Cheshire Business School
Meet our Speakers
Dr Andy Cope
The Art of Brilliance
Andy’s Loughborough University PhD was 12 years in the making and while he appreciates that his ‘Dr of Happiness’ label is terribly cheesy it does afford him an important media platform. In times of rising depression and an epidemic of anxiety, Andy believes there has never been a more appropriate time to raise the wellbeing agenda.
Andy is lucky enough to work with some very large businesses, including DHL, Kelloggs, Hewlett Packard, Astra Zeneca, Nationwide and UEFA. Recently, he has tailored his workshops to meet the needs of children and teachers and now delivers to audiences from age 8 upwards!
Andy’s books are frequently on the best-sellers list. ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’, ‘Shine’, ‘The Little Book of Emotional Intelligence’ and ‘Zest’ have all topped the personal development charts. ‘Happiness Route Map’ was nominated as The Independent’s best self-help book of 2018. In an attempt to bring the messages to a younger audience Andy has also penned ‘The Art of Being a Brilliant Teenager’ and ‘Diary of a Brilliant Kid’.
Andy is a sought-after keynote speaker and authority on employee engagement, wellbeing and human flourishing. He’s done numerous TV and radio appearances as well as being featured in The Telegraph, Daily Mail and Esquire.
As for genuinely interesting asides, Andy is also a best-selling children’s author. His ‘Spy Dog’ series has sold in excess of a million copies worldwide (he bigs himself up by telling everyone he is world famous, if you’re 7).
Helen Hamilton
With over 20 years’ experience in Customer Service, Training and Management, Helen has a passion for helping others learn and apply the best ideas and techniques in order to make service a worthwhile business difference.
Helen believes that you can only deliver Service Excellence externally if you are delivering it internally. This means not only having the right people within your business, but also helping leaders and managers understand their own strengths and weaknesses and how these might affect the people around them in the workplace.
Ian Howell
Rocket Coaching
Ian has a 30 year background in high-performance sales and leadership training. Having led consultancy teams within both Abbey National and Lloyds Bank, where he successfully developed radical strategies to create performance improvement, in 2000, he branched out with his own practice spotting an opportunity to provide authentic performance development programmes. Today, the business has grown as part of the Rocket Performance Group.
Ian has extensive exposure in cultivating sales leadership and coaching skills across all levels in organisations. This means he is as comfortable working with C Level executives, as he is with first line Managers.
He is sought out as a thought leader in the development of Performance Coaching programmes and he is regularly invited to speak at conferences on the subjects of coaching and change leadership.
He has worked with a host of major brands in a multitude of markets, including Banking, Finance & Insurance, Pharma, Hospitality, SAAS, Fin Tech, Mobile Communications, Data Infrastructure, Motor, Big Data and Franchising.
Jeff Lawrence
Managing Director of Organizational Agility Advisors, LLC
Jeff has served as an advisor to senior executives across multiple sectors for over 25 years. In addition to his experience in the corporate, public and non-profit sectors, Jeff has taught leadership at Harvard University, Oxford University, the University of Warwick, and Northeastern University.
Clients include: Google, Medidata, Quantcast, Stripe, Eventbrite, Brazilian Policy Makers, M&T Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Fidelity, Irish Public Administration, UK Cabinet Office, SAB Miller, Citizens Bank, United Nations, and Sanford Healthcare System.
Prior to founding Organizational Agility Advisors, LLC, Jeff helped create and develop Cambridge Leadership Associates, a firm based on the Adaptive Leadership work of Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky of Harvard University. Prior to his role at CLA, Jeff spent nearly 20 years in financial services, both in a corporate setting as well as starting and building two companies designed to help entrepreneurs build productive and agile businesses. A former Peace Corps Volunteer and Training Director in Southern Africa, he holds a B.A. in English and a M.A. in Counselling from Colgate University.
Michael Finnigan
i2i
Leading motivational speaker, author and coach Michael Finnigan has been transforming businesses, sports teams and individuals since 1992, after several years of studying and mentorship under the late, great W Clement Stone and his ‘people genius’. On completion of his study in psychological strategies to deliver personal change, Michael set out with one aim…to change millions of lives for the better.
Kicking off his career in developing and achieving peak performance with scientific method and technique at its core, Michael’s first client came in the form of ‘The Whirlwind’, Jimmy White, at a time when he was battling several demons and needed serious help to not only excel in his snooker career and be the best he could be, but to live. The partnership was an incredible success, and as news of Jimmy’s own personal ‘motivator’ spread through the sporting world, Michael found himself quickly in demand from sports stars from around the world. He realised that the principles he had studied for many years to develop leaders and business people to be their best and achieve peak performance, also applied in sport, and soon found himself heavily involved in a successful 7 years at Everton FC, coaching Darren Clarke to win The Open championship in 2011, working behind the scenes with the team and Roberto Martinez when Wigan Athletic triumphed over football giant Manchester City and many more fantastic partnerships including Freddie Flintoff, Phil Neville, the India Cricket Team, the South Africa Cricket Team, South Sydney Rabbitohs and Bolton Wanderers.
