Meet The Leadership Team

Duncan is a CIPD qualified HR Leader with over 24 years’ experience across numerous sectors. Duncan started his career in food retail with Budgens Stores, joining their graduate management programme and progressing from Store Management, Employee Development and Training, HR Management positions in Food manufacturing and Distribution and to Head of HR for Retail Stores over a 10-year period.

Duncan then moved to Sytner Group (part of US based Penske Corp), a prestige motor group in the UK. He initially worked as Divisional HR Head for the Toyota / Lexus division before moving to the BMW division also as their Head of HR. He also worked with brands such as Land Rover, Jaguar, Porsche, Ferrari, Mercedes Benz, Lamborghini, Maserati, Audi, Volvo, Saab, VW. During his time at Sytner Duncan was awarded the Global HR Manager of the year on two separate occasions and was also nominated twice for UK overall Support Manager of the year.

Duncan left Sytner Group to join Porsche GB as their UK Head of HR (member of UK Board). Porsche GB is a subsidiary of Porsche AG.

Duncan then moved to Truck-Lite Europe ltd, a tier one supplier of mirror and lighting products to the truck, trailer and passenger car market. Duncan assumed the role of European HR Director overseeing plants in Harlow, Birmingham, Eisenach (Germany), Bydgoszcz (Poland) and Minsk (Belarus) and operated as a key member of the European Board of Directors. During his time at Truck-Lite Duncan had to navigate the business through the 2007/08 global recession, working with works councils and unions across the network to agree significant headcount reductions, shorter working weeks and reductions in pay. Although heavily impacted the Company managing to retain all operational plants throughout the economic downturn and without any employment-based litigation.

Most recently Duncan has been working in the Financial Services Sector for Dollar Financial Group (The Money Shop, MEM, Payday Express, Suttons and Robertsons, Biggars, Duncanson and Edwards, TGS Stores), a short-term high cost credit organisation. Duncan’s initial role was that of Global HR Director for Online Business however the role evolved, and he became the UK Chief Operating Officer and a member of CFA (Consumer Finance Association) board. During his time at Dollar he and his fellow Operational Board members were charged with “cleaning up” the business in preparation for FCA regulation and against a backdrop of significant political and press pressure. Over the course of 6 years Duncan was a key influencer in ensuring that the business was regulated, restructured to ensure it met the needs of the new business model, agreed and delivered a customer redress programme and oversaw two sales to Private Equity Investors.

On leaving Dollar Duncan set up Harwood HR Solutions in order to provide 1st class HR services to the UK. Duncan has two daughters and is a keen follower of Football, Rugby and motorsport. He also enjoys eating out and nice holidays!

07912 115 749

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A fully CIPD qualified, experienced HR professional with a strong operational background.

Having worked in customer services, training and finance for a number of years, Zoe joined MEM Consumer Finance (Dollar UK) in its infancy, taking on numerous roles required when being part of set up.  Zoe was Operations Manager before moving solely to Human Resources & Training; implementing the department from scratch. Zoe was a key member of the team helping the company to grow from 4 to 250+ employees. In her role as Head of HR, she worked with senior management through 4 acquisitions, in 13 years of working for the company; assisting with TUPE transfers, large scale rightsizing and restructuring projects and alignment of terms and conditions.

Zoe worked with the senior leadership team on the UK regulatory project to help change culture, restructure and develop the organisation to ensure that the organisation was ready for FCA regulation.

Working in a rapidly growing, fast paced environment Zoe led her team to deliver a high level of service, covering all aspects of HR including; training and recruitment, employee relations and large-scale redundancies with zero litigation.

In her spare time Zoe enjoys spending time with her family, including her two dogs; holidays in the sun and lots and lots of shopping!

07920 058 632

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A highly motivated, qualified, HR professional with a breadth of HR experience in people planning, organisational change, performance and reward, talent and resourcing, communications and engagement.

Charlotte has extensive HR experience, having started her HR career as an HR administrator at MEM consumer finance and quickly moving up the ranks to HR Business Partner to the senior leadership team for The Money Shop. Whilst there, she challenged and drove performance across a multimillion pound business, through both structural changes and cash constraints by coaching and challenging process. Proven experience managing redundancy processes without litigation.

