All our trainers are committed to providing you with the best possible learning experience. Here you can find out more about them.
Management & People Development Team
David Christie
David has held senior management positions in large blue chip companies and management training organisations. He has
designed and delivered “National Training Award” winning courses and worked in the oil, drinks, car and retail industries.
Clients David has run training for include Shell, Ford, Dixons Stores Group (National Award Winning design), Fujitsu and British
Airways. He has also worked extensively for the public sectors, particularly with the DTI, Dept of Health, the Inland Revenue and
the Learning & Skills Council.
David specialises in designing training using the medium of simulation and is currently delivering project management
courses and graduate development in this way.
Dawn Punter
Dawn has worked for Thales Training & Consultancy since May 2008 and works with a range of Thales’ clients in the public and
private sectors. She specialises in delivering management development and personal effectiveness.
Previously she worked as a consultant, facilitator, and coach for organisations both in the private and public sectors. She has
over 18 years experience as a HRD professional and also previous roles as a Learning & Development Manager, Customer Service
Management & Project Management.
She has designed and delivered a wide range of Management and Personal Development solutions for all levels of staff. Dawn is
not only a competent trainer, but also an experienced coach and facilitator.
Dawn is one of those fortunate people who can say that she loves what she does, which is working with people, promoting &
encouraging change.
She would describe her style as: performance focused, down to earth, interactive yet challenging, fun and centred on behaviour & change.
Doug Chapman
Doug joined Thales in 2008 and works as a Learning and Development Consultant with a range of Thales’ clients in the public
and private sectors. He specialises in delivering management development and personal effectiveness development training.
Before joining Thales Training & Consultancy, Doug worked with Southern Railway as a Leadership and Behavioural Trainer where he
worked with all levels of the organisation facilitating programmes in a time of constant change. He developed and delivered a Customer
Service programme for all 3500 staff members; a 7 day leadership development programme for middle and senior managers; bespoke programmes
for key departments and a new performance management system. Prior to working with Southern Doug had a varied career, working with a
number of organisations in the UK and USA. Including working on cruise ships for 4 years, where he worked as a Corporate Trainer for
Carnival Cruise Lines (delivering leadership, hospitality and safety training). Doug has an engaging style of training and facilitation.
He creates an environment where participants feel confident to share their experiences to gain maximum learning from each other and to
take action back in the workplace.
Fiona Doran-Smith
Fiona has worked for Thales Training and Consultancy since 2006 as a Learning and Development consultant.
She has designed, consulted on and delivered a wide variety of L&D solutions specialising in the areas of customer service and
personal effectiveness. Her customer service experience covers a wide variety of customer service environments such as call centres,
IT helpdesks, engineering firms and financial services. In the area of personal effectiveness Fiona’s specialist areas include
assertiveness, communication skills, building positive relationships and presentation skills. Her work covers both the public programme
and bespoke solutions for private and public sector companies. Her bespoke clients include the Metropolitan police, Total Gas and Power
and Tesco.
Fiona is passionate about understanding behaviour and how we can change/use/modify it to increase our personal effectiveness and
improve our interpersonal relationships. She fervently believes that learning should be enjoyable yet challenging, encouraging us
to step outside of our comfort zones.
Nicola O'Donnell
Nicola works as a Trainer, Facilitator and Development Consultant with a range of Thales’ clients in the public and private sectors.
She has designed and delivered a range of learning and development solutions specialising in the areas of leadership and management,
people and performance management, building positive relationships and team building.
Nicola joined Thales in 2007 and leads the Management and People Development team of consultants.
Before joining Thales Training & Consultancy, Nicola worked with Southern Railway where she worked with senior management to frontline
team members to facilitate a change in culture. She also designed and delivered team-building events across all disciplines within the
business and worked on development and delivery of Management programmes. Prior to working with Southern Nicola held a number of Management
positions within the hospitality industry. After graduating from University she worked for 13 years with Whitbread holding several positions
from General Manager of Restaurants / Budget Accommodation to Learning and Development Manager for the brand focusing on developing Management
Programmes and materials to ensure everyone had the opportunity to develop their potential. Nicola has also operated her own catering business
and worked for Hilton Hotels as a Learning and Development Manager.
