Meet The Team
All our consultants bring a wealth of experience within the corporate world, having worked within a variety of organisations including Disney, Ford, Teach First, The European Parliament, Marks & Spencer and BBC Studioworks
Jeremy Howells
Owner
With over 30 years’ experience in consultancy, customer service, business development and client account management, Jeremy believes that trust, loyalty and providing ‘best in class’ professional support for clients are the key ingredients to building lasting relationships. He takes pride in making clients lives easier by taking the ‘hassle out of training and development’.
Having previously spent over 10 years as a director and co-owner of a UK based training company, Jeremy has consulted with a range of clients in a plethora of different sectors both in the UK and Europe, including Morgan Sindall, YouGov, Diligenta, Gamsey’s, Mitie, Samskip, Teach First and Baker Hicks to name but a few. Jeremys wealth of knowledge and experience in understanding the challenges organisations face and the complex learning and development landscape are key to supporting clients with their learning and development needs.
Jeremy is currently working towards a qualification in Life Coaching and is looking forward to bringing the skills learnt to CastleBlue.
Jeremy is a keen golfer, coaches his sons football team and enjoys travelling with his family.
Anna Jester
Consultant
Anna worked in communication, people management and leadership roles for global companies before specialising in working with leaders nearly 10 years ago. Now she supports individuals, teams and organisations on executive coaching, leadership development and leadership character, helping clients to explore who they are as people and how that determines the way they lead.
Anna is a big believer that human connection (and how we make people feel) trumps all, effective communication behaviours form the foundation for everything else that follows and that fun and laughter is essential. This understanding forms the basis of everything she does and how she works with leaders across the country.
Anna has worked with leaders in organisations including Dyson, OVO Energy, Compass Lexecon, Hilton Foods, Holcim Lafarge, BBC Studioworks and Warwick University and is known for high energy, entertaining and down to earth style.
Angie Mitchell
Consultant
Angie is an experienced learning and development professional, specialising in the design and delivery of creative learning events that deliver outstanding results.
She uses a blend of experiential learning, sharing examples and story-telling to help everyone make the connection between the learning in the session to the application of the learning in their everyday lives.
Angie’s energetic and straightforward delivery style is focused on ensuring learning is relevant and immediately transferable to the workplace.
Angie has over 30 years of experience working in management, human resource management, learning and development and consultancy. 15 years of which were spent working with the Walt Disney Corporation and had the privilege of supporting teams and individuals on a global basis.
In addition to design and delivery of learning events, Angie is also a successful coach who helps individuals gain more self-awareness and provide them with development tools that will help unlock their potential.
Andy Ibbitson
Consultant
An industrial business leader with over 30 years of Project, Program Management and Consultancy experience spanning the Automotive, Construction, Facilities Management, Consulting, Health and Resource industries. Andy is a Fellow of the Institute for Consulting and the Chartered Management Institute. He holds an MBA in Engineering Management and an MSc in Automotive Manufacture. A transformational coach who enjoys transferring knowledge and skills to others.
Andy is client focussed and his long list of Management Consultancy includes, Business Turnaround, Strategy Development, Lean Six Sigma, M&A integration (Buy-side), Procurement strategy & cost reduction programs, Benchmarking, New product introduction.
He also brings a range of Executive Coaching, Programme and Project Management, Leadership and Management, Change Management and Manufacturing Engineering Support.
Steve Knight
Consultant
Steve is an accomplished coach and able facilitator, being as comfortable in the boardroom as the shop floor. He is qualified to use a wide range of psychometric and ability tests and has extensive experience in their practical application in both assessment and development situations.
Steve spent over twenty years in four business sectors beginning with production management in food manufacturing, with Bowyers, then part of Unigate. Followed by various management training posts both at tactical and managerial levels with Bass North and Peugeot-Citrôen.
Latterly he worked in an executive capacity handling strategic human resource issues for a rapidly expanding international distributor, RS Components; assignments included working with management teams in Bulgaria, Austria, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and the UK.
He has consistently made a difference for individuals and organisations in the design and application of effective development interventions; he focuses on enabling people to lead their way through change, either as individuals, teams, or organisations as a whole.
