and psychotherapeutic counselling.
Recently, Liz has initiated and co-created an accredited coaching programme to upskill HR Managers, and developed and run development centres for high potentials and over her career has designed and delivered numerous leadership and management programmes including a leadership discovery programme with LBS, a leadership programme for new Captains in British Airways and a leadership programme for senior health care professionals in the NHS.
Liz holds an Msc in Organisational Psychology, a Diploma in Human Resource Management and is currently studying for a Msc in Gestalt Psychotherapy and the ILM Certificate in Coaching. She is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Passionate about the contribution of HR and development to a company’s bottom line, Liz enjoys working with individuals and groups to identify strengths and opportunities in order to maximise their performance and contribution. She is known for her direct and incisive style combined with empathy and warmth and a real desire to make a positive difference to the people she works with.
Nelisha Wickremasinghe
Nelisha graduated from Sussex with honours in Social Psychology and went on to train as a clinical psychologist and family therapist. She holds a Masters in Public Service Management and is part of the Doctorate programme in Organisational Consulting at Ashridge Business School.
Prior to her consulting career Nelisha built and sold a successful restaurant business, worked as a non executive director on national and local boards and has developed and delivered leadership programmes for Common Purpose UK.
She joined Harthill in 2009. Her areas of expertise are enabling senior teams to develop their potential and deliver exceptional performance, and coaching leaders. She has a particular focus on how groups ‘think together’ and the choices leaders make as they frame problems and 'create solutions'.
Nicola Burton
Nicky specialises in leadership and organisation development consulting and coaching. She read history at UCL and over the years has acquired MScs in Industrial Relations, Organisation Behaviour and Gestalt Psychotherapy, trained as a yoga teacher and become a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel.
Nicky’s background includes senior roles in HR, organisation and talent development, marketing and strategic projects, with board experience. She was organisation development director for a leading technology company and global head of talent development for a major bank.
Nicky brings intellect, insight, warmth and humour to her work. Her clients include Cabinet Office, Eversheds, KPMG, Microsoft, Standard Chartered Bank and Yahoo as well as a number of significant family businesses. Typically her work involves transforming performance, working with leaders and functional business partners to generate new ways of working, using gestalt and action learning approaches. She is particularly interested in developing leaders for the most senior and complex roles and has lead many high potential and accelerated development programmes for senior leaders.
Simon Cavicchia
Simon started his career in health promotion which sparked a lifelong interest in adult learning theory and practice. He has since completed Masters degrees in organisational change and Gestalt psychotherapy. He brings a blend of solid theoretical knowledge, practicality and warmth to his work with individuals, groups and organisations.
For the last 15 years he has worked as a coach and consultant specialising in action learning and dialogue for bringing about deep and sustainable change in individuals and organisations. He has consulted extensively in both the public and private sectors. He is committed to supporting clients to inquire deeply into their organisational realities and challenges, and often works to surface and relax the underlying dynamics which contribute to maintaining the status quo or to inhibiting desired change from taking place. For six years he was a visiting lecturer on the MSc in Change Agent Skills and Strategies at the University of Surrey School of Management, and is currently Joint Programme Director of a Masters Programme in Coaching Psychology. He has published on qualitative approaches to 360 degree feedback and the dynamics of the coaching relationship.
Sol Davidson
Sol started working life in 1968 as a Chemical Engineer with ICI (ANZ) and initiated a project that culminated in the site he was working on becoming a model for management union negotiations in the Australian economy. From this he developed an interest in individual and organisation psychology and the way senior managers and leaders respond to the challenges of an increasingly complex and uncertain world.
For the last eighteen years Sol has worked as an executive coach in the Pharmaceutical, Chemical, Manufacturing, Local Government, Central Government, Charitable, Transportation and Financial services sectors in the UK and Europe. He now specialises in coaching leaders and their teams in building strategic and operational capability in the face of increasingly uncertain and unpredictable circumstances.
