Richard Leech – Head of Learning

Richard is head of learning at Grass Roots with overall responsibility for creating solutions to client issues in the broad area of employee engagement. His team helps people acquire new knowledge, skill and confidence to improve their performance in areas such as operational excellence, creating a branded customer experience, customer service, communication and management development. Richard began his career with Ciba-Geigy as a management trainee. During nine years with the chemicals company he progressed through the ranks and the product range, accumulating knowledge of agribusiness, health and pharmaceuticals. His personal achievements included masterminding the