Our Experts
Soraya Fenton
BA in Languages & Social Sciences
MSc in HR Management & Development
Fellow, Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development
Levels A & B
intermediate plus with British Psychological Society
MBTI & 16PF
qualified
A languages/communication and social sciences graduate of Strathclyde University, in Glasgow, Soraya holds a Masters in Human Resource Management and Development, where she majored in Mentoring, from the same university - one of the top five in Europe for this subject. Her studies also provided her with a Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management; Soraya is accredited by the British Psychological Society for ability and character profiling, and she was awarded Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel &Development in June 2005.
For the last 10 years, Soraya has worked extensively with senior executives on a variety of assessment and development projects from both private and public sectors, large complex organizations and medium sized businesses; as a coach, her approach is based on helping clients identify their preferred styles in thinking, communicating and behaving and gaining an appreciation of others’ interactive styles; thereby working through and supporting the individuals, either with or without specific tools, on how they can be more effective, increase interactive efficiency and work harmoniously with colleagues from diverse organizational, personal backgrounds and cultures.
Diana
Dawson
MA Honours Psychology
Diploma in Marketing
MSc Career Counselling and Management
Levels A and B psychometric testing: including MBTI, OPQ, Hogan and The Highlands
Ability Battery
Diana is a qualified Career Psychologist and experienced Coach plus holds membership of The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Her early career covered various business roles such as logistics, supply chain, purchasing and marketing management for both large and small organizations.
Her focus now is in the field of career coaching, counselling, and assessment – essentially helping individuals build self awareness and to realise and achieve their goals and development potential.
She has also worked with organisations on career development and team building
programmes, based around MBTI and The Highlands Ability Battery. Career development
programs increase self knowledge, therefore assisting individuals in managing
their own careers and maximise performance and job satisfaction. Team development
programmes enhance team performance through focusing on team dynamics.
Diana’s style is enthusiastic about helping people to get the best from themselves, others and their careers however is also caring and understanding of the issues and challenges change can bring. She has built a reputation on being a positive and empathetic listener and is committed to providing a professional and enjoyable service to those who work with her.
Gill
Connelly
BA Honours, Accountancy
Gill worked in Edinburgh until 2004, where she was Head of Change for one of Europe’s largest global financial services businesses, before moving back to her Glasgow roots to work as an independent business consultant with a multi-sector, international client portfolio.
Her current passion is helping organisations launch new businesses or deliver first time complex change - at a people and project level. Although individuals and groups react to change in consistent and predictable ways, Gill understands that global businesses with diverse cultures have their own particular challenges.
Her experience as a coach includes many years as a line manager; supporting entrepreneurs running their own small businesses; the development of high potential managers within the financial services sector and mentoring first time executive sponsors and middle management change programme leaders.
Her approach to coaching combines over sixteen years’ experience of line management; and assessment, selection and development; with a more recent focus on deploying ‘talent to task’ where team and individual development focuses on playing to natural strengths.
Coaching training:
She has undertaken performance coaching training with Performance Consultants, run by the former Olympic athlete and coach David Hemery and was a lead facilitator in the roll out of a cultural change programme, that focussed on coaching as a leadership model, to a cross section of team, middle and senior managers.
Jonty
Leicester
MSc Industrial Psychology
Honours Degree in Psychology
Certificate in Counselling Skills
Statement of competence in occupational testing (BPS) Levels A + B
Chartered Psychologist (Occupational)
Associate Fellow of British Psychological Society
Association of Business Psychologists
Jonty moved to Edinburgh in 1997, where he was Head of Assessment at one of the major banks in their Organisational Development team, before working as a development consultant with one of the world’s leading occupational psychologist consultancies for just under 3 years.
His passion is helping organisations understand and work with change. Individuals and groups react to change in consistent and predictable ways. One of his experiences included supporting the development of high potential managers within a large utility company.
As a coach, Jonty’s approach combines over 12 years’ experience of assessment with a more recent focus on personal growth and development. He completed a one-year counselling skills course in 1998 which stimulated his interest in helping individuals work more effectively and healthily within organisations.
He is a Chartered Psychologist who also holds a statement of competence in occupational testing from the British Psychological Society. He also uses ideas derived from various personality theories that relate to different aspects of normal behaviour such as thinking style and problem solving.
Kim
Walker
Graduate of the Institute of Personnel Management,
International Correspondence School, 1989
Certificate in Employment Law, Heriot Watt University, 1995
MBA, Heriot Watt University 2002
NLP Practitioner 2007
Kim Walker is a highly experienced HR professional having held senior positions in Lloyds TSB, Scottish Power and BSkyB. An expert in change management, performance and talent management she has successfully delivered a number of strategic projects which have created positive culture change as well as delivering tangible business benefit.
Passionate that it is people who are the key to delivering strong business performance, Kim helps individuals realise their own aspirations by supporting them in focusing their performance and development to unleash their potential. She uses her wealth of experience and expertise to show that careful management of employee potential can and does make tangible improvements to business performance. Her coaching experience includes identifying high potential senior managers and supporting them in their development.
Kim has an entrepreneurial flair which she uses to help develop innovation in others. She is a successful co-author of ’90 Minutes to Telling Others’, owns a successful Edinburgh restaurant and is a property developer.
Karen Kinghorn
BA, Business Studies
Member, Chartered Institute
of Personnel & Development
Psychometric Test Qualified – level
A & BMBTI
Practitioner
Harvard Business School Strategy Programme
Karen is an organizational and people development professional, an experienced assessor and coach with over 20 years’ experience gained in blue chip organisations within the consumer goods, financial services, retail and manufacturing sectors.
