Associates

Sandra has over 15 years of experience in successfully nurturing and developing talent and was previously Director of Coaching at Management Futures Ltd, before embarking upon a freelance career. She was one of the first executive coaches in the UK to be awarded the prestigious European Individual Accreditation at its highest Master Practitioner level by the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. She is passionate about coaching individuals and teams to help them transform their work and thrive in times of challenge and transition. She is highly experienced as a leadership development consultant, coaching supervisor and facilitator and has worked with Board executives and senior managers in public and private sectors organisations, including many FTSE 100 companies.

Sandra has a particular interest in developing mindful leadership with those who work in tough environments. To that end she works extensively with emergency services, including as a Home Office assessor selecting police leaders for the highest level of command training. Her qualifications include an MBA, post graduate coaching and coach supervision and a wide range of psychometric instruments. As a keen hill walker, Sandra lives in Yorkshire and loves the access to amazing open spaces and straight talking people.

Sophie has 16 years work experience in the field of biodiversity conservation, education and interpretation. Her master’s was in Environmental Policy and Management and she began her career in conservation and project management for Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust. However in the last 10 years, with a passion for effective, meaningful communication, the creative process and a lifelong interest in our natural environment, she has specialised in Interpretation.

She feels very fortunate to have gathered a range of invaluable experience having worked for eminent national and local institutions: the Natural History Museum; British Library, Barnes Wetland Centre; the National Trust; and Wildlife Trusts. Latterly Sophie was key in establishing the Darwin Centre, as one of only two Senior Interpretors, and then took on a temporary contract to open the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity (having helped develop the concept for the Centre),.

Sophie also dedicates part of her time to co-managing a community conservation project in Northern Mozambique called Mareja, which looks after 40,000 hectares of coastal forest, a Global Biodiversity Hotspot.

As a consultant Sophie support all stages of interpretation and creative project development, with a particular interest in research, strategy and concept development; facilitation; and creative interpretation methods.

Ian is an experienced training professional and has worked in the Rail industry, the College of Environment and Transport and latterly with Blue Cross, the charity dedicated to helping sick, injured and homeless pets. There he has been involved in developing managers and teams delivering both structured in house Leadership Skills and Volunteer Management programmes, both accredited with ILM as development awards, as well as ad hoc development such as coaching skills for those working with volunteers and change workshops for leaders and staff. All of the learning was closely aligned with clear strategic business objectives and organisational values. During his time at Blue Cross he also worked closely with Lantra, the Sector Skills Council as chair of the industry group helping to develop vocational standards and awards.

Ian’s professional interest is the development of new, and in particular, aspiring managers and leaders, providing them with learning and development opportunities to benefit themselves and their organisations.His style of training is that of facilitator allowing groups to discuss issues, explore possibilities and formulate solutions, learning from each other. In addition, Ian also recently received an award on behalf of Blue Crossfrom the Charity Learning Consortium for “Getting started on an e-learning journey” after implementing an e-learning site at Blue Cross.
He is qualified in the use of MBTI as a means of increasing awareness between people to improve and develop more stable and effective relationships within the workplace. He believes it can be a powerful tool to help people appreciate and tolerate their own and others approaches to gathering information and decision making.

As a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management he has been involved with developing management and leadership standards with both the ILM and CMI.
When he gets the time, he enjoys travel, walking, food, socialising, the arts and for some sheer entertainment, British Touring Car Championships.

Alex Steele is the Director of Improwise. Improwise was established by Alex in 2004 with a focus on working with organisations in areas linking change, innovation, sustainability & jazz. Improwise operates a range of complementary divisions, providing consultancy, research, training & coaching in areas of environmental management, sustainability, corporate social responsibility, leadership development, organisational change & innovation. 



In 2011, Improwise launched a series of new programmes, linking leadership development with CSR projects in Uganda, Kenya & Bangladesh. These programmes are targeted at professionals in public & private sector organisations. Alex has spent a considerable amount of time in Uganda, Kenya & Bangladesh since 2005, & the programmes forge strong links between local community groups & NGOs on the ground with the passion & expertise of visiting professionals. 



Improwise has its roots in the application of ‘jazz thinking’ to identify solutions to improve personal & organisational performance. This novel approach to organisational development is based on two very different parts of Alex Steele’s background as both management consultant & jazz musician. Alex brings over 20 years of experience as a management consultant, working with private & public sector organisations. He works as a consultant, trainer & coach, helping organisations in areas of managing change, innovation, corporate social responsibility, creativity & leadership development. 



Alex is also an internationally renowned jazz pianist, and he brings these skills together with his experience as a consultant, trainer and coach, using live jazz group performance to provide practical guidance and inspiration to organisations in areas including team building, change management, leadership, innovation, creativity and improvisation. Inspirational, transformational learning, plus a jazz quartet, in the boardroom or conference venue. “Unexpected, powerful and brilliant!”



Specialties

Professor in Sustainability and Transformational Learning at the University of Liberal Arts, Dhaka, Bangladesh



Member of the international Solutions Focus EDGe Practitioners Group. Solutions Focus is a methodology for change management and coaching, based on 50 years of experience, used by organisations including BP, Nationwide, Royal Bank of Canada and Lufthansa.

Currently applying Improwise to the challenges of climate change, carbon management and behavioural change.