In this voluntary role I am honoured to be the Chair of Birmingham Royal Institution for the Blind, a long established and respected Birmingham based charity working to support local people who are visually impaired.

Reporting to the Chief Executive the role of Chief Operating Officer is pivotal to the achievement of Acorn’s mission and to the delivery of children’s hospice care services throughout the West Midlands and Gloucestershire. The role of COO is about ensuring effective leadership of senior leaders across the following areas: People and Culture, Marketing and Communications and Retail to deliver to Acorn’s strategy. The role further encompasses responsibility as deputy CEO, supporting and deputising for the CEO as required. At the heart of the COO role is a visible and credible senior leader, role modelling the organisation’s values and behaviours to ensure others do the same enabling the organisation to generate the income needed to meet the needs of around 750 children and one thousand families a year.

IReporting to the Chair of the Board of Trustees, the role of Chief Executive is pivotal to the achievement of Acorns mission and to the delivery of children’s hospice care services throughout the West Midlands and Gloucestershire. The role of CEO is about ensuring effective leadership of a 3 Executive Directors covering Care Services, Fundraising, Marketing and Communications, Finance, ICT, Data Services and Facilities and Estates to deliver to Acorn’s strategy: with direct leadership of the Retail operation and People and Culture. At the heart of the CEO role is a visible and credible senior leader, demonstrating the values and behaviours defined and ensuring others do the same to ensure the organisation generates income of over £14m per year to meets the needs of around 750 children and families a year.

Director of People and Culture, reporting to the Chief Executive as an executive board member, responsible for the design and delivery of the organisational people strategy to ensure alignment with and delivery of the organisational strategic objectives. Responsible for circa 400 employees and over 1000 volunteers operating across 3 hospices, 45 shops and a central office across the West Midlands. As a member of the Executive Board participate in actively shaping organisational direction and working closely with Trustees.

People & Talent Director, reporting to the Chief Executive, responsible for the design and delivery of the organisational people strategy to ensure alignment with and delivery of the organisational strategic objectives. Responsible for circa 400 employees across a national remit and as a member of the Senior Executive Board participate in actively shaping organisational direction.

Responsible for the mobilisation of the new Spire Nottingham Hospital as a green field site in an area with no existing presence, there was a need to recruit and onboard a significant number of employees across multiple disciplines both in clinical and non clinical roles. My focus was to deliver an end to end onboarding approach that could be sustained once the new hospital became operational and to adapt this to make it fit for purpose across the group.

Responsible for the design, creation and delivery of a blended learning solution to train circa 5000 employees on the use of a new Enterprise Resource & Planning system (ERP) Agresso. Also responsible for all communication and engagement with a wide range of stakeholders prior to system go live across all citizen services throughout the county of Lincolnshire.Duties & Responsibilities:• Creating a comprehensive engagement strategy to ensure all users were informed and engaged in the change to a new system and associated processes across the county of Lincolnshire.• Conducting a training needs analysis to identify the scope and level of training required working with key operators and project work stream leads• Creating a blended learning plan consisting of reference cards, user guides, face to face learning and e-learning modules• Identifying and training 120 ‘Change Advocates’ from within the council to assist in the delivery of key messages throughout the organisation to all employees for continued engagement• Development of a structured communication plan for all levels and areas within the council.• Identification of external SME training organisation to create the learning required• Selection and training 15 employees to become trainers for the project, delivering training to end users• Line management of project team, 23 people, across the county.• Management of all learning development, system admin requirements and access to SMEs to create appropriate learning for users• Co-ordination of courses across the county, approx. 160 sessions, to train end users in a range of subjects from purchasing to budget management within the system• Attendance at Project Board and the council’s management board meetings to gain formal agreement for plans and provide updates regularly.

Senior HR Business Partner, reporting to the Group HR Director, providing Executive Directors and senior teams with strategic and tactical HR solutions to meet current and future business needs, including strategic HR responsibility for International businesses in Australia, Poland, Spain and India.Duties & Responsibilities:• Contributing to the development and implementation of HR strategy and new initiatives both in the UK and internationally.• Providing a support service to the senior management team across all key HR areas including organisation design, talent management, performance management and reward.• Review and improve the implementation of key HR policies and projects to improve the effectiveness of the business in the UK and Internationally.• Contribute to strategic decision making at the most senior level within the business • Set challenging targets and lead by example to deliver high performance through people• Promote a ‘coaching’ culture that encourages and supports personal development• Project Manager for key HR initiatives, in particular the introduction of a leadership development programme• Strategic HR Lead for Business Development supporting key bid activity for new business opportunities.

