Barbara Kenton, MSc, FCIPD, DTM, Cert Couns

With over 25 years experience as a manager and as a development specialist at operational and strategic levels in the public sector, Barbara currently works as a specialist in people and organisational development with a particular emphasis on change and conflict. Her work includes training, coaching, facilitation, mediation and consultancy drawing on a wide range of disciplines from Gestalt, psychodynamic counselling, neuro-linguistic programming and martial arts! A firm believer in an holistic and pragmatic approach to development, she works in partnership with clients to help support sustainable change. She has worked internationally in Holland, Poland, South Africa, Italy, France, Germany and the United States. Co author of Change Conflict and Community with Suzanne Penn and HR - The Business Partner with Jane Yarnall, both published by Elsevier (see resources), Barbara is also a qualified mediator, NLP practitioner and user of psychometrics (MBTI, FIROB and 16PF) and works as a community mediator in her spare time.

Suzanne Penn, MA, FCIPD, FRSA

Suzanne is an independent consultant, specialising in personal and organisational change, learning and development. She worked for ten years as an internal consultant, in both operational and strategic Human Resources roles within the financial services and public sectors. For the last 10 years of her career she has worked as an external consultant, facilitator and coach in the UK, mainland Europe and the US, covering all sectors including manufacturing, pharmaceutical, government, not-for-profit and healthcare. Her particular areas of interest are leadership, culture change, conflict and creativity. She has a Masters in Management Learning from the University of Lancaster and is trained in a variety of approaches including Future Search, Appreciative Inquiry, Gestalt and various psychometrics. She has spoken at conferences on development in Europe and Asia and is co-author of Change, Conflict and Community with Barbara Kenton.

Alison Savage, MSc, TDipM, Dip Sup, DipCouns, NNEB

Alison’s work life, spanning some 35 years, has mainly centred around the development of people focussing on increasing resourcefulness and realising potential in their everyday lives both in and out of work. After 10 years in education Alison became a Company Director for a small property development company where for 5 years she project managed domestic housing projects. Moving into the public sector, Alison was closely involved in the people side of mergers and acquisitions. That experience lead her to design and develop staff support services for several organisations including one of 7,000 employees offering mediation; bullying and harassment support; counselling; team development; training and development. The expansion of these services gave Alison experience at senior manager level. Alison ran a thriving consultancy practice alongside her organisational roles for over 25 years and now concentrates on helping organisations to iron out potential and difficult ‘people issues’ in the workplace.

Dr Jane Yarnall, BA, FCIPD, PG Dip (Bus, Res) PhD 

Jane has over 19 years experience in Human Resources, both within large corporations and as an independent consultant. She has worked with managers, staff and unions at all levels and is an experienced facilitator and coach. Jane has received a doctorate for her research into the impact of organisational self-development programmes on career satisfaction and organisational commitment. She has also published articles and books on the role of line managers; career anchors, training evaluation, Talent Management and HR Business Partners. Jane is qualified in the use of occupational tests and personality instruments to level B.

Barbara Kenton -
Director of WHooSH

Suzanne Penn

Alison Savage

Dr Jane Yarnall