The CFT Team

Chris Sheepshanks

Chris has been coaching CEOs and Executive Directors and their teams, and supervising coaches internationally for more than 20 years. Following his early career in the British Army where he saw active service, and various leadership roles in media organisations, Chris led the School of Coaching, then the leading coach-training organisation in Europe, before becoming one of the founding Partners at TPC, where he helped to build and sustain the development and growth of the company internationally over 10 years. He has an MBA from London Business School and is a qualified coach and coach supervisor.

Elana Friedman

Elana is a dynamic and experienced facilitator and coach and has worked across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Central America, the UK and Europe with organisations such as Save the Children and The British Council. She is a specialist in whole systems change across and between team, organisational and international boundaries seeing that as the driving force behind lasting solutions and sustainable performance. She studied psychology at the University of Cape Town and Rhodes University in South Africa, and trained as a creative therapist in the UK. Over the last 20 years Elana’s portfolio has included team building, leadership development, ongoing consultancy and coaching. She works with individuals and teams from the private, public and NGO sectors.

Gordon Lyle

Gordon has spent his career driving complex change and improvement in varied and challenging organisational environments. He led the HR functions for Stakis plc and for Hilton Hotels during the period following the Sept 11th crisis and he was VP of Starbucks throughout EMEA during its fastest period of growth in the region. He has significant experience within both Financial Services (where he was instrumental in the Lloyds Bank merger with HBOS at the start of the global banking crisis) and Retail, including Asda/Walmart. He is a qualified executive coach (University of Strathclyde) and a non-executive Director of Dimensions UK, a charity providing care, support and housing for people with learning difficulties and autism.

David Webster

David, Founder of Centre for Teams, is an experienced and well-regarded Chartered Occupational & Coaching Psychologist (HCPC registered) and has been coaching internationally for over 20 years. Following his early career at Price Waterhouse and Forte plc, he led the School of Coaching in the late 1990s and has served as Chair of the British Psychological Society’s Coaching Psychology Group. In 2003 David established the Centre for Teams, which enables exceptional and sustainable performance by helping clients build leadership and project teams that can adapt and learn. He has an MSc. from Birkbeck and an MBA from Nottingham University and in 2018 won the CEO Magazine Management Consulting Award.

Heidi Ashley

Heidi is an experienced and well-respected Executive Coach and Leadership Mentor with over 20 years standing in the profession. As a former Associate Partner with Accenture, a global management consultancy, Heidi blends coaching with business experience and consultancy approaches to ensure maximum client value in every interaction. Heidi believes in the power of minimising interference as the hidden gem in maximising performance. She focuses on enabling and empowering effective and productive relationships with insightful thinking, meaningful dialogue, and powerful questions, through which interference can be minimised, potential maximised and desired performance achieved. Heidi became a management consultant in 1991, and an Executive Coach in 2001. She has a BSc from Loughborough University and a commitment to CPD resulting in an ever-growing list of qualifications and accreditations.

Lauren Hogg

Lauren’s interest in coaching stems from her time as a professional musician and seeing the impact that coaching can have on performance. As an EMCC-qualified coach, Lauren’s work now explores how coaching can be used effectively to transform leaders, their teams and organisations. Her coaching focuses on supporting leaders to raise their awareness of their thinking and behaviours in order that they can engage more intentionally with their work. Her aim is to enable people to excel and thrive in their chosen spheres through generating clarity and insights and creating a safe space for individuals to think, explore, and reconnect with themselves. Her clients include digital media, health, oil and gas, schools, and private clients, all with a focus on performance and learning.

Philip Oliver

A university educated engineer and systems practitioner, Philip has had the pleasure of working with leaders and their teams in a variety of organisational contexts, having held substantial roles in business improvement, leadership development and transformational change. He has worked with client teams in southern Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom – including site work off the Skeleton Coast and North Sea. An alumnus of the Graduate School of Business Associate Coaching Course (Cape Town), Philip’s sector experience includes oil and gas, mining, IT, financial services, marketing and communications. Philip is also a founding partner of Eureka!Europe LLP, an innovation consultancy that educates, coaches and enables leaders and their teams to think smarter, faster and more innovatively. Clients and colleagues describe him as a pioneering, spirited, encouraging, and gifted out-of-the-box thinker with professional integrity.

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