Our People Outplacement Career Counselling Consultants

Bob Stewart BSc (Hons) CEng MIEE, our Managing Director spent 20 years as a line manager in a UK Research & Development environment. During this time he led teams of managers and professional engineers on various IT activities. This included management of team of groups of people in the UK, Northern Ireland and the USA. Latterly he became the General Manager for the UK arm of a Far Eastern (OEM) IT company with sizeable development capability. This involved the development for, and supply to, companies such as British Telecomm and Compaq. Throughout his career he has been involved in the recruitment process as a line manager of people. This included formal training to recruit not just for his own team, but also for other departments. Consequently, he is acutely aware of the need in having the highest calibre people available and the impact that this has in fulfilling the business objectives. His broad R&D background enables him to cover numerous senior appointments within the IT and general management arena. In addition he takes an active role in the UK outplacement programmes.

Sylvia Crossley BA (Hons), has held senior roles in management and has twice been successfully engaged in a trouble shooting role to turn around failing organisations on the brink of collapse. Following this, she was persuaded to turn her talents to 'Executive Search' and for some years held the position of principal consultant. Having a strong background in training and mentoring, she was given the responsibility for consultant training; before moving on to head up our UK Outplacement and Training division.

When asked what were the three most important qualities she looked for in a good outplacement consultant, she replied: 'empathy, knowledge, and an unfaltering positive approach... it is extremely difficult to foster the right approach with an audience that is faced with a life crisis situation. You have to have been there, know what you are talking about, cultivate trust and respect, and be capable of providing acceptable solutions for almost any problem.'

In addition to her wealth of experience in management and training, Sylvia holds a Diploma in Performance Coaching and is a twice-qualified Yoga instructor who has specialised in Therapeutic Yoga and Stress Management. This unique combination of skills has proved to be invaluable to her 'clients'. When the people she is employed to support through Outplacement, think that their world has come to an end, Sylvia frequently demonstrates that this could be the beginning of the cultivated pearl from the 'oyster' world they now approach.

Our consultants are experienced individuals who bring expertise from their corporate backgrounds, including Consultancy, Training, HR & Personnel. All are rigorously and continuously trained in their specialist fields. Customer (client and candidate) service is key to our methodology together with a proven process and industry knowledge