Judges
Debbie Carter
TJ Special Achievement Award
Debbie Carter
Editor in Chief, TJ
@Trainingjournal
Debbie Carter has been at the heart of the TJ Awards since their conception, guiding the event from its original stand-up conference format to the current black tie gala dinner attended by more than 600 L&D professionals. As the key lead on our editorial content Debbie Carter is the ideal Chair to organise and assess this years applications.
Marina Bolton
Best Organisational Development Programme
Marina Bolton, MSc (P&OD), FRSA, NTL.
Director Organisation Development, Design and Learning in the Civil Service
Marina is an experienced Organisation Development and Design practitioner with over 37 years working in a variety of operational, corporate and strategy roles within the Civil Service. As a founder of the CS Organisation Design & Development Expert Service, Marina has influenced the creation and embedding of OD capability within the UK Civil Service.
Margaret Burnside
Best Coaching/Mentoring Programme
Margaret Burnside
Director, CAKE People Development
@margaretburnsid
Margaret, a fellow member of the ILM, is an experienced coach, trainer and facilitator; having worked in Learning and Development for over 25 years.
Her expertise lies in the area of leadership development, whether it is coaching a director to define their organisation's vision and strategy or designing and delivering a tailored management development programme.
Emotional intelligence is an area of particular interest, and Margaret is one of the few people in the UK certified to use the Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Test (MSCEIT). She is also a member of the Engage for Success Guru Group and a volunteer Business Mentor with The Prince’s Trust as well as training new mentors.
CAKE is a people development consultancy based in Norfolk. Margaret leads a core team of performance consultants and manages key relationships with a select group of CAKE colleagues who support the delivery of development solutions to their clients.
Margaret believes in working in partnership with clients to develop their in-house skills and capability, leaving a sustainable resource to continue the ongoing development of people, encouraging and supporting individuals to take responsibility for their own learning and development.
Sarah Cook
Best Customer Experience Programme
Sarah Cook
Managing Director, The Stairway Consultancy Ltd
Sarah Cook has over 20 years’ consulting experience specialising in customer experience and leadership development. Sarah began her business career in Marketing with Unilever where she worked in European marketplaces. Having completed an MBA, Sarah moved into consultancy.
As Managing Director of The Stairway Consultancy, Sarah has worked with a wide range of international clients to help them create a customer-focused culture and enhance business performance.
Sarah is the author of many books on customer experience including: ‘Leading the Customer Experience’, ‘Customer Care Excellence’ and ‘Complaint Management Excellence’.
Sarah is an accredited executive coach, Fellow of CIPD and a Chartered Marketeer.
Hesketh Emden
Best Talent Development Programme
Hesketh Emden
Director, ProInsight | www.linkedin.com/in/heskethemden
Hesketh Emden is an award-winning Talent Management (TM) professional and has headed and set up a broad range of public and private sector Learning and Development functions, from Commercial Union during one of Europe’s largest mergers, to the Metropolitan Police. He also lead TM across the NHS, after which as part of government health service reforms, he was brought in to help create the brand new NHS Property Services, a Limited Company owned by the Secretary of State into which 3200 staff TUPEd overnight. Hesketh is also a trustee of the SMMGP, a national charity, is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, and unusually is a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Physicist!
James Flanagan
Best Change Management Programme
James Flanagan
James Flanagan generates business change and benefit by designing, developing and delivering change, communication and learning and developing programmes.
His real value is engaging with people at their level; they understand his analysis, diagnosis and the challenge they and the organisation face. Using this engagement, he then develops solutions that are real for people: they want to change because they understand the change process, their role in it and the belief they can and want to change. He is currently working at NHS Resolution and has worked at Unilever, Owens-Illinois, Car Systems, SAB-Miller, BUPA, BT, Harley-Davidson, Lilly and IBM.
Binna Kandola
Best Diversity & Inclusion Programme
Binna Kandola
Senior Partner BSc (Econ), MSc, PhD, CPsychol, ACIPD, FRSA, OBE Diversity, Assessment and Development specialist
Diversity, assessment and development specialist Professor Binna Kandola is a Business Psychologist, Senior Partner and co-founder of Pearn Kandola, where in the last thirty years, he has worked on a wide variety of projects for public and private sector clients both in the UK and overseas.
As well as leading the practice, Binna is particularly interested in the study of gender bias and unconscious bias in organisations. He is the author of three new and critically acclaimed books on these subjects – ‘Racism at Work: The danger of indifference’, 'The Invention of Difference: The story of gender bias at work' and 'The Value of Difference: Eliminating bias in organisations', and the co-author of several other management books, one of which 'Managing the Mosaic' won a Special Commendation at the 1994 Management Book of the Year Awards. A regular contributor to the HR and business press he is a sought after and highly regarded conference speaker.
Sati Kaur
Best Operational Programme
Sati Kaur
Senior Learning Talent and Organisational Capability Partner, Deluxe Entertainment Services Group
Sati Kaur is a senior HR professional who has over 20 years’ experience in organisation development and learning. She has strong multi sector experience across manufacturing, aviation, distribution, FMCG, IT, recruitment and media. Sati also participates in organisation development practice research and has presented at CIPD and Training Journal conferences, as well as guest lecturing at Kingston Business School.
Rachel Keener
Best Training Partnership
Rachel Keener
Rachel Keener has been involved in adult education and learning and development for over 20 years. She is currently working with Knowledgepool as a Senior Learning and Development Consultant, supporting clients to improve their learning and development proposition by recommending tailor made solutions for their business. She is an active member of many forums and supports new L&D professionals with coaching as they develop their skills. She has implemented core training programmes across EMEA and implemented global rollouts for sales and training interventions. Prior to focussing on learning and development she worked in the theatre in the UK and the USA.