He has an Honours Degree, Diploma in Personnel Management and is CMCIPD.
Clients describe his style as outcome focused, practical, pragmatic and fun; he has been keenly interested in the application of learning and demonstrating a return on investment.
Sue Blight
Consultant
Sue is an Executive coach and Training facilitator equally comfortable delivering development interventions face to face or virtually. She has held senior Talent and Development roles within a variety of FTSE 100/250 FMCG and Service companies where she integrated training infrastructures for all organisation levels (classroom, e-learning and on-line) into performance management discussions and accelerating the Talent pipeline.
Her distinction in the MSc in Coaching and Behavioural Change at Henley Business School created a deeper understanding of how to help people change their behaviour and adopt winning strategies, by playing to their strengths or identifying their triggers hindering change.
She helps clients to see the wider context in which they are working and develop practical actions to allow them to influence the broader business. Her passion for Personal resilience, coupled with health and wellbeing, has been unexpectedly useful during the pandemic, enabling clients to face into their own anxieties and develop strategies to support themselves in the absence of the regular connectedness with others at work and home.
Sue is accredited in a number of world-leading psychometric tools and 360-degree feedback, which accelerates people’s self-awareness. Her philosophy is to use these tools to ‘change the dance’ and achieve a different result in a practical way. She uses these extensively in her coaching and team development work.
She has a passion for creating a clean environment and is often seen with her head down, clearing plastic from Brighton’s beaches, whilst walking her very needy border collie.
Bruce West
Consultant
Bruce has been active in the field of learning and development for well over 30 years. He works with executive to supervisory levels and is responsible for the project and client management of a wide range of programmes.
Bruce is a dedicated development consultant, applying theory, practice and innovation to the development of others. He always approaches his work in a professional and conscientious manner with energy, enthusiasm, and commitment. Bruce’s broad experience and qualifications, combined with current research, supports his natural intuitive style. His clients benefit from his experience in working with a range of interpersonal issues, including personal influencing styles, coaching, leadership, team effectiveness and conflict resolution. Clients find Bruce approachable, honest, straight and pragmatic style refreshing, productive and rewarding. Bruce has always been interested in challenging and extending personal abilities, attitudes, and performance.
Rod Jones
Consultant
Rod has worked as a Senior Manager in educational businesses in both the public and private sectors. His wide-ranging expertise includes strategic leadership, improving operational efficiency, corporate governance, business turnarounds and managing large-scale projects.
He adopts a hands-on problem-solving approach and is a determined leader with a proven history for innovation and customer focus in a range of challenging public and private-sector environments. He has delivered successful change programmes in diverse industries including higher education, engineering, automotive, agriculture and online sales.
Rod combines change management with executive coaching, to achieve progressive and sustainable change. He is comfortable working with diverse teams, clients, and stakeholders alike, to identify and develop creative, viable solutions.
His varied experience enables him to work effectively across a range of organisations and sectors, quickly assimilating the cultural nuances and performance challenges within different organisations, from agile SME’s to multi-site, global giants.
Rod works with senior leaders individually or in groups to improve their performance through measurable results for themselves, their team, and their organisation.
An active sportsman, Rod’s interests include the application of leadership principles to both sport and business. When not working, Rod keeps busy cycling and swimming, and can often be found open-water swimming in local lakes and rivers.
Rupert Taylor
Consultant
Rupert is a fully qualified and seasoned HR and L&D professional with a broad range of industry experience across strategic and operational roles. This has been within a variety of large companies in culturally diverse multinational and multi-disciplinary environments.
He is experienced in delivering first class training and facilitation events both face to face and more recently in the virtual environment with a particular focus on management development and HR related topics.
Rupert has helped employees from graduates to senior leaders unlock their potential with targeted guidance and encouragement. He works closely with management teams taking a methodical and considered approach to understand their needs in order to ensure interventions are practical and useful to meet businesses’ needs.
His approach is to offer close support to employees using his experience and expertise to deliver quantifiable results. Rupert has designed and delivered programmes from presenting content to teams and groups, to one on one events such as implementing and leading structured mentoring programmes for professional and personal employee development.
