A complex role is delivering high-performance governance to an outstanding Grammar school in South Buckinghamshire.

This is a voluntary role at one of the UK's leading Grammar Schools. I focus on development, well-being, SEND and safeguarding with subject links to mathematics, computing, art & design & music.

Gill founded GillyMac Designs in 2012, intending to teach local children, teens and adults to sew. Since then, the business has grown to deliver classes and public speaking engagements globally on various sewing techniques, her experience of a career change and the importance of sewing as part of a well-being toolkit. Whilst patchwork and quilting are the essence of GillyMac, Gill also runs popular garment-making classes. In 2019 Gill ran her first virtual sewing retreat with participants across Europe, and this event has grown year after year, resulting in weekly online classes.Gill’s classes are fun and relaxed. She has consistently won awards in the UK and EMEA, and her work has been shown at the Turner Contemporary, European Festival of Quilts, Liberty of London, and many other Exhibitions. Her classes are delivered online, in person and on demand. Additionally, she runs a vibrant online community with a reach of 20k each month.Gill volunteers to support the Duke of Edinburgh Award, the Quilters Guild and small local schools and organisations to promote sewing for children and teens.

Transitioning the Nortel Optical Operations Team into the Ciena Corporation, responsible for all operations projects (financial, partners, equipment and personnel), system (which to keep and which to exit) and staff integration (procedures, job function integration and placement within the organisation).

Working with Ernst & Young to create a standalone optical business unit across EMEA, which was ready for sale. This involved selecting and negotiating the personnel, building the team, forming the roles and responsibilities, and leading the contract management to break out the optical product parts from combined equipment sales whilst managing the ongoing projects to successful delivery.

Sole coordination of the business operations for the combined Nortel EMEA Business. This involved the roll-out of SalesForce, management of budget requests to Canadian HQ, revenue, cost and net profit forecasting, sales incentive planning, and day-to-day support for the CEO and CFO and their teams.

Responsible for the integration of the Nortel EMEA Wireless Engineering teams (based mainly in UK, France and Germany) into the Fixed Network Engineering Teams (based across EMEA). This involved managing personnel expectations, roles & responsibilities, working with local Workforce Councils to redeploy staff, managing the exiting of some business systems and broader adoption of others and maintaining successful engineering sales support during this time.

Responsible for all Nortel technical marketing for optical products (including Enterprise) within EMEA. This involved sales training and sales support, customer consulting and liaising with the global product managers and business development teams.