The ADLiB panel of experts and contributors

David Abingdon is CEO of The Quantum Organization, a worldwide consulting group, which advises smaller companies on how to grow their businesses in record time. His strategies and advice have helped scores of companies to grow profitably as well as enabling him to build several highly profitable businesses of his own.

John Adair is internationally acknowledged as having had a major influence on management and leadership development in both business and military spheres. He is was visiting professor in Leadership Studies at the University of Exeter and a consultant to a wide variety of organisations in business, government and the voluntary sector. He has served in the Arab Legion and worked as a deckhand on an Arctic trawler. After Cambridge, he became senior lecturer in Military History at Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and later Assistant Director of the Industrial Society. He became the world’s first Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Surrey.
John Adair is the author of many respected books on management and leadership, Inspiring leadership, also published by Thorogood. His books have sold many hundreds of thousands of copies worldwide.

John Ansell is a biochemistry graduate with a Masters degree in Business Studies. John began his 20-year career in international marketing and business development in Holland with Organon, worked for Schering AG and Fisons in the UK, and again in Holland, with Solvay. Finally, from 1985 to 1989 he worked at Glaxo Holdings, on Zantac. Subsequently, as an independent industry consultant, John has worked for over 100 clients on commercial strategic projects. He is a frequent speaker, and has also acted as chairman of over 30 industry conferences. John is the author of more than 40 articles and reports on strategic industry issues.

Paul Batchelor is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. He has twenty years’ experience in senior roles in the UK retail financial services sector, recently specialising in internal audit, compliance, special investigations and risk management. Over a five-year period, he was responsible for creating, maintaining and testing the business resumption planning capabilities of a leading UK financial services group.

Caroline Black runs her own consultancy and is also an experienced trainer, mentor and speaker. Her specialist areas include corporate, consumer, business-to-business issues and crisis management communications. She has worked for a wide range of clients and brands, including Sainsbury’s, Investors in People UK, Mobil, Mars, Pedigree Petfoods, Ufi Ltd, British Gas, Smith & Nephew, the European Union, and the National Society for Epilepsy

Tim Boyce has been involved in contract management for over 20 years. He began his career in the Ministry of Defence holding executive positions in contracts, contracts policy and finance. His industrial career began at Plessey in 1980 after which he enjoyed appointments with Siemens, British Aerospace and as commercial director at BAE Systems. His functional responsibilities have included contracts, commercial, procurement, estimating, legal, project accounting and the implementation of the European Business Excellence Model. He is a former member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS). His committee work included the CIPS National Contracts Management Committee, the CBI Contracts panel, the CBI Defence Procurement Panel and the CBI/MoD working groups on partnering and incentive contracting. He was the CBI observer at the HM Treasury Central Unit on the Purchasing Working Group on incentivising industry. In 1997 he was invited by the Director General of the CBI to join the CBI Public Private Partnership Forum. He has lectured widely in the UK and the US.

Stephen Brookson is an independent consultant, and specialises in the provision of practical business development consultancy and training programmes. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1980 with Peat Marwick and, after a period at Grandmet plc, joined a leading organisation in the provision of training for chartered accountants in practice. During this time he gained extensive experience of writing, developing and presenting programmes on accountancy and taxation. He then joined Ernst & Young for a number of years as a consultant, leaving them to set up his own management and training consultancy business.

Paul Elkin is Managing Director of TMMi Group, which provides consultancy services with a particular focus on business strategic development, performance management and corporate image. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants and an experienced management consultant. Paul is the author of a series of practical ‘reference guides’ covering finance, strategy and business awareness and supports the delivery of MBA programmes in the areas of strategy and finance. He has also been involved in a range of initiatives in Europe for major corporates including ABB, Philips, International Paper and General Motors.

Kevin Hard has a background in sales and management development within the Telecoms industry. His extensive experience in the industry includes setting-up and managing a national sales team to launch the successful Datatrak and Band3 products within the UK market. He spent many years working with a major telecommunications consultancy advising many major UK corporates, offering independent advice to enable organisations to make informed decisions on their strategic initiatives in telecoms including MEUC, GKN, Warners, Somerfields, Lloyds. He was regularly involved in the training of new personnel and set up a training service -3C for customers to fill a gap in the market and introduced new innovative technologies into the UK from Israel (VoIP) – Lloyds, Freeserve; Australia (CMS) – Boots, NHS, and Digital Literacy (Finland) – IBM, SAP. He now runs his own consultancy working with clients to provide management and commercial training for managers and senior level executives.