Nicola is a creative trainer with a facilitative style, engaging her delegates within the learning environment to ensure the learning
is fun, interactive and easily applied back in the workplace.
Rob McWilliam
Rob works as a Trainer, Executive Coach, Facilitator and Development Consultant with a range of Thales’ clients in the hi-tec, telecoms,
commercial and industrial sectors and in the public sector.
He has designed and delivered a range of learning and development solutions specialising in the areas of leadership and management, people
and performance management, interpersonal skills and customer service. Rob is programme director on a number of management development
programmes for Thales including ILM Institute of Leadership & Management accredited programmes.
Rob has plenty of leadership, management and commercial experience, both in retailing and as a member of Thales Training & Consultancy’s leadership team.
Rob believes in creating a relaxed, supportive but challenging learning environment, whether he’s training or coaching. He takes a pragmatic
approach to development, while incorporating appropriate theories and models in support. He has the ability to connect with all levels of an
organisation. Overall, Rob aims to ignite self-belief and the desire to implement change.
Coaching Team
David Mackay
David has worked as a coach during formalised organisational coaching programmes and with individuals across a range of jobs and
functions. Many of David’s coaching clients have been salespeople, sales support and account managers. These people have worked with
David to improve their strategising, planning and implementation of sales and business account plans through their own activities as
well as the performance of their teams.
Ian Mackenzie
Ian has been coaching people for many years in a wide variety of contexts.
He is currently coaching participants in a telecommunications technology company on a six months leadership development programme.
He also provides coaching for staff in a government agency and worked as a coach on a government department’s leadership development
programme for several years. He has also undertaken coaching for the private banking division of a commercial bank as a part of a
management development programme, and for the Compliance Director of a Pensions provider.
Jayne Elmer
Jayne works as a Professional Coach both on formalised organisational coaching programmes and with independent individuals.
She has recently coached a selection of managers through organisational and personal change for an organisation in the telecommunications
industry as part of their leadership development programme lasting six months.
She coaches executives and directors from a wide range of industries and has particular expertise working with subject matter experts
from technical and engineering backgrounds. People development and performance issues, programme and time management issues, primary
and secondary client interfacing, personal career progression are a few of her specialist areas. She also has excellent results with
coaching team members in newly forming, stale or deforming teams using a mixture of psychometric feedback, individual coaching and
team facilitation.
Margaret Burnside
Margaret has a wide experience of coaching and external mentoring on a one-to-one basis and as part of a structured coaching programme
for small, medium and multi-national organisations. Margaret has probably coached or mentored over 200 people over the last 15 years and
is currently working with around 16 people at various stages of their coaching programmes.
Margaret is also a volunteer business mentor with The Prince’s Trust, supporting young people in starting, developing and growing their own businesses.
Nicola O’Donnell
Nicola works as a Coach both on formalised organisational coaching programmes and with independent individuals. She has recently coached
managers from a range of industry sectors through organisational and personal change as part of their continued professional development.
She coaches managers from a wide range of industries on people development, performance improvement, team development, leadership development
and personal career progression.
Nigel Daly
Nigel has coached numerous senior and middle managers within a commercial environment. They have come from a range of background
and expertise, including many from technical background. Some coaching programmes have included use of 360 degree reviews, and
psychometric instruments to develop awareness of self and others.
He is proud to state that every person coached, in written post coaching assessments, have found the process very valuable and been
able to quantify tangible benefits in their performance as a result.
He has run larger integrated senior leadership development programmes, with group development sessions, offsite team building and
one-to one coaching elements
Rob McWilliam
Rob has worked as a Coach both on formalised organisational coaching programmes and with independent individuals, usually at Senior
to Middle Management Levels.
Rob regularly coaches managers in a software company as part of their leadership development programme and is both coach and
facilitator for a Talent Development Programme for a large construction firm.
Simon Drury
Simon has been a practising Coach and Trainer for more than 18 years. He has a wealth and diversity of experience in the field
of business and personal development. Simon’s experience ranges from coaching Business and Private Clients to design and delivery
of coaching and training interventions.