In his spare time, Rupert enjoys off road cycling with his family and is also closely involved in a town project to reopen a pub that will be run by the local community on a not for profit basis.
Tracy Temperley
Consultant
Tracy is a highly motivated and passionate leader with experience across multiple industry sectors. She has worked as a senior manager in the banking sector, as part of the leadership team in the further education sector and latterly as a workplace trainer and consultant.
She is an experienced and skilled training practitioner, committed to the provision of high quality, lifelong learning and development.
Tracy specialises in workplace leadership and management training including change management and finance and has worked with clients such as Hargreaves Lansdowne, Rowan Dartington, Secure Trust Bank, Colas Rail, Morgan Sindall, Baker Hicks and YouGov.
Tracy combines the experience of senior leadership within the commercial sector with a deep understanding of how people learn. As a Senior Manager in the Banking sector, she has a wealth of experience in leading successful Corporate Sales teams and managing change.
As a Teacher, Mentor and later Quality Director in Further Education, she understands what motivates and inspires others to bring about lasting behavioural change.
Tracy believes that if you start from the premise that you want to be the best you can, you become receptive to seeking ways to improve and embrace rather than fear change. A mindful approach to management ensures you can get the best from yourself and those around you. Being kind rather than right all the time can produce exceptional results!
Yvonne Hendrych
Consultant
Yvonne is a Life Designing & Mindset Coach, combining in a unique way Brain-based Coaching, a coaching approach deeply rooted in Neuroscience, with the creative and hands-on tools of Life Designing (Design Thinking applied to our lives).
She’s worked in partnership with organisations like the European Parliament, The Amani Institute, MaturiJobs, Swissnex, Escola Polifonia and others, to facilitate in-house workshops and training and supporting people in creating a more conscious, more holistic, and more balanced approach to career and life development.By using innovative tools such as Life Designing, Positive Psychology, Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Intelligence (PQ), Theory U, Mindset and Vision work and others, she’s focusing on long-lasting and deep rooted changes, resulting in a more fulfilled, more motivated and more creative work life.Yvonne holds a certificate in Social Innovation Management from the Amani Institute in Sao Paulo and a certificate in Life Designing from UPEACE, the United Nations-mandated University.She’s a Results Trained Coach, trained according to ICF Standards, and certified in Brain-based Coaching from the NeuroLeadership Institute in London.She’s specialised in working with international and multicultural work environments, and speaks German, English, French and Portuguese.Yvonne is passionate about connecting with people from all walks of life and all nationalities/cultures, and has designed her dream life & career between both places that have a special place in her heart, Europe and Brazil.
Malcolm Hewitt
Consultant
Malcolm is a Training facilitator with a wide breadth of experience .Delivering both face to face and virtual training within the public, private, academic and charitable sectors of the economy. With a background of senior positions in retail, initially in Operations, and then HR/Training, he has a passion for improving performance in very practical ways.
He is able to support all aspects of People Management from initial recruitment & selection through to enabling all individuals and teams to reach their potential. This includes Succession Planning, Performance Management and Coaching. The drive is to deliver those interventions which propel the business forward through having the right people in the right place doing the right job to the right standard in the right way at the right time.
The pandemic has delivered new ways of working and an opportunity to bring a fresh approach to how things are done. As the Industrial Fellow at the University of Surrey, he brought a fresh approach to the way the University delivered some of their activity. At a time when Distance Learning was in its infancy, he pushed forward new thinking which led to their first Distance Learning Degree. A programme embraced by both BP & ASDA in those early days.
Tips and techniques are his hallmark, so that delegates complete their training with a range of new practical ideas to move themselves and their organisations forward whether that be in a funeral parlour or amusement park; just two of the places he was supporting at the same time prior to the pandemic.
Over the last ten years he has given his time in support of the charitable sector. Currently supporting individuals who are struggling financially due to their circumstances. He provides coaching and guidance in areas such as resilience and self confidence in addition to helping individuals with CV preparation and job interviews.
Daniel Dalton
Consultant
Daniel Dalton is the CEO of the British Chamber of Commerce in the EU and Belgium. With a wide network of contacts both in Westminster and Brussels, he also works as a public and government affairs consultant, specialising in digital, trade, consumer and automotive policies.