Charlotte’s more recent role was in social care, given her knowledge of various sectors and industries.

Charlotte is a true HR generalist, with vast experience including; supporting senior leaders and managers, employee relations, managing sickness absence cases and TUPE transfers.

Since having a baby during a global pandemic, Charlotte enjoys spending her time with her new family, cooking, watching rugby and visiting new places.

An experienced senior HR professional, fully CIPD qualified, with extensive experience at both a strategic and operational level.

Having worked in manufacturing, retail and distributions for several years Jackie joined Sytner Group Ltd, to develop it’s training and HR functions. Over the next 22 years, Jackie became Group HR Manager and Divisional Head of HR, as Sytner Group grew from a small automotive dealer group to the largest prestige retailer in the UK with 8000+ employees. Providing a full, field-based HR service to 24 individual dealerships Jackie worked closely with the Head of Business and Management teams to deliver a complete HR service, working with brands such as Jaguar, Land Rover, BMW and Audi.

During her HR career Jackie has managed acquisitions and disposals, redundancy programmes, and business restructures (including TUPE). She has written company handbooks, policies and procedures and is fully experienced with all areas of employee management, performance and engagement. She has a great record of resolving employee issues and has coached and trained Managers to effective manage their employees.

Jackie has a pragmatic, proactive and positive approach to managing people with a desire to successfully balance the needs of the business with the needs of the employee, operating with knowledge, humour, positivity and a respect for every view.

In her spare time Jackie is a fused glass artist, and also paints in acrylics. She has a daughter who is an aspiring athlete, so the family are often trackside at the weekends.

A passion for people being able to be their best and thrive underpins It’s Time for Change. I am determined to make a positive impact on people in their day-to-day lives whether that’s in their own space or at work.

It was nearly ten years ago that I set out on an evolving journey, founding the company after working in Oxfordshire as a teacher, and Milton Keynes as a psychologist. I created the name It’s Time for Change because I firmly believe that if we all started to do things a little bit differently, we’d achieve huge results. After a focus on working as a psychotherapist and a trainer for emotional aspects of development, mental health and wellbeing, I decided to broaden my approach to people being able to really engage. And so, I’m now at a place where I also help leaders understand what they can do differently in the workplace to create a culture for employees to excel, where teams are dynamic and where people are happy. Being a chartered psychologist gives me a point of difference to understand what’s going on and enable change.

My offer has grown but I still have the same relationship-based approach, developing true collaborations with clients and other businesses in order to really understand and support the journey to a better future. If we get people right, we get society and business right.

I was proud to have been awarded Psychologist of the Year, Oxfordshire by GHP Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Awards in 2018 and to have had my business written about by OxLEP.

I juggle time between my work, being a mum, DIY and travels in our camper. I’m also often found charging around the countryside keeping fit.

HG.Dip.P,    CPsychol,    MSc.,     P.G.C.E.,    BSc.Hons,

www.itstimeforchange.co.uk

I am passionate about helping businesses to grow from the inside out. I believe we are all capable of creating a work environment that is motivating, inspiring and engages everyone to achieve their best.

I believe that by enabling your key people to take ownership, develop critical leadership skills and support each other to achieve their potential, you allow your business to grow beyond your own expectations and limitations.

Having spent 15 years in various senior operational and training roles in the recruitment industry I have a clear understanding of the commercial realities of business and the need to balance development with results. I have worked across a wide variety of different businesses and strongly believe that getting the right people into your business and keeping them there is achievable.

With 14 years’ experience of creating and delivering leadership development programmes I have a strong sense of the various needs of the different levels of management and the unique challenges they all face.

When people understand their role and position in the business and how they can support its growth they are able to discover strengths and confidence they didn’t know they had.

Using a blend of 1-2-1 coaching and group workshops I work closely with organisations to create bespoke programmes that deliver sustainable outcomes.

When I am not talking about business and people I can be found reading, writing or cooking and eating. Usually followed by a long walk with the family and the dog.

https://people-spark.co.uk