A major area of expertise is within leadership and organisational development, supporting cultural and behavioural shift. Karen has been heavily involved in the arena of talent and leadership development. Her current area of focus is working on organisational development for businesses in transition and the successful implementation of workable development strategies.
As a coach, Karen’s approach is to work with the individual, establishing needs and objectives and then pulling on her extensive experience of working with senior level employees, provide support, encouragement and guidance to help them work through personal and professional issues. In addition, Karen has a depth of experience in:
- Leadership Development
- Management Development
- Team Development
Kate Watson
MSc Educational Psychology
Honours Degree in Psychology
Chartered Psychologist
Associate Fellow of British Psychological Society
DBM® Systemic Consultancy
and Therapy
For almost 20 years, Kate has been developing and applying a deep knowledge of the processes of learning and change within a wide variety of contexts including education, training, social services, business and therapy.
A Chartered Psychologist for 15 years, she has a wealth of experience assessing and assisting change through coaching of individuals, training design and delivery, as well as support and consultancy for single and multi-agency projects.
She has acted as consultant to trainers in relation to their design and delivery of change management programmes for senior managers in Britain, Spain, Turkey and Ireland. She applies the skills of Developmental Behavioural Modelling (DBM®) to problems identified by universities, companies, businesses and voluntary agencies to create effective solutions. The methodology of DBM® is derived from the most effective approaches known in education, therapy and business and is applied in areas of personal and team development.
Much of her work involves situations where the idea of changing does not fill everyone with the same degree of enthusiasm. She has practical experience of looking behind the reasons for the apparent resistance and addressing the needs that were driving the objections to allow for a more smooth transition through professional and personal growth. Kate supports coaching clients to develop increased awareness, flexibility, responsiveness and influence. This also helps their ability to innovate. Clients learn the skills and understanding of what makes them successful and how they can be even more so.
Mary
Parker
MA (Hons)
MSc Human Resource Management
Member, Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development
Member, Chartered Institute of Banking
MBTI
Saville and Holdsworth’s Occupational Personality Questionnaire
PRISM – a profile report on individual work style and motivation
FIRO element B
Birkman First Look
Levels A & B with British Psychological Society
Mary has recently completed two years training in Transactional Analysis
Mary is an experienced management development and coaching practitioner who particularly enjoys working in areas where she can help others to make a difference such as managing change, identifying and developing potential and generally facilitating the achievement of goals both corporate and personal.
Her areas of expertise have been developed in the Financial Services sector where she gained a deep understanding of many of the strategic issues facing global businesses today; and more recently as an independent consultant where she has managed assignments with major organisations in both the private and public sectors.
Some examples of recent projects are:
Team Building using MBTI with teams from a variety of backgrounds
Coaching - provide ongoing support for senior executives
360 Degree feedback - facilitated feedback sessions for CEOs.
Patricia Cornwell
Corporate Degree, Warwick University
DBM® Systemic Consultancy & Therapy
Master NLP Practitioner
Qualified Executive Coach
Patricia is a specialist in the field of coaching, mentoring and developing cross-functional teams and senior managers to improve their performance.
She has considerable experience in start-up businesses with complex Joint Venture international structures; Patricia has worked across multi disciplines in a broad spectrum of professions within various organisations in both public and private sectors, and notably within the public health sector and mobile technology. Her in-depth experience of managing international teams for major technology companies such as Siemens, Cable & Wireless and Marconi has provided fundamental knowledge and skill in understanding diverse people ranges.
Patricia has a unique way of coaching that gives people the security to adapt to change and further develop using their knowledge, skills and understanding of what makes them successful and how they can be even more so. She develops the ability tothink and behave differently – having increased awareness and flexibility.
Having effectively come up through the ranks, Patricia has a pragmatic and effective approach to business life. She has excellent inter-personal skills, commercial awareness and the ability to develop strong working relationships at all levels. Through her coaching style, she has worked with senior individuals to change their perspective, widen their business understanding, and ultimately help them achieve exceptional results. Clients have expressed her ability to leave a legacy of positive development wherever she works.
Trish Devine
Myers Briggs Practitioner accreditation
Diploma in
Business Performance Coaching (Strathclyde University)
Belbin Qualified
NLP Introduction
Gallup Q12 coach
Sheppard Moscow Performance Management
License
Licensed
to deliver situational leadership workshops
Brain
Friendly Learning
Trish is a highly experienced coach and development consultant having worked for over 20 years in a highly competitive environment in financial services. She has experience of the theory and practice of developing people in a fast changing environment along with practical knowledge of financial services, sales and customer service.
She is a skilled communicator with considerable expertise in talent and performance management, relationship management, management and leadership development, coaching and development centres. She is qualified in a range of psychometric instruments.
Her passion is leadership and believing in helping people achieve their potential. Her experience as a coach includes working both as a line manager; executive sales coach and supporting individuals through various development events. Tricia brings a real energy and enthusiasm to her work with high levels of responsibility.
Trish has undertaken performance coaching training with Performance Consultants, run by the former Olympic athlete and coach David Hemery and was a lead facilitator in the roll out of a cultural change programme, that focussed on coaching as a leadership model, to a cross section of team, middle and senior managers. She also has a diploma in Business Performance Coaching through Strathclyde University.