Sultan Kermally holds degrees in economics, sociology and law and diplomas in finance and accounting, marketing and education. He is a learning facilitator and management writer. He designs and delivers training courses in business strategy, managing people, managing performance, managing knowledge and personal development. He has conducted training all over the world. He has been involved in management education and development for a number of years including distance learning management education courses. He is tutoring MBA modules for the Open University Business School and Durham University Business School.

Anne Knell, MA, FCIPD, has been a Partner in Newways 90, an HR consultancy offering a broad range pf personnel advice and support to clients in all sectors of business. Before that she spent over 20 years in human capital services for Binder Hamlyn Fry/Arthur Andersen. She has wide experience in advising companies on organisation design, personnel policies and procedures, employment law, remuneration planning including job evaluation, the introduction of appraisal systems and training of appraisers, identifying relevant performance indicators and employee attitude surveys. Author and editor of several publications on employment law and HR practice and lecture extensively on these topics.

Much of her present client work involves advising directors and managers of the implications of actions they may be considering in relation to staff, e.g. recruitment, contracts of employment, appraisal, discipline and dismissal. Anne has produced a number of publications including: The Personnel Manager’s Fact book and The Reward and Recognition Handbook. She is also Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD). She is also qualified to use a range of psychometric tests for recruitment and assessment purposes and Appointed as an ACAS Arbitrator in 2001 and as a mediator for their small firms’ service in 2003.

Cathy Lake, MA (Oxon) is a freelance editor, writer and project manager. During the past two decades, she has taken part in, and also managed, almost every aspect of the publishing process. She has worked for most of the major national publishers and has written about 40 training manuals and textbooks. As well as writing for commercial publishers in the UK and abroad she has also written management development workbooks for corporate clients.

David Martin, FCIS, FCIPD, FioD as a Director & Secretary of one of the top 250 listed PLC’s for nearly 10 years David was responsible for a range of disciplines – including personnel, property and insurance as well as statutory and legal requirements and corporate/internal communications (three of his annual reports won national awards).

David is an employer’s representative for the panel of members for the Employment Tribunals and a member of one of the Registrar of Companies committees.

He is a regular seminar/conference speaker and is author of around 40 books including two international best sellers Tough Talking and Manipulating Meetings. He is a series editor for the institute of Chartered Secretaries one Stop (OS) series.

Roger Mason FCCA, FCIS, ACIB is a highly experienced company director and company secretary. His early career was with Midland Bank and the Ford Motor Company before becoming finance director of ITC Entertainment Ltd. He was, for 14 years, company secretary and finance director of a leading British greetings card company. He lectures on finance and business matters and has written a number of well-respected books.

Norton Paley has over 25 years’ experience in general and marketing management and is the author of several best-selling books on marketing. His lecturing and consulting clients include IBM, American Express, McDonnel- Douglas, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson and scores of small and mid-size companies.

Barrie Pearson is Chief Executive of Realization, which he established to provide world-class mentoring and coaching for CEOs and entrepreneurs in acquiring and disposing of companies. In 1976 Barrie Pearson founded Livingstone Guarantee plc, the first corporate finance boutique in the UK, advising on acquisitions, disposals, management buy-outs and buy-ins, fund-raising and stock market listings. When he sold it, the company had become the largest and most successful independent corporate finance house in the UK. He has written 17 books, including Trade Secrets of Business Disposals, and has presented seminars on acquiring and selling companies in the UK, Europe, New Zealand and SE Asia.

Ian Ruskin-Brown has been the owner/entrepreneur of several service businesses, a course director at the Chartered Institute of Marketing for courses on Marketing in the service sector and has designed, written and piloted in-company training courses on marketing and selling consultancy services for a number of blue chip companies. He currently runs the Marketing Your Services course for Management Center Europe and client specific courses in the USA and South East Asia.

Mark A Thomas is an international business consultant, author and speaker specialising in business planning, managing change, human resource management and executive development. Based in London, Mark works across the globe – he has worked in over 40 different countries and is a frequent conference and seminar speaker on business, organisation and human resource issues.

Ralph Tiffin is a mechanical engineer who subsequently qualified as a chartered accountant and became manager in one of the largest international firms of accountants. He is now managing partner of an accountancy and consultancy practice. He has a wealth of experience with companies of all sizes in the UK and overseas. Work typically involves developing clients reporting and management systems along with appropriate management training and developing project appraisal processes and spreadsheets.

Michael Williams is an international management consultant. His main clients include leading business schools as well as several universities and a wide range of companies throughout Europe and North America. He is the author, or co-author, of many books in the fields of leadership, management practice and organisational psychology.