Providing support for Business Managers to drive achievement of business goals across 60 offices comprising of various Welfare to Work contractsUK project lead for design, develop and implementation of Welcome & Induction ProgrammeUK lead for design and development of People Policies & supporting process guidesUK People Project lead for implementation of new contract award across 6 geographical locations in UK, including TUPE & need to recruit, induct & train 70+ employees within 4 weeksGuiding managers in dealing with complex ER issuesTalent Selection & Management of succession planManaging absence, short term and long term, to meet agreed targetsManaging multiple TUPE transfer both in and out across 5 Contract Package Areas at the same time as all staff being placed at risk of redundancyDesign and implementation of assessment programme for all front staff, managing the assessment of over 450 staff both internal and external candidates.Design of Performance management system, process guide and training workshop for managersRedundancy processes and advice, amendments to contracts & collective consultation negotiationsEnsuring the management team have the skills and resources to meet the business needs

HR Business Partner covering South of England aligned to Regional Operations Director, 35 units across patch with 5 Operations Managers, 575 + employeesDuties & Responsibilities:Providing support for Business Managers to drive achievement of business goals across 60 offices comprising of various Welfare to Work contractsUK project lead for design, develop and implementation of Welcome & Induction ProgrammeUK lead for design and development of People Policies & supporting process guidesUK People Project lead for implementation of new contract award across 6 geographical locations in UK, including TUPE & need to recruit, induct & train 70+ employees within 4 weeksGuiding managers in dealing with complex ER issuesTalent Selection & Management of succession planManaging absence, short term and long term, to meet agreed targetsManaging multiple TUPE transfer both in and out across 5 Contract Package Areas at the same time as all staff being placed at risk of redundancyDesign and implementation of assessment programme for all front staff, managing the assessment of over 450 staff both internal and external candidates.Design of Performance management system, process guide and training workshop for managersRedundancy processes and advice, amendments to contracts & collective consultation negotiationsEnsuring the management team have the skills and resources to meet the business needs

HR Business Partner covering East of England aligned to Operations Leader, 160 units across patch with 9 Operations Managers, 2000 + employees, turnover £25M per annum.

HR Business Partner covering East of England aligned to Operations Leader, 160 units across patch with 9 Operations Managers, 2000 + employees, turnover £25M per annum.Duties & Responsibilities:Providing tier 2 & 3 level support for Business Managers to drive achievement of business goals across 160 units comprising of primary schools, secondary schools, independent schools and Further Education Colleges Employment law advice, guiding managers in dealing with complex ER issuesTalent Selection & Management of succession planSupporting & Identifying Business Efficiencies & overhead and in unit restructuresManaging absence, short term and long term, to meet agreed targetsTUPE and contractual change consultations, both loss and gainSupporting operators in client reviews, when re-tendering and bidding for new businessPerformance management systems to drive qualityRedundancy processes and advice, amendments to contracts and consultation.Ensuring the management team have the skills and resources to meet the business needs

Responsibilities:HR Management of 1200 employees, Training design and delivery including:Labour Metrics reporting and monitoringProviding tier 3 level support for Business Managers to drive achievement of business goalsEmployment law advice, guiding managers in dealing with personnel issuesTalent Selection & Management of succession planManagement of employee satisfaction surveySupporting the business with Business EfficienciesManaging absence, short term and long term, to meet agreed targetsTUPE and contractual change consultationsPerformance management systemsReport Writing and maintaining accurate recordsRedundancy processes and adviceDesigning & delivering training solutions relevant to business needs both legislative & soft skillsActively being an advocate for the Company's vision and values

Duties & Responsibilities:HR Management of 500 employees, across a multi site catering and soft services operation, aligned to Operations manager.Labour Metrics management reporting and monitoringEmployment law advice, guiding managers in dealing with key ER issuesManaging absence, short term and long term, to meet agreed targetsTUPE and contractual change consultationsET Case ManagementPerformance management systemsReport Writing and maintaining accurate recordsRedundancy processes and adviceDesigning & delivering training solutions relevant to business needs both legislative & soft skillsEngaging and influencing key stakeholders in the operation, including the client.