Go Beyond the Obvious: Aspire, Amplify, Advance
just 10m learning per Day Can Double your salary in only 3yrs!
I have spent nearly 3 decades helping people like you find themselves at work, accelerate their learning and fast-track their career.
My mission is clear: empower people, evolve organisations, and engineer a future where learning is both a strategic advantage and a source of continual growth.
I am going to help professionals like you increase your organisational value by applying best practice in the workplace that gets you rewarded and recognised.
I am here to help you lead in whatever you do, from wherever your starting position is. Using compound learning effect to transform your career from mediocre to meritocracy!
That’s right, I am going to help you Go Beyond.
Learn
After c30 years in learning and talent development I can tell you, there is more beyond. It is important to continuously learn, be agile and flexible with what you know and refine or enhance how you do things to suit your audience or market.
We all have different skills, experiences and talents serviced by our backgrounds, beliefs and values but most people at the end of the day are self taught!
Continuous learning is the key to getting what you want at a faster rate (accelerated learning). There is no golden egg, you need to get disciplined to get what you want.
: Log
If you think about it, most of the learning that embeds into who you are and what you do is not consciously learned, mostly it is unconscious, put together from pieces of knowledge and experiences over time.
Your brain is a learning machine, constantly updating, refreshing and refining what you do, how you do it and who you are to maximise your experience.
Only a small percentage of what we do is conscious learning, and only a small percentage of that is retained, so recording progress is essential.
: Lead
Nobody starts in a leadership position. Even royalty has to wait in line and learn as they go. So, if you think there is such a thing as an overnight success then I will tell you that it is common knowledge that it takes about 10years to be an overnight success.
It is not just about timing, or heritage that builds great leadership. You become a great leader by experiencing leadership, and constantly improving.
So, let me tell you my story, and how you can turn just 5m of deliberate learning everyday into 8000 times more value add to an organisation to help you go beyond.
Almost 30yrs in Learning and Talent Development
After University, where I studied Law, I used my emerging computer skills to get my first real job in a Tech Startup. Quickly picking up tech I began helping induct new starters and soon developing tech engineers and architects, boosting exam pass rates from 25% to 75% in just 3months instead of 2 years (88% quicker).
I progressed to train sales, service, management and leadership, growing as a manager myself, and becoming one the youngest department heads in a company of 35,000 people.
Winning awards for ‘Best Training and Development in Europe’, I decided to contract and grow a small business consultancy before being offered my dream job as Head of Learning for Apple…which I then declined, but that is another story!
I took a different path with Veolia to identify and develop Talent, where I spent several years researching and applying cutting edge solutions. After a sell-of/acquisition I set up my own boutique consultancy and built some learning apps, before being offered the chance to Head up a team once again.
I now work has an Executive Director of Talent, identifying talents, supporting succession and building engaging culture’s that drive business performance.
- Department Head for over 15 years
- Improved Retention (60% to 90%)
- Improved Management Engagement Index (78%-93%)
- Key Performance Index Up 10%
- Business Growth ROI 8%
- Cultural Engagement across 10k people up 5%
- 96% Regulatory Compliance Index (up from 75%)
- MCP Pass rate from 25-75% in 3months (previously 2years)
Bally’s
(purchased Gamesys)
Executive Director of Talent Development
2022 – Present
Gamesys
Head of Learning
2017 – 2022
Structured Learning Solutions
Founder / Talent Consultancy
2013 – 2020
Veolia
(Dalkia/Mitie)
Head of Learning & Development
2009 – 2013
Contracting
Learning Consultant
2004 – 2009
DSGi
European Training Manager
1997 – 2004
Skills & Expertise
Learning
- Learning Needs
- Skills Matrices
- Management Trainer
- Leadership Trainer
- Delivering a Compliance culture
- Creating a Learning Organisation
- Elearning Solutions
- Instructional Designer
- LMS and LXP Platform Designer
- Social Community Manager
Talent
- Talent Strategy
- Talent Identification
- Talent Engagement
- Talent Performance
- Talent Management
- Talent Succession
- Talent Systems
- Talent Mobility
- Talent Competencies
- Talent Development
Development
- Soft Skills Essentials
- Performance Essentials
- Management Essentials
- Leadership Essentials
- Leadership Development
- Expert Leaders Development
- Coach and Mentor
- Academies of Learning
- Career Development
- Development Planning
Awards & Education
Learning Technologies Award
Best Learning System Implementation Bronze Award
LXP Implementation resulting in 20x increase in engagement and 50% reduction in cost per learning hour.
2022
Korn Ferry Leadership Architect
Leadership Architect & Psychometric Assessment
TalentQ Dimension, Emotional Intelligence ESCI, Leadership Styles & Climate ILS/OCS, KFLA 360, KFLS
2015 – 2025
Animas Centre for Coaching
Diploma in Transformational Coaching
18 day certificated coaching diploma course.
