Who We Are

Carolyn Hooker
Director

Carolyn is a successful manager, trainer and author with a career spanning over 20 years.  

She specialises in learning and organisational development and works with private companies, the public sector, the National Training Awards, sector skills councils, government departments, and the CIPD.   She has extensive experience and is recognised for her results and professionalism.

After training as a Co-active™ Coach with the Coaches Training Institute in London in 2004, she regularly coaches for companies and individual clients.  Her development programmes include coaching sessions, and she is passionate about getting results in improved performance, leadership skills and career development.  She is a member of the International Coaching Federation www.coach-federation.org.

As an Ambassador for National Training Awards, Carolyn has mentored some of the most innovative and exciting training schemes in the south west, many of which win awards.  With expertise in creating development programmes, she is a great motivator and champion of positive thinking - her clients frequently say that they would not be where they are today without her support and expertise.  Her background has given her a valuable set of skills, which her clients find indispensable. She has had national training programmes published by CTAD, the NHS and Skills for Care and has recently co-authored her second publication, ‘The Value of Learning: a Guidebook for Managers’ on developing learning cultures for Skills for Care.

Carolyn spent 12 years with two internationally renowned Business Schools, Henley Management College and the Open University.  She has had extensive management and development experience, and is able to draw on this.  In the 1990’s she was responsible for teams of associates and delivering residential schools to over 100 managers.  She then became the youngest Regional Manager for the Open University and later one of the first south west managers for a new public/private e-learning company, Learndirect, where she was responsible for £2.5m of learning.  She is an accomplished lecturer and speaker specialising in HR, learning, and Women in Management and was the youngest facilitator on MBA programmes.  She co-authored her first book on management development when she was in her early 30’s.

Carolyn has a Masters in Management, is a member of the International Coaching Federation, a Fellow of CIPD and the Royal Society of Arts.  She is also an officer of the Devon and Cornwall branch of the CIPD, responsible for continuing professional development.  In her spare time she likes pottering in her garden, playing tennis and being with her family.

Chris Bell
Associate

Chris has been an independent consultant for eight years.

He is a flexible and innovative individual with extensive practical and theoretical knowledge across organisational development, education and training, mainly in the public sector. 

He has particular expertise in:

• Visioning, initiating, directing and evaluating projects
• Strategic project planning and development
• Problem identification and solution
• Developing and facilitating consortia, partnerships, networks and teams
• Design and evaluating learning
• Organisational and human resource development
• Initiation and management of innovative change
• Developing funding proposals
• Research, data analysis and presentation

Recent clients include several government departments, national sector skills councils, the Learning and Skills Council (national and regional), universities, further education colleges, care sector organisations and several private sector companies involved in learning.

Chris originally trained as a physicist, working in research and teaching.  After gaining a Masters degree in Educational Technology, he worked for Shell developing and evaluating distance learning materials.  Subsequently he spent 18 years in higher education, where, in the last 6 years, he led the University of Plymouth’s Centre for Innovation and External Developments.

He is currently not a member of any society, learned body or networking organisation and will probably never will be again, as he feels the same way as Groucho Marx: ‘I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member’.  In his spare time Chris enjoys DIY and holidaying in exotic locations.