For the majority of my career before moving into training and consultancy in 1990 I followed a career in sales, sales and marketing management. My first job was with A.C.Nielsen, market research specialists, who are now part of Dunn and Bradstreet. I joined them on their management trainee scheme, where I gained an HND in business studies. I started my career in sales when I joined Proctor and Gamble in their industrial sales division, where I stayed for 3 years when I moved to Xerox Corporation.

Xerox was my longest stay with an organisation prior to hr team. During my twelve years there I held sales, account management, sales management and marketing management positions, in the UK and mainland Europe. I also completed a two year secondment in their training centre in the UK and worked in the U.S. centre in Leesburg.

I left Xerox to join Commerce Clearing House, who are a Chicago based tax and business law specialists. My role was to set up the UK sales and marketing operation. After four years I joined Lex Electronics as Sales Director, responsible for 80 sales people who reported through Regional Managers. I then became Marketing and Operations Director.

Why did I move from line roles in large companies to a consultant role? My training secondment in Xerox established my ambition to make learning and development my profession. I worked with Marcus Bohn Associates for two years before joining hr TEAM.

I have worked with a number of clients on a range of leadership/management and sales development assignments. Clients I have worked with include:

• National Australia Bank
• General Motors
• Lafarge
• Unisys
• Lotus Development Corporation

• Parker Hannifin
• Nynex
• Motorola
• Nestle
• Ernst and Young

• Sales and Account management
• Supplier management
• Structured written communications
• Remote management

I went to the same grammar school as William Shakespeare. However, we were in different years.

I have written a book on time management -"Taming Time". This is a little known rather than an interesting fact as not too many people have bought it!