He has coached Managers, Project Managers and Business Leaders in the telecommunications, legal, banking, pharmaceutical and transport
industries. He has also coached Sales Managers and their Sales people, Call Centre Staff and business owner-managers running small to
medium-sized businesses.
IT Applications Team
Carla Scott
Carla joined Thales Training & Consultancy in 2007 as an experienced trainer with over five years experience supporting, training
and delivering bespoke software solutions. She specialises in bespoke systems training projects and has designed and delivered training
across a range of tools; authored and maintained user guides, manuals, training materials and exercises and provided on-site consultancy
and support.
Carla is a natural communicator who is able to work at all levels in a professional manner whilst remaining positive and approachable.
She is flexible and adaptable in her training style being able to manage course participants with different skill levels.
Jane Hames
Jane is an IT Training Consultant who has extensive experience in using and training in Microsoft applications with specialist skills
in Microsoft Project and Excel. She has excellent training skills adapting her style to meet the needs of individuals.
Jane has worked extensively with a range of organisations to develop training programmes for bespoke systems. She has good analytical
skills enabling her to extract the necessary information to meet the exact requirements of the customer.
Nicky Copping
Nicky has over 8 years experience working on all aspects of bespoke systems. Nicky comes from the travel industry, where she has
over 12 years experience and vast knowledge on travel systems, software and product management.
Nicky has been involved with large implementation projects, which include training, floor walking, on site support and consultancy.
She has a background in software testing and so is used working to tight deadlines and dealing with high pressure projects, this proves
invaluable when working on large training rollouts for new software implementation.
Paul Terry
Paul has been an IT trainer for more than ten years. He comes from a retail background and that experience has shown him the user
side of training. This enables him to easily assimilate users needs and requirements and include them within the training session.
Paul is a first class trainer, adapting training to suit his delegates. His enthusiastic approach helps delegates of all levels to
get the most out of the training session.
Richard Harker
Richard has 15 years’ experience in all aspects of supply chain, from logistics; order processing, inventory control, management
analysis and purchasing in multinationals as well as experience working abroad. Richard has learnt to use numerous software packages
in a business environment and is hugely experienced in data modelling, data analysis and data management. He also understands the day-to-day
frustrations and demands in a fast paced workplace and has learnt many shortcuts and useful tips to help make working with data more efficient.
Richard is an enthusiastic trainer and very passionate about the subjects he teaches. He likes to share his knowledge and enthusiasm
on courses to show that you can achieve some amazing things with your data and have fun doing so.
Rosalind Guy
Rosalind is an accomplished IT Training Consultant designing and presenting courses worldwide for IT software rollouts and adhoc
client courses. Her background is in the Travel Industry and she has a wide range of experience in designing user manuals, training
materials and delivering courses. She has run courses on a wide range of different software packages and is used to dealing with
delegates with differing levels of skills and knowledge. She has been a trainer since 1998.
Rosalind is a clear, patient trainer who understands the frustrations that people can have with different software packages.
She also understands that being flexible and adaptable are key to ensuring everyone meets the course and their own individual
objectives.
Susan Howard
Susan is the IT Product Solutions Manager at Thales Training & Consultancy, which means that she manages the Technology training
business with responsibility for product design, development and evaluation activities.
Susan comes from a technical background progressing from programmer to systems analyst to technical support engineer. From here
she progressed into the IT training field, where she has over twelve years experience.
Susan has project-managed a large number of IT training contracts, which has involved identifying customer requirements, designing
training packages and running a programme of courses. She fully understands the need to be flexible when training a group of
delegates and feels it is an important part of the training session.
IT Technology Team
Our IT technology trainers come from a wide variety of backgrounds and are all industry experts. They bring their experience
into the training environment enabling them to answer real life questions, show actual scenarios and give factual advice. They
are all passionate about what they teach and are keen to pass their knowledge and skills onto delegates.
For detailed profiles of the experience and skills of our technology trainers, please contact Susan Howard.
Health & Safety Team
Our Health & Safety trainers again come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have experience of working in a number of d
ifferent industries, ranging from military and government establishments to retailing and healthcare.
For detailed profiles of the experience and skills of our health & safety trainers, please contact Nicola O’Donnell.