He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) between 2014-2019 and spearheaded several high profile pieces of legislation through the Parliament, including Type Approvals for Motor vehicles, Digital Consumer Rights legislation, Criminal Records legislation, and rules against online terrorist content.
He was also the Chief Whip for the Conservative MEPs between 2017-2019. He had spent 10 years prior to becoming an MEP as an advisor in the European Parliament for a Pan national European group, advising on International Trade and Agriculture.
Prior to entering politics he was a professional cricketer and a cricket coach.
Ellen Collins
Consultant
As an accomplished business professional working in a range of Management roles in varied organisations from engineering, manufacturing, to baggage handling and local authorities, Ellen brings over 20 years’ experience specialising in Learning and Development having trained at Roffey Park, Ashridge and is CIPD qualified.
Ellen is a pragmatic individual and her wealth of experience at the front line enables her to quickly build rapport with clients and establish close working relationships with them.
Ellen helps clients to focus on key areas of business development and personal development that bring maximum return that is tangible and long lasting.
She has facilitated many cultural change programmes from SMEs to large international organisations and is comfortable working with entry level staff, graduates, management, and senior leaders.
In recent years, Ellen has become a dog trainer – (She owns a German Shepherd called Lady and is trying to get her to live up to her name).
Ali Bond
Consultant
Ali has over 30 years experience to Director level in a range of government, public sector and educational settings, and has led teams of up to 25 people.
She has worked alongside institutional senior leadership teams to create strategy and enhance performance, and has always taken a strong coaching approach to her work. Ali has lived and worked in Japan, Germany and Spain and brings to her coaching work a deep cultural awareness.
Ali is a coach, trainer and consultant, and her area of specialism is to help individuals and organisations to prioritise emotional health in order to improve performance. She focusses particularly on helping people develop their confidence, resilience and personal wellbeing. She also delivers webinars on Happiness, Resilience and Emotional Wellbeing on behalf of Action for Happiness and is an Executive Coach for the University of Warwick Business School. She has worked with middle managers, senior leaders, CEOs and principals in small and large organisations, both public and private sector, including Sky, Siemens, HSBC and Government.
Ali holds a distinction in the Advanced Diploma in Mental Health and Wellbeing Coaching from Kingstown College, Dublin, which is accredited by the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC) and the International Coaching Federation (ICF). She also holds the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Level 5 in Coaching and Mentoring.
Ali is passionate about supporting people to understand themselves, their motivations and their strengths, to help them make better decisions, in their careers and personal lives. Ali’s style is gently challenging, and she is committed to helping those she trains and coaches to unlock their ambitions, to have the confidence to commit to a plan of action, and to develop wellbeing and resilience practices to see it through.
Ali is a keen traveller and spends a lot of time in Spain in particular. She also loves going to the gym and walking.
Sonya Homewood
Consultant
Sonya has over 30 years’ experience in Senior Leadership and Executive roles .She has a passion for developing people and teams and loves to see people and teams achieve their aspirations and ambitions I’ve developed many high performing teams myself and I have worked with many individuals to help them secure promotions into Senior and Exec roles over the years and it’s this passion which led me to make a career move in 2020 to develop my own business focusing on developing people and having had real hands on experience over many years is a huge advantage!
I am an AoEC accredited coach. I support my coachees whether they be individuals with high potential/talent or board members including CEOs to explore the possibilities and potential of their career and self-development, achieve their aspirations or ambitions, address challenges or solve problems. I support people to manage procrastination, lack of confidence, decision making or to develop resilience. I also act as a critical friend and a sounding board. I use open questioning to help the coachee explore their challenges and support them to find their own solutions without judgement. My vast experience and training enable me to know the right questions to ask at the right time and feedback on my coaching sessions have been that they are collaborative and enjoyable but ultimately get results for the coachees. I also work with teams and offer team coaching and can help with specific issues like dysfunctional teams, newly formed teams and teams experiencing significant change.