2015 – 2016
Cranfield School of Management
Executive Development Programme
Finance, Business Acument, Business Simulation, Business Project, Account Leadership
2011 – 2012
European CCA Award
Best Training and Development in Europe
Finance, Business Acument, Business Simulation, Business Project, Account Leadership
2002 – 2003
Realisation at Stenhouse
NLP Practitioner Certificate
18day Neuro-Linguistic Programming Certification
2002 – 2003
Microsoft
Microsoft Certified Professional
Certified professional for Windows 95 (the hard one!)
1998
Nottingham Trent University
Law LLB (2.1 Honours)
4 year Sandwich degree, 1 year practice with RJW Solicitors
1993 – 1997
Time for the Backstory
After nearly 30 years in learning and talent development, I know one thing for sure. I am really good at helping people find their best self at work, capitalise on what they do well and accelerate their careers.
I have spent many years training and developing people to build their performance, introducing them to new styles and techniques, thinking, behaviours and processes. Most of the people I help will go on to be great managers and leaders, and some even CEOs and Chairman.
I have been in awful situations at work, discovered who I am under pressure, discovered what I am good at, and got insights into my limits. I want to share that with you, so you can learn from my experiences, apply them to your work life and accelerate past me. It is that simple!
My first job was working for my Mum in a flower shop before I left school, sweeping the floors. I got paid more than I should have done and wasn’t very good at it. As I grew I worked in book shops, cake factories, pie factories, bars and clubs, went to University and worked in one of the top 5 (Magic Circle) law firms in the World!
I went to Uni, but don’t remember much, and I got my first professional job on £6k per year, when most of my friends were earning £20k. I worked hard, put in the hours and realised that it is not about hard work. Hard work is not the same as promotion, or progress. started to formulate a strategy for success in the world of work and it was noticed. I started to get promoted and then up to the ranks to be European Training Manager after 5 years in a business of 35k people.
I have worked as Head of Learning for global retailers, a top 100 Super Brand with more than 500,000 employees, and a privately owned highly successful online gaming company and I can tell you that working for yourself, running your own business and putting food on your own table is harder than it seems. You learn how to be more commercial, how to manage finances, how to market and sell your own products (yourself mostly), and I even dabled with building my own products (Iphone and Android Apps).
At the peak of my career I was aspiring to work for one of the biggest companies in the World – Apple. I loved Apple, and still do. I have many of their products and continue to insist they are the best! So it came with a heavy heart after being offered the job I turned down their Head of Learning role.
It was a very hard decision and the pay was more than the competing bid, but I really wanted to work on Talent and Talent development and launching the ipod just didn’t interest me.
Whilst I have worked as Head of Learning for global retailers, a top 100 Super Brand with more than 500,000 employees, and a privately owned highly successful online gaming company my real passion lies in helping people realise their natural talents at work. As Head of Talent Development I was able to identify, manage and develop talent and mobilise expertise across the globe generating huge amounts of revenue whilst cutting costs. Way more fun than an ipod?!?!
Most of my career has now been as Head of Learning or Head of Talent and running a department is as much a joy as it always was.
Impacting and developing business initiatives through strategic practice ensure transformation at scale, whilst it does come with its challenges too!
I have not had it easy, by any stretch. My father died when I was 3 of leukaemia, a little understood disease of the time, where the doctors didn’t understand how to administer safe doses of chemotherapy to treat him. My mother died from the impact of breast cancer after many treatments over several years, and at the same time my girlfriend was diagnosed with breast cancer and I was sacked for whistleblowing. I could not cope to the point where our relationship did not survive and I was on a downward spiral for several years.
I have been bullied at work, sacked unfairly more than once, I have been made redundant and have the employer refuse to pay redundancy. I have sued for wrongdoing and been successful both times, and been sued myself by a manipulative crook pretending to be a business women, thankfully unsuccessfully for them. I have lost everything more than once – the only thing that kept me from losing it all was the devotion of my (now) wife.
I have worked where people have so much money that they have tried to buy a £60m home they didn’t realise they already owned. I have worked where people earn less than it costs them to live, where their wages barely cover their travel costs, where their employers force them not to work more than 5 hours so they didn’t legally have to pay them a lunch break…all whilst driving around in supercars themselves. Where the inequality made me feel so nauseous I could hardly bear to go to work. In those moments I realised one very important lesson…we choose where we work, so I left without another job to go to, and setup my own consultancy instead!
I have discovered who I am under pressure, discovered what I am good at, and got insights into my limits, capturing my learning along the way in a series of journals that I would encourage everyone to do. I am not the finished article, there is no such thing, nobody is, and that is why I seek to go beyond, everyday.
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