The BGP Team
The BGP is delivered by a hand-picked team of specialist tutors and hand picked practitioners who combine hands-on management experience with academic authority
Most of the BGP team have worked on the programme for many years. They are experienced business people who have generally run their own businesses and who now specialise in working with owner managers and their businesses. All of the BGP team share a passion to ensure that each individual participant derives the maximum possible benefit from their BGP experience. To this end, the team works with participants one-to-one and in small groups.
DAVID MOLIAN, MA (Oxon), MBA (Cranfield)
BGP Programme Director
David has been involved with BGP since 1999, and is responsible for delivering much of the marketing content.
Having trained in consumer goods advertising, he has been personally involved in the founding and sale of two businesses. David has served on the faculty of Cranfield School of Management, Imperial College and, as visiting faculty, at INSEAD and London Business School. He has written extensively on the marketing issues faced by owner managed and growing businesses, as well as corporate venturing by established businesses.
David was educated at the universities of Oxford and Aix-en-Provence, and holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management. He has an active consulting practice and in recent years he has worked with senior managers in Unilever - both at corporate and operating company board levels, Shell, Cadbury Schweppes and Diageo.
PAUL BARROW, FCA, MBA (Bradford)
Paul has over 20 years writing, consulting, training and commercial experience within a wide range of business sectors and company sizes. Paul is a qualified accountant and has worked as a consultant and Investment Review Director for a UK Venture Capital business. In 1998 as group finance director of Adval Group plc he was part of the team, which took their software company on to the Alternative Investment Market. Previously Paul has been the Finance Director of several owner managed businesses and has started up and sold other businesses.
Currently he is working as a non executive director for several owner/managed companies.
JAMES BUTLER
James’ original career was in the environmental sector, working first in consultancy and then building a very profitable business on behalf of a leading waste company. Through this work, he developed skills in operational processes and structures and in managing teams.
James started coaching in 2002 and, in February 2004, James graduated with leading coach training provider Coach U.
To his clients, James brings business experience, particularly in structures and people-friendly systems, and an in-built desire to see them realise their potential.
PAUL CONWAY, MSc (Cranfield), BSc Economics (Leeds), HND Business Studies (Leeds)
More than 20 years ago, Paul founded a residential property development company which he has managed and grown profitably, and which he continues to own.
Paul also has experience of non executive director roles, and coaching boards of directors to achieve sustained profit increases, in several SME companies
Paul was a director of River Island Clothing Company Ltd for many years, during which time the business achieved substantial sales and profits growth in its chain of retail shops. He was involved in two start up businesses within the group of companies associated with River Island.
MARIHELEN ESAM, BSc
Marihelen graduated from the University of Maryland and went on to buy and build up a number of small companies in London, including a PR consultancy, a publishing house specialising in trade magazines, an advertising agency and an industrial film making company. She sold her commercial interests in 1980 and purchased a sheep and beef farm in Somerset. In 1982 she purchased a nearby soft fruit farm, and managed both farms until 1986 when she sold up the farming interests and moved to the Milton Keynes area.
Since 1986 she has had a commercial stake in a number of local companies including a delicatessen, jeweller, travel agency and an engineering firm.
Marihelen is a Visiting Fellow at Cranfield School of Management and has worked on BGP and related programmes for over fifteen years. She acts as a business consultant for a number of local companies and until recently ran two BGP Club groups.
CHRIS EVANS, MA (Sussex University), BSc (Econ) (Bristol University), FCA
Chris qualified as an accountant in 1972 and spent the first part of his career in large organisations - Rank Xerox, the National Enterprise Board, the National Economic Development Office and the Granada Group. For the last 20 years he has been involved with small and medium sized entrepreneurial companies in a variety of roles, as chairman, managing director, finance director, advisor and non executive director. He has been involved with start ups and turn-rounds some successful, some not! He has experience of raising venture capital finance and of buying and selling companies.
CAROL FOUSSAT, MA (Cantab), MBA (Cranfield), MCIPD
Carol runs her own coaching and consulting business. She specialises in organisations going through change and works to support the leaders of the organisation in thinking through change and handling the bumps in the road. Her clients have been as large as BAE Systems and as small as a GP practice.
Carol started her career as the UK Economic Analyst for British Steel, then worked for six years for KPMG Management Consulting, including a secondment to work for Michael Heseltine on the cross-department White paper on Competitiveness. She then worked as a senior manager for the AA and Centrica, where she worked in several roles, including Insurance Marketing Manager and Group Strategy Manager, reporting to the Group board.
Carol’s training includes accreditation in various psychological tools, group dynamics, and intra-personal psychology. Carol won the Cranfield Strategy Prize in 1999, and is an Associated Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
DAVID GLASSMAN, MBA (Cranfield) FCA FCCA CMC MCIArb FRSA
David practices as a management consultant and coach, specialising in helping entrepreneurs and senior managers in organisations undergoing rapid change. He has been involved in all stages of corporate development, from start-up and turn-round, through fast growth to acquisition and succession, in firms with a marketing bias in many industry sectors at home and overseas.
