John Lees

Gill Best Gill Best is Managing Consultant with JLA and co-presents the JLA Career Coach Masterclasses. Gill is an accredited leadership, career and executive coach, NLP practitioner and Lab Profile consultant and trainer.
With a wealth of business and organisational experience having worked overseas, for large multinationals, within Higher Education and government sectors, for medium sized manufacturing companies, running her own business and as a volunteer for major charities, Gill supports her clients to explore and truly assess the suitability of future career possibilities. Using her unique mix of skills and experience, Gill supports her clients to develop a strong belief in their strengths, talents, skills and abilities, building a high level of certainty that their next career decision is right for them.

Julian Childs draws on 25 years in Sales, Marketing and Consultancy plus experience that spans Financial Services, Advertising, Social Enterprise, The Third Sector and Higher Education, Julian has worked with all kinds of organisation from start ups and fledglings, to big brands and multinationals. Having spent the 1990's building marketing communications agency Mainly Marketing from scratch to merger, he is also well versed in self-employment and business building. Julian has coached over 500 senior managers and business school MBAs. With his guidance and encouragement, many have improved their focus, confidence and presentation skills - and most have found greater career satisfaction.

Jill Dean has 10 years of corporately diverse experience in Career Coaching, holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Career Management from Birkbeck College, University of London, is qualified to BPS Levels A and B+ Occupational Testing and is a qualified user of psychometric assessments including the MBTI. Her coaching style encourages people to recognise their skills and potential and she pays particular attention to enabling positive identity and self-confidence in the workplace. She provides a safe and relaxed environment for clients to explore their personal career development, working through career change (whether through choice or redundancy) and offers challenge and support through active listening, questioning and the use of highly practical career focused exercises. She is also currently researching the use and impact of music as an intervention to promote individual self confidence and well-being.

Beverley Gartside Beverley is Professional Certified Coach (PCC) accredited by the International Coaching Federation. Her passion and skill lie in helping people excel at work they enjoy. Clients hire her to help them change career, become self employed, gain promotion, find greater job fulfilment, enhance their performance or transition from one job to another. Beverley provides encouragement and support with positive challenge to enable her clients to effectively manage their careers through change. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development; qualified in a range of psychometric tools and as an NLP Practitioner, she combines her professional credentials with experience of working in a variety of sectors. “

Kate Howlett is a full time and professionally focused outplacement consultant with a commercial background in marketing and fundraising. She has a breadth of experience possesses a creative approach to problem solving, specialising in coaching a broad spectrum of clients from both public and private sectors. She worked has worked alongside chairmen, CEOs, directors and senior managers. She combines patience with energy and realism, empowering clients to reach relevant goals within appropriate time scales. Kate has powerful skills in transition management, counselling, CV writing and interview techniques. She has coached and mentored individuals and groups through intense periods of change, based in the UK and to support relocation to Africa, America, France, Sweden, Australia, Spain and Italy. Kate has a reputation for offering unstinting support with energy of delivery supported by 16 years of market experience.

Caroline Humphries is an experienced career coach and NLP master practitioner with a background in the design and retail sectors, designing and managing commercial projects. She brings her experience of working in a wide range of organisations, manufacturing and marketing to her coaching practice. Caroline is an excellent listener. Her focused, elegant, practical and professional approach has a lightness of touch. She gets to the heart of an issue quickly, and then moves things on. Her strong head for business along with intuition and flexibility brings out the best in people. Her speciality is bringing design-led thinking to business environments and the manufacturing interface.

Jon Mitchell is an accomplished Career and Executive Coach with 15 years work experience. A member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) he qualified with Coaching and Mentoring International (CMI and is a certified Career Coach with the Firework Career Coaching Programme. Jon started his career with six years in marketing and advertising, followed by four years running and ultimately selling his own successful recruitment consultancy. Recent coaching projects include MBA students at Imperial College, London, The University of Bath and The University of Exeter, and working as a Career Coach for ‘Careers After Sport’, a company specialising in helping professional sports people decide on a career after sport. He is a Career Coach for ‘Business Leaders’ who specialise in supporting those leaving the Armed Forces and transitioning into commercial roles

Heather Morgan is an accredited executive coach and senior HR professional, with over 20 years’ commercial experience. Her coaching style is focused around helping clients to explore, develop and achieve their individual career plans to help in their career decision-making, supported by a flexible and hands-on approach. She has particular expertise in designing and running assessment centres, interviewing to senior management level, outplacement management and psychometric testing. Prior to working as a career coach, she worked as Head of Career Management and Development for two global functions in a blue chip organisation. Heather has a Masters degree from the University of London in Career Management and Career Counselling, an Intermediate Diploma in Executive Coaching and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. She is a Myers Briggs (MBTI) practitioner and a qualified user and assessor of various OPQ and OPP psychometric instruments.

Bernard Pearce is a highly respected Executive Career Transition Coach, with a reputation for inspiring, focusing and transforming the careers of senior executives who seek to realign direction, establish new objectives, or challenge personal barriers. He is passionate about enabling clients to recognise their real potential and so archive beyond their perceived limitations or expectations. His early background spanned Logistics, B2B Marketing, Retail Sales, Marketing Communications, Operations, Change Management and Leadership Training, mostly within the Petrochemicals industry. His extensive experience has helped clients from across the entire spectrum of public and private sector organisations, from Boardroom to Shop Floor and the complete range of technical skills and personal abilities.

Elisabeth Tootill PGDip CMC, Dip HRD, MAC, AC Accredited, FCIPD has extensive Career Management, Coaching and Counselling experience. She holds a degree in Career Management & Counselling from Birkbeck University of London and is a trained, qualified and accredited coach. She has supported numerous individuals at all levels (Senior Management through to front line operational staff) from a variety of sectors, backgrounds and experiences. Specialism is in assisting individuals, (either following redundancy or at a career transition/crossroads) to be clear on their key transferable skills and achievements, to work out a strategy to find fulfilling work based on their strengths and interests and to communicate effectively at interview.

Alex Volcansek is an independent Occupational Psychologist with 13 years experience. She enjoys a portfolio career specialising in assessment and development, executive and career coaching. Alex has coached Army/RAF servicemen, solicitors, directors of city councils (to name a few) to negotiate career transition. She is a guest presenter in Career Management for the Royal Academy of Engineering. As an Associate Psychologist for OPP she trains HR professionals in psychometric profiling. She offers her own clients a wide range of personality tools, providing pertinent insights that lead to significant change. Previously, Alex worked for A&DC delivering assessment and development centres. She now passes her assessment knowledge on, to guide her clients through selection processes. Alex is enabling and facilitative in her approach, and is highly committed to supporting people to achieve rewarding career/life change.