Andy Lancaster
L&D Professional of the Year
Andy Lancaster
Head of Learning and Development Content, Chartered FCIPD, FCMI, FLPI, M.Phil, Cert.Ed
@AndyLancasterUK
As Head of Learning and Development Content at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD), Andy leads the vision for learning and development for the Institute and the creation of innovative and leading-edge learning solutions to support the L&D profession worldwide. He regularly speak at conferences, write articles about L&D and is the joint-author of the "Webinars Pocketbook".
He has more than 25 years’ experience in learning and organisational development in commercial, technological and not-for-profit organisations and brings a skilled and creative mix to the design and delivery of strategic learning solutions.
Clare O'Shea
Best Sales Programme
Clare O'Shea
Clare has more than 30 years in Sales, Consultancy and Training.
Her company, Marlow Sales Academy, through it’s team of consultants and partners, focus on helping B2B organisations improve their sales performance by focussing resources on robust sales strategies, processes, key account management & consultative selling.
Clare was instrumental in the design of the first ever Qualifications in Sales back in 1998 with the first Institute of Professional Sales and continues that interest with exclusive Partnership designing and delivering the CIM’s Post Graduate Diploma in Strategic Sales Practice. Clare has a background in the ICT industry with roles in Sales & Key Account Management.
As a Consultant, Trainer and Coach, Clare’s focus is always to achieve sustainable behaviour change and help maximise ROI from any interaction.
Neville Pritchard
Best Leadership Development Programme
Neville Pritchard
Founder & Chair of HR in Flow , People in Flow. Executive Director of Neuro-Link Europe
Co-Author of ‘Go Beyond’ – Your Workplace = Your World (May 2018)
Neville has over 30 years in HR, L&D, OD, and Leadership Development from his corporate and consulting roles. He began with Legal & General, then Abbey National and Barclays. He now focuses on the impact of culture, leadership, management, and their development, on the working environment and performance.
A coach and speaker, he chaired the ATD Orlando conference programme committee in 2015. He is an Advisory Board member for Washington DC firm Wordsmith Rapport and was previously Chairman of the FSSC Major Employer Advisory Forum and a Board member of the IFS Schools faculty.
Beyond work he managed the Bucks Academy cricket side and now represents Buckinghamshire in Seniors cricket. He is a trustee for the Bucks Youth Cricket Trust.
Tony Shaw
Best Public Service/ Not-for-Profit Programme
Tony Shaw
Director of Development,Dods Group
Tony has been Director of Development at Dods Training for the last 10 years.
He works with public and private sector organisations both in the UK and internationally to design and deliver a range of policy, communications and governance programmes.
Prior to joining Dods he was a Programme Director in the Government and Policy Group of the National School of Government.
Clive Shepherd
Best Use of Technology in Learning
Clive Shepherd
In a career spanning more than 35 years, Clive has headed up a corporate training function, co-founded a leading multimedia development business and operated as an independent consultant operating worldwide. He is a regular speaker at international conferences, has been recognised with two lifetime achievement awards, has written five books, more than 200 articles and nearly 1000 posts to his blog, Clive on Learning. His most recent book, More Than Blended Learning, was launched in January 2015. His current venture is Skills Journey, a curriculum of online CPD courses for L&D professionals.
Henry Stewart
Best Apprenticeship Programme
Henry Stewart
Founder, Happy
Henry Stewart is chief happiness officer of Happy, the learning provider he founded almost 30 years ago. His company was originally called Happy Computers and focused on making learning about IT an enjoyable experience.
The company has been widely recognised, winning awards for customer service and, for five successive years, for being one of the UK’s top 20 workplaces. Happy has twice won (and four times been runner up) in the Learning & Performance Institute’s Learning Provider of the Year.
The company developed a highly interactive style based on the age old principles: Tell me and I will forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I will understand.
Henry is best known for promoting the concept of happy workplaces. His Happy Manifesto was shortlisted for Business Book of the Year when it was published in 2013.
In 2011 Henry was added to the Guru Radar section of the Thinkers 50 list of the most influential business thinkers in the world. "He is one of the thinkers who we believe will shape the future of business", explained list compiler Stuart Crainer.
Joe Tidman
Best Private/Commercial Programme
Joe Tidman
Head of Learning Operations, GSK
@joetidman
Joe’s passion is in making learning easily accessible, simple and impactful on a global scale. Joe currently Leads L&D at Johnson Matthey. His experience majors on leading strategic Learning and Development projects, including developing company-wide Leadership Development programmes, L&D standards, enterprise learning curricula and global on-boarding. He has nearly 20 years industry experience, and has previously designed and set up a Global Supply Chain Academy, ran international graduate programmes and led various other Talent, OD and HR activities.
Karen Velasco
L&D Team of the Year
Karen Velasco
Director, PeopleSolve Ltd
Karen is a performance management consultant, trainer, facilitator and coach and has worked in learning, development and leadership roles for over 25 years.
Karen is a director of PeopleSolve Ltd and immediate past Chairman of the British Institute for Learning and Development. She spent nine years as a non-executive director at the University of Chichester and is now a trustee of its Student Union. Karen was honoured with the Award for Outstanding Contribution to the field of Human Resource Development at the 2011 Asia HRD Congress and has been a judge for the TJ Awards for the last seven years.