His experience also includes roles as a director of quoted and private groups, an independent director appointed by investors and an investor himself.
His special interests are planning, controlling working capital and family business issues. He is the honorary treasurer of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.
MARK KELLY, BA, MBA (Cranfield), ACCA, GradIPD
BGP Programme Leader
Mark Kelly is a qualified accountant who worked in financial services before moving into the IT sector. He has considerable experience in raising finance for growth, having acted as finance director in a rapidly-expanding specialist IT contracting and training provider. Today he runs his own consultancy based in the Peak District.
Mark is an experienced counsellor on BGP, holds an MBA from Cranfield and runs a very successful BGP Club Group.
SUE SCOTT BSc (Notts) MBA (Warwick)
Sue started Raceaway Project Management (RPM), her own consultancy and project management business in 2001 focusing on the small and medium sized enterprise (SME) sector. Although having a core business improving the efficiency of agri-food supply chains, she works across a range of business sectors carrying out strategic reviews, feasibility studies, business planning and market research for private sector clients.
Sue is a business coach and undertakes business improvement projects, customer satisfaction surveys, market research and facilitates companies through a process of self assessment using the EFQM Excellence Model. Sue has particular expertise the hospitality, tourism and leisure industries
VIV SEMMENS, BSc
After sixteen years with Marks and Spencer, Viv started her own company, Qi Associates, to provide management training and development, and human resources consultancy. Her consultancy work is aimed at growing companies, helping them to develop and implement people systems e.g. recruitment and selection, training, performance management, dealing with difficult employees, grievances and dismissal.
Viv has worked on BGP since 1992. Ever mindful of the future, Viv also owns and runs two other companies, both involved in property development, and which continue to grow profitably.
MIKE STILES, MA (Cantab), MBA (Cranfield)
Mike is director of MD Consulting, a management consultancy that provides consultancy and interim management services for UK and international clients. Before setting up MD Consulting in 1991 he was a senior consultant in Business and Technology Strategy with PA Consulting Group. Mike has managed assignments in marketing and business development, innovation and change management for companies in the UK, Europe and Scandinavia. His clients have included Government Departments (MOD/DERA, DTI, DETR) and firms in the automotive, communications, electronics, engineering, food and healthcare sectors.
Prior to consultancy Mike held senior management positions in marketing, IT and product development with the Gestetner Group and Kroy Europe.
Mike’s business interests include Stairguide, a Millennium Product company, and M Carriers, a specialist transport company, where he is a director.
JEREMY WALFORD
Jeremy is the Managing Director and main shareholder of Middleton Hall Retirement Village on the borders of North Yorkshire and Durham. His involvement was purely accidental - a two day visit in 1996 to advise during a financial crisis became a mission! Since then the business has been gradually re-developed from a struggling nursing home to the north’s first full retirement village for around 130 residents with swimming pool, gym, bowling green, bar, shop and restaurant. As part of this journey, Jeremy participated in BGP in 2004.
Jeremy started his career working in the motor industry for Volvo and General Motors before doing an MBA at Cranfield. This was followed by work as a business consultant specialising in customer service and business planning. Clients included an NHS Trust, a top ten Building Society, a franchise organisation, an international Airline, and even a scrap metal business.
Having successfully achieved the BGP mantra to "work on the business", Jeremy has delegated the majority of his role at Middleton Hall. He is now a part time MD and is planning to pursue a number of other interests… business and non-business.
DAVID WELLING
After gaining experience in senior marketing and business planning roles, David completed 12 years in managing director positions before founding his own management consulting practice in 2001.
He works with owner managed businesses to create and realise enterprise value. He has direct experience of working in a growing range of sectors including the graphic arts, paper and packaging, marketing services, bicycles and land/property.
A Chartered Marketer by training, David is a Fellow of both the Royal Society and of the Institute of Paper, Print and Packaging
GRAHAM CLARK, BSc, MSc, DIC, FIOM, MIMgt
Graham’s background is in mechanical engineering. He started his career with Lucas Aerospace then had spells with GEC and NEI (now part of Rolls Royce Group).
Since moving to Cranfield in 1986, Graham has concentrated on service management. He has written several books on service management and founded the Cranfield Service Operations Research Club, which drew support from a wide range of service organisations.
Graham's current research interests include the strategic management of call centres, the design & delivery of service solutions; the links between stress, the management of overloads, and quality performance; and the management of professionals in high volume service operations.
Graham has carried out a wide range of consultancy assignments including supply chain management improvements for a food manufacturer, a customer service strategy for a utility, and strategy development for a charity and for a service division of a European manufacturing company.
LIZ CLARKE, BA (Keele), MBA (LBS)
Liz is passionate about growing businesses. She holds several non-executive appointments and has advised many multi-nationals on corporate culture, managing change and developing their leaders. She now specialises in advising and coaching the top teams of SME’s. She has worked on BGP since it first started and also runs a Masterclass on Leadership. She has an MBA from London Business School and is co-author of "Growing Your Business" and author of "The Essence of Change".