I'm a highly experienced and trusted people professional, with a passion for helping businesses perform better by creating great places to work; after all, most of us have to work for a living, why not make it fun while we're doing it!?
With over 25 years’ experience in blue chip, founder owned and matrix Global businesses, I’ve always worked in HR.
Most recently, I was the People and Culture Director for Global where I had responsibility for all aspects people and culture for Global Radio, Global TV and Global Entertainment (inc. USA). Global is privately owned and run, but most people know some of their big radio brands, Capital, LBC, Heart, Smooth and Classic FM just to name a few!
During my six years there I supported significant revenue growth as we changed from being a purely radio business to a media and entertainment group. We worked hard to describe our “obsession” culture and I focussed on developing and bringing to life a people strategy with this at its heart. Here's a flavour….
Managing mergers and acquisitions with the emphasis on the employee experience to safe guard knowledge, reduce unwanted exits and maintain business performance through change e.g. acquisition of GMG Radio and subsequent divestment and TUPE integration and closure of US operation;
Managing transformation programmes with a focus on bringing people on the journey with minimal disruption to the business e.g. implementation of Workday;
Recruiting people with the right skills, and the right culture fit;
Creating a performance management process and system based on great two-way conversations;
Providing benefits that reflect the culture and kind of business Global was;
Setting up development programmes that gave managers the skills to truly engage their teams;
Implementing internal communication channels that reflected true employee involvement; and
Developing ways to recognise brilliant work.
It was prior to this, at Telefonica O2, that I really discovered my love of making a difference to the day to day lives of employees, and as a result, improving business performance. It all started with taking O2 to the 5th Best Company to work for and ended with leading the people side of a business transformation – always with employee experience at the heart.
And before all that, I ‘cut my teeth’ in retail. Firstly at Tesco, joining their HR Graduate scheme and progressing in the eight years I was there through a variety of roles in Employee Relations, Graduate Recruitment, Business Partnering and Change Management, then at TKMaxx as Head of HR for Retail and Office World as Chief Personnel Officer.