In business, Michael has worked internationally for 27 years developing and transforming companies of all shapes and sizes to achieve their goals. A regular feature at many client conferences, Michael has travelled the world speaking to thousands of people with Travel Counsellors, Vodafone, HSBC, Natwest, The British Army, The Police, our incredible NHS and many more, to divulge the science behind our behaviours and how his experience and the techniques used in ‘winning’ with elite sportspeople and teams, can be easily translated into ‘winning’ in the business world
Paul McGee
The Sumo Guy
Paul is a visiting Professor at the University of Chester and one of Europe’s leading speakers on the subject of change, resilience, wellbeing, and communication. His book SUMO became a Sunday Times best seller and his book Self Confidence reached number one in the WHSmith’s business chart and remained there for a further 24 weeks. His books have sold over a quarter of a million copies worldwide. He has appeared on BBC Breakfast television and is a regular contributor on BBC Radio. He’s spoken for more than 1,000 organisations in over 40 countries to date, including GSK, Shell, Adidas, and the NHS. From India to Italy and from Bangkok to Brisbane, Paul’s messages have resonated with a global audience. He has had the privilege of working with one of the world’s top management gurus the late Dr Stephen Covey and his work has been endorsed by Sir Clive Woodward. Chris Evans described Paul’s book How Not to Worry as “a gift to the world.” His clients include prominent blue chip organisations, public sector bodies and a leading Premier League football club.
Olivier Mythodrama
Olivier Mythodrama is a global leadership development consultancy providing world class training.
We work closely to understand who you are, what you do and how you do it to ensure we align with your strategic goals, core values and culture. We identify the most relevant Shakespeare story to use as a metaphor for exploring your current leadership challenges and this is developed further in the context of your organisation to enable optimal preparation for future initiatives. As a result, we are able to deliver programmes that provide not only transformational and inspirational stories but also memorable explorations of behaviour and communication.
The identified leadership themes are brought to life in highly engaging and memorable ways, first decoding and then developing a deeper understanding of human nature. The impact is enduring, shaped by the resonance of the content combined with the experiential style of our learning delivery. We combine this with a deep understanding of leadership Archetypes. Archetypes are the underlying patterns of human nature and experience that are, often invisibly, ‘running the show’.
Our work is a unique mixture of industry experience, leadership development theory, archetypal psychology, performance techniques and great Shakespearean stories weaved together to create impactful, insightful, and experiential learning that will have a positive and long-lasting impact. You won’t have experienced anything like it before.
Our aim is to develop individual leaders and evolve leadership culture for a better led world.
Ivor Cummins
Ivor Cummins BE(Chem) CEng MIEI PMP completed a Biochemical Engineering degree in 1990. He has since spent over 25 years in corporate technical leadership and management positions. His career specialty has been leading large worldwide teams in complex problem-solving activity. His uniquely powerful ability has been to rapidly resolve complex multifactorial issues, involving all branches of science and technology – there has been no field which he could not integrate into successful and rapid resolution. In 2015 he was shortlisted in the top six of around 500 applicants for Chartered Engineer status that year, and also completed a Stanford certificate in technical innovation and entrepreneurial management.
Since 2012 Ivor has been intensively researching the root causes of modern chronic disease. A particular focus has been on cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. He shares his research insights at public speaking engagements around the world, revealing the key nutritional and lifestyle interventions which will deliver excellent health and personal productivity. He has presented on heart disease primary root causes at the British Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (BACPR) in London. He has also debated Irish Professors of Medicine on stage, at the annual conference of the Irish National Institute of Preventative Cardiology (NIPC). Over the past decade he has captivated audiences all over the world – in USA, UK, Ireland, Estonia, Israel, Switzerland etc.
Since March 2020, Ivor has dedicated his problem-solving, analytical and biochemical expertise to deep and revealing analysis of the Covid-19 pandemic situation.
Tony Robinson OBE
Tony is the creator of the philosophy of Happipreneurship, which he presents in his entertaining “Be More Happipreneur” Show. He is known nationally and internationally as the #MicroBizMatters Champion, a multiple business owner, an award-winning speaker and author.
He is co-founder of the Micro Business Alliance, Chair of Yorkshire in Business Limited, Patron of the John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank, Director of the National Organisation for Responsible Business and a judge for the UK’s most prestigious entrepreneur awards.
Tony has founded and co-founded a number of national entrepreneur and enterprise support organisations, including the SFEDI Group and the #MicroBizMatters movement. He was honoured with an OBE for services to small firms in 2001 and is the recipient of two-lifetime achievement awards for enterprise. He was awarded the National Enterprise Network’s “Enterprise Support Champion – 2019” and Hull City Council’s Youth Enterprise Champion 2021.
Penny Power OBE
Penny is a UK entrepreneur, international public speaker, author, and community builder. She is the mother of three adult children and has been married to Thomas Power for 32 years. Penny believes in “community-led growth” and has always approached business in a highly personal way.
Her latest book, “Business Is Personal,” has helped thousands of business owners find success and happiness in their work. In 2023, Penny will publish her third book, called “Community Mindset,” which expands on her belief that implementing a community is a powerful asset for businesses and organisations, provided they understand the benefits of placing “citizens” at the
centre of their strategy.
Dave Floyd
Bullitt Group
David co-founded Bullitt Group in 2009 with Colin Batt and Richard Wharton. He has extensive experience of the consumer electronics and mobile market and was the brains behind Bullitt Group’s innovative product development. David was previously Managing Director of Freeplay Energy Inc, the clean-energy consumer electronics company that was behind the clock-work radio, where he had the drive and the passion to turn around what was a loss-making business. Prior to that David was Director of Wireless Enterprise Solutions at Motorola in the UK and US. He has a MBA and BsC in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.