I also advise the Executive Boards of business start-ups and scale ups, businesses going though growth or experiencing significant change on their overall strategy, people development and culture plans, organisational design, and Business Operations. My experience of working in large corporate businesses like RSA and digital businesses like Comparethemarket.com has given me the experience to support these businesses with their plans for growth and help them set themselves up for sustainable future success. I also sit on the board of a large Charity.
As an Insights Discovery Partner, I help individuals and teams explore self and team-awareness. Self-awareness h is an important part of being able to drive your own development and work well with others. As well as helping you understand yourself, Insights Discovery also helps you to understand more about collaboration and working with people who have different personality preferences to your own which can really improve a way that a team works together. I offer evaluators and profile generation for individuals and teams and conduct workshops and individual coaching sessions to businesses across all industries.
Using the ‘Lego Serious Play method gives teams the ability to think differently, using a different part of the brain and this skill is key to any team when devising a strategy, values, vision, objectives, problem solving etc… Lego Serious Play encourages thinking with your hands, levels a team so everyone can contribute and helps to establish a team who listen, collaborate, and challenge constructively. Workshops can be from one hour for quick problem solving to 3 days for an advanced systemic build.
Finally, with my extensive experience of working with and developing high performing teams’ I support organisations by designing bespoke programmes of development for leadership and executive teams, ranging for coaching the top talentor exec team to designing and delivering bespoke workshops tacking any range of challenges
I live in East Cheshire with my husband and 2 crazy cocker spaniels, I’m a keen builder and DIY enthusiast. I ‘m also passionate about travelling and seeing more of our beautiful world.
Camilla Adgar
Consultant
Camilla is an experienced Learning Facilitator and Executive Coach. Having worked as Learning & Development professional for 15 years, with 10 years retail management experience prior, giving her a strong commercial and HR background.
With her most recent roles as senior leader of people development teams in a number of large retail companies and being a full-time working parent, Camilla is empathetic to the balance required as a parent in the world of work and is passionate about helping others find the balance in both career and life.
Camilla is naturally curious about people, developing leaders & teams to reach their true potential. She genuinely believes that with an open mind set you can continue to learn more about yourself, enabling you to be the best you can possibly be in whatever it is you set out to achieve.
Her optimism for life translates into her training & coaching style, Camilla truly believes ‘Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain’. Trust your journey & use your strengths to be the best you.
Camilla’s coaching style is relaxed and fluid, using a variety of creative tools to help people think differently, whilst challenging appropriately to work towards clear goals and outcomes.
Using a combination of coaching, psychometric profiling & facilitation Camilla can work with you to deliver results for you and your business. With a strong retail management background, she is very commercial & able to relate back to business objectives.
Camilla loves meeting new people & enjoys the challenge of diagnosing training needs, working with businesses to meet objectives by training, coaching, developing individuals & teams.
Nathalie McAree
Consultant
I’m Nathalie, a 1:1 and leadership team coach, driven to help clients discover their natural strengths, resourcefulness, and power to make things happen for themselves and others.
Outside of work, I can most often be found managing the most demanding stakeholder of all, my young son as I try (and mostly fail) to instil my love of National Trust properties in him, or at the gym, trying to compensate for my love of food and wine. Prior to concentrating fully on my ‘soul’ work of Coaching, my background was in Organisation Change & Leadership Development. The former was specialising in working with senior leaders and teams to develop, design and deliver large scale change programmes with humanity and care. The latter was specialising in delivering bespoke or companywide leadership development programmes, enabling leaders at all levels to be themselves, with skill.
Based in Surrey, I work best with leaders who are going through a big period of change and need the space and supportive environment to think clearly for themselves, about their own next steps as well as considering and managing their impact over the people they lead. Coaching leaders through times of transformation is particularly rewarding work due to the ripple effect on their teams who will be looking to them for reassurance, connection and clues as to how to behave.
Over the years I’ve had the great privilege of experiencing broad and comprehensive training to become a coach. Covering different schools of thought and all recognised by the International Coaching Federation, the global standard in coaching standards and ethics. As such, I have a diverse skill set I can draw from when working with coaching clients but often find that the greatest service I can provide is to create a non-judgemental space, and partner with a client so that they can do some brilliant thinking for themselves.