Our trainers & associates

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Clare has been a leadership development consultant for over 20 years and has worked extensively in both the public and private sector as an impact and business coach and facilitator and has worked with Talking Shop training for many years.

A large part of her work is enabling the safe practice of courageous conversations, either one to one or in small groups.  Her approach is to find a balance between appreciation and challenge to enable leaders to make small changes that make a big difference. 

Recent programmes worked: Negotiation Skills, Optimising Emotional Intelligence, High Impact Communication, Storytelling, Courageous Conversations. She currently works as a coach for Senior Leaders in the Civil Service, the NHS & at PwC.

David specialises in working with senior leaders and their teams. He helps them to recognise their latent strengths so that progress feels liberating rather than arduous. 

His coaching and facilitation work ranges across both public and private sectors to enhance strategic leadership effectiveness over 27 years. He brings an enjoyable combination of serious purpose and lightness of touch.

In addition to accreditations in systemic coaching and numerous psychometric tools, David holds an MA in English from Trinity College, Cambridge, an MA in World History from Birkbeck College, and an MSc in management from London Business School, of which he is a Sloan Fellow.

Stewart has a varied background. He trained as an actor (Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts), graduating in 1982, worked in sales as an account manager for BT, retrained as a voice coach (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), became the Head of Voice at East E15 acting school and set up Talking Shop Training Ltd in 1992. He went on to become a practitioner of NLP (NLP Life training), a qualified Hypnotherapist (Atkinson Ball College) and is an accredited Myndflex®  coach.

 He has worked for international organisations, educational bodies and individuals from the public and private sector. He has helped Barristers, Broadcasters, Business people, Politicians and University lecturers engage their audience and deliver their message with confidence and clarity.

Stewart provides in-house training and coaching in public speaking, voice projection, impact and leadership skills as part of a wider programme of workshops offered by Talking Shop Training Ltd.

Kathryn Wolfe is a highly experienced TV presenting coach whose clients can be seen presenting on BBC, ITV, Sky, Channel 4, Channel 5, QVC. She trains individuals and teams of speakers to present webinars, video and hybrid corporate events across UK and internationally, for public and private sectors. 

Kathryn has written two leading text books, So You Want to be a TV Presenter and The TV Presenter's Career Handbook and has taken part in 6 BAFTA juries to choose winning presenters and performers. From 2006 - 2018 she was Course Leader TV Production and Senior Lecturer Media Performance at University of Bedfordshire; formerly a BBC-trained TV Director with over 20 years experience in directing top shows at BBC and ITV.

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Phil gained an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from the University of London and has spent 28 years in the field of leadership development. He previously held people development roles at PwC and Goldman Sachs. He is a faculty member of London Business School, and a former faculty member of Henley Management College and Management Centre Europe.

He has co-authored two books on management development, and was co-deviser and writer of seven series of the business-based panel game The Board Game for BBC Radio 4. He has featured as a pundit on BBC Breakfast (BBC1) Today (Radio 4) and Newstalk (Radio 5 Live).

Phil Holds a BA (Hons) in English from Cambridge University, an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from London University and an MA in Screenwriting from University of the Arts London. He is licensed in the use of the Myers-Briggs Types Indicator, Insights Discovery, The FIRO measures, the Strengths Deployment Inventory, Thinking Styles, and the EQ-i measure of emotional intelligence

Esther is an MBACP Accredited Counsellor/Psychotherapist, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Member of Advance HE.

MBACP, Accred. & Reg. MA, BA (Hons), Dip (Couns): Distinction, Dip (Sup Individual & Group), Pg Cert LTHE, FHEA 

Experience: 

She has worked as a Senior Manager, Head of Service, and Professional, in a range of settings including: The Civil Service, local Council, the NHS, and managed four professional services at a University. Esther works extensively in the charity sector training teams and groups of staff and volunteers, working with change management. She highly values creativity and has written several published articles on creative approaches to resilience. She teaches Professional Resilience to students in Higher Education at a Conservatoire. She is also an Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, a Clinical Supervisor and Mindfulness Practitioner. 

Sandra trained as a professional Actor at Manchester Polytechnic School Of Theatre and has worked extensively in Theatre, Television and Radio. She is probably best known for her role as Mandy Jordache in the Channel 4 soap – Brookside. She is a former member of Comedy Express, a Manchester based Impro Group who performed nationally and also had a regular late - night slot at The Contact Theatre.

Sandra has also worked as a drama tutor, specialising in Improvisation, at The Actors Centre – Manchester, The Acting Studio – Manchester and Millennium Dance 2000 – London. She has also worked with students at Manchester Polytechnic and Cardiff school of Drama as part of one day drama events.

Alongside her acting work, Sandra also works as a freelance facilitator, role player and drama workshop leader in a variety of public and private sector organisations. 

As a workshop leader Sandra has run a number of day long workshops, exploring Impact and Prescence using Improvisation, Vocal Techniques and Body Language. Clients include Dior, LSE, Colchester University and The Body shop.