Paul Schanzer

Interim Director, Academi Wales

Paul has over 25 years’ experience in leadership development after joining NHS Wales as a development practitioner during the 1990s.

Paul has worked in Academi Wales, Welsh Government since 2013. During this time he has taken the lead on governance, executive and board level development across the public and 3rd sectors in Wales.

Having developed senior team-assessment frameworks, for leaders, Paul is involved in enabling senior teams and boards. Helping them to identify the characteristics, approaches and strategies required for organisations to implement and sustain organisational high performance.

Paul has a particular interest in exploring concepts around individual, group and system dynamics and their impact on effective decision making at board level. Following completion of the ‘Board Level Dynamics Programme’ with the Tavistock Institute, he contributed a case study chapter to ‘High Performing Boards – exploring the influence of unconscious behaviours for the Dynamics at Boardroom Level’ (A Tavistock Primer for Leaders, Coaches and Consultants), published in 2019 by Routledge.

Dr Margaret Heffernan

Margaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, Chief Executive and author. She writes books and blogs, teaches and mentors senior and chief executives.

She was born in Texas, raised in Holland and educated at Cambridge University. She worked in BBC Radio for five years where she wrote, directed, produced and commissioned dozens of documentaries and dramas. For 8 years as a television producer, she made documentary films for Timewatch, Arena, and Newsnight. She designed and executive produced a thirteen part series on The French Revolution for the BBC and A&E. She also produced music videos with the London Chamber Orchestra to raise money for Unicef's Lebanese fund.

Leaving the BBC, she ran the trade association IPPA, which represented the interests of independent film and television producers and was once described by the Financial Times as "the most formidable lobbying organization in England."

In 1994, she returned to the United States where she worked on public affair campaigns in Massachusetts and with software companies trying to break into multimedia. She developed interactive multimedia products with Peter Lynch, Tom Peters, Standard & Poors and The Learning Company. She then joined CMGI where she ran, bought and sold leading Internet businesses, serving as Chief Executive Officer for InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and iCAST Corporation. She was named one of the Internet's Top 100 by Silicon Alley Reporter in 1999, one of the Top 25 by Streaming Media magazine and one of the Top 100 Media Executives by The Hollywood Reporter. Her "Tear Down the Wall" campaign against AOL won the 2001 Silver SABRE award for public relations.

Margaret has published five books: 'The Naked Truth: A Working Woman’s Manifesto' (Wiley, 2004) is about women’s careers. 'Women on Top: How Female Entrepreneurs are Changing the Rules for Business Success' (Penguin 2007) charts the rise of female entrepreneurs. Her third book 'Wilful Blindness' (Simon & Schuster 2011 and an updated edition in 2019) was a finalist for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Best Business Book of the Year Award; the FT later described it as one of the most important books of the decade.

All of these works explore why and how companies packed full of talented, motivated and committed executives fail to spot major problems or to capture the full intellectual innovative capacity of their people. 'A Bigger Prize' (Simon & Schuster 2014) looks at what it takes for individuals and organizations to be truly creative and collaborative: where the barriers to achievement lie and how to overcome them. In 2015 TED published 'Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes' which looks at the defining characteristics of sustainably innovative organizations. Margaret’s TED talks have been seen by over 9 million people.

Margaret was featured on BBC Radio 4 in 'Changing the Rules', which won the 2008 Prowess Media Award. She has also written and presented several Analysis programmes for BBC Radio 4. Through Merryck & Co., she mentors global businesses leaders. She teaches at the School of Management at the University of Bath and has been invited to speak at business schools around the world, including Harvard Business School, the Rotman School, London Business School and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. She also lectures widely at organizations as diverse as the Federal Bank of the United States, Accenture, Intel, Google, Microsoft, Roche, KLA-Tencor, State Street, Khosla Ventures, Standard Chartered Bank, Chrysler, J.P.Morgan Chase and Procter & Gamble. She also writes occasional pieces for the Financial Times.

http://www.mheffernan.com/

Gemma Morgan

I trained at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and I was the first woman to be awarded the Carmen Sword from HRH Princess Royal, for outstanding performance as a young officer. I am a former international athlete, captaining Wales in lacrosse and competing across three World Cups. I was awarded the ‘Most Valuable Player’ in Europe at the 1997 Championships

As a keynote speaker, consultant and coach, I have 20 years international experience in leadership and team performance, across the military, business and elite sport sectors. I am a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management. My work includes board level strategy facilitation, executive coaching with global brands and elite sports team development.

I am an Ambassador for the Charity ‘Help for Heroes’, supporting wounded, injured and sick British Armed Forces Veterans. I was proud to be part of the BBC TV documentary ‘Gareth Malone and the Invictus Games Choir’, and collaborated with HRH Prince Harry and Warner Brothers in the promotion of ‘Dunkirk’, the movie. Having suffered post-traumatic stress as a result of my military service, I campaign to promote better mental health awareness in organisations today.

https://morganeight.com/

Jonathan Stebbings

Senior Programme Director, Olivier Mythodrama

Jonathan has worked internationally as a facilitator, trainer, coach and keynote speaker since 1998. He works with CEOs and boards, as well as graduates and first line staff for organisations such as Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, BNY Mellon, Aviva, HSBC, Hachette, Cisco, Freshfields, S&P Global, 3M, Stanley Black & Decker, Allied Domecq and Toyota.

He focuses on personal impact (including body and voice work), individual and organisational communication, management & leadership, and innovation & creativity.

Jonathan has an MA in English Literature and has taught Shakespeare and drama. He also has a broad commercial background, having worked as a commercial lawyer in London and Oxford, as well as for ICI.

He holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Education, is a Master Practitioner NLP and a Practitioner in Time Line Therapy & Hypnotherapy. He is certified in MBTI, SDI, Relationship Awareness Theory and TMSDI’s Team Management Profile & QO2 Opportunity Orientation Profile.

He has been a lead presenter with Olivier Mythodrama™ since 2004.

https://www.oliviermythodrama.com/

Fons Trompenaars

Fons is the leading authority on cross-cultural management. He has spent over 30 years helping Fortune 500 leaders manage and solve their business and cultural dilemmas to increase global effectiveness and performance, particularly in the areas of globalisation, mergers and acquisition, HR and leadership development.

Since 1997, Fons Trompenaars has been recognised as one of the foremost thinkers on connecting different cultures in business in Thinkers50 and was inducted in 2017 into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame. He has sold over 0.5 million books in more than 10 languages, such as the bestseller Riding the Waves of Culture (3rd ed. 2012) that advocates dilemma-thinking as crucial when taking decisions in an intercultural context.

Trompenaars Hampden-Turner (also named after his regular co-author Charles Hampden-Turner) has offices in Amsterdam with a global network and operates the world’s largest database in the field of intercultural management. Based on this data, Fons recently introduced the new Culture for Business App at TEDxAmsterdam and in 2013 and has added to this in the years with a Gender and Generation app. Through this App people will better understand the origins of different cultures and receive tips on how to do business in countries other than their own.

https://www2.thtconsulting.com/about/people/fons-trompenaars/