Workshop Programme Presenters – 2011 - 2012
Gordon Dawes
Gordon Dawes is currently Chairman of Christadelphian Meal a Day Fund in addition to his work as an HR Consultant and Organisational
Effectiveness Consulant. In a varied HR career, his previous roles include those of VP of Human Resources and Human Resources Director with
Glaxo and later GlaxoSmithKine.
Sean Riches
Sean Riches is a Change Management and Organisational Effectiveness consultant. He has worked for global organisations including Unilever,
Oracle and Paramount Films, facilitating programmes with delegates from over 35 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. His
success as a consultant is based on nearly 20 year’s commercial experience; many spent in front line management roles in organisations such as
BAA.
Karen Philipson
Karen Philipson is a Learning and Development consultant specialising in management development and communication.
Karen gained her first degree in Psychology and followed this with a years study at the London School of Economics, obtaining an MSc in
Employee Relations and Personnel Management in 1989. She is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (MCIPD).
Throughout her career she has worked mainly in the public sector in the field of Human Resource Management and Learning and Development.
Prior to starting her consultancy in 2003, Karen worked for 5 years at the Royal Brompton Hospital where she was responsible for developing the
HRD service for the Trust.
Karen’s current activities focus on designing and delivering a range of management development programmes to clinicians at the Royal Free
Hospital and lecturing on the Certificate in Personnel Practice programme run at City and Islington College.
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Louise Marron
A modern languages student graduating from the University of London (French and German), she subsequently studied at the London School of
Economics (MSc in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management, 1998) and is a Fellow of the CIPD.
After graduating she worked in various roles as an HR generalist, principally in the financial services sector, and prior to becoming freelance was
Head of HR for a Japanese bank for 8 years.
Since completing her MSc, Louise established HR Connections Ltd and has been working as an interim in the HR arena for 10 years. Largely
project based, the assignments have been in the areas of organisational re-design, change management, outsourcing and the establishment of
Shared Service Centres, and Learning & Development initiatives. Sector-wise she has worked in financial services, public sector, retail, FMCG,
energy, consulting, IT, and software design.
Recent Learning & Development assignments have included design and delivery of initiatives in response to Foster’s Employee Satisfaction
Survey, leading the L&D team through a change programme at the Department of Work & Pensions, examining succession planning and
development of talent at Barclays, and designing and implementing a global Leadership Capability Programme for HSBC Group Private Bank.
Richard Martin
Richard is a Partner with law firm, Speechly Bircham LLP. He obtained his law degree at Cambridge in 1991 and qualified as a lawyer in 1995.
Since qualification he has specialized in the area of employment law.
He advises employers on all aspects of the employment relationship. His key areas of specialisation are handling high value claims for breach of
contract, unfair dismissal and discrimination, and advising on the enforcement of restrictive covenants and confidentiality obligations. He also
advises regularly on the employment related agreements of business transfers. Richard works across a broad range of sectors including the
defence industry, charities, recruitment, retail property and others but with a strong city and financial services focus.
Richard is a member of the Employment Lawyers Association.
Aideen O’Halloran
A Fellow of the CIPD, Aideen holds an MSc in HR (with distinction, LSE) and post graduate Diploma in Career Counselling and Consultancy
(Birkbeck). She also holds an MSc in Special Education (St Johns, New York) and a BA in English/French (Trinity College, Dublin).
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Having worked in a series of HR roles with Clifford Chance, BDO Stoy Hayward and KPMG, Aideen joined Andersen as HR Director for the
EMEIA Tax and Legal Practice before setting up as an independent consultant.
With over 15 years experience of small, medium sized and multi national businesses, Aideen has worked on HR issues relating to start up, restructuring, downsizing, change management and best practice policy implementation. She brings a strong combination of coaching skills,
business experience and HR expertise to enable organisations to make the most of their people and their HR operations. Organisations she has
worked with as a consultant include London Underground, RBS, Deutsche Bank,Kent Council,
Valerie Spence
Valerie Spence has 16 years’ HR experience, largely in a partnership environment. Her background includes generalist HR roles but for some
years now her specialist area of interest and expertise has been employment policy and employee relations, she currently leads a specialist team
within one of the Big 4 accountancy firms.
Valerie has an MA in HR & Employment Law from Kingston University where she won the Croner prize for her dissertation on Personal Privacy &
the Employment Relationship. She is a Fellow of the CIPD.
Charles Williams
Since 2004 Charles has been a member of 'Big-Four' accountant PwC's Employees Relations Policy & Advice team, focusing on their Audit
practice. Prior to this he was with firm of employment law consultants where he specialised in client advice and training, conducting extensive
public and in-house training on behalf of the CIPD and for the consultancy's own clients. The earlier years of Chaz's career were spent in the
Banking and Mining sectors where he undertook generalist and compensation roles before becoming and Employee Relations specialist.
Stuart Woollard
Stuart Woollard has over eighteen years’ experience in management and consultancy working with a diverse range of
organisations. He has also been a global HR Director in the financial services industry and Managing Director of UK operations.
Work in the commercial arena has been combined with academia as a Visiting Fellow at King’s and now as Managing Director,
HRM Learning Board.
Ursula Connolly
Ursula Connolly is Director of The People Skills Business, a company that helps service-led organisations to develop skills and engage their
people to deliver great service to their customers. Ursula has more than 16 years experience in developing
and motivating individuals and companies to achieve successful results. She is an experienced facilitator, presenter and project manager.
Ursula has experience with internationally respected organisations in helping them align the development of their employees with
their brand and strategic business objectives. She has led multi-cultural teams and project managed large scale projects across Europe, Middle
East and Africa. Her main focus is to help organisations engage and develop their people so that they in turn deliver great customer service and
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achieve desired business results. Among business she has worked with are British Airways, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, InterContinental Hotel
Group, The Gleneagle Hotel Group, PAUL UK, RBS, Comet, and Astra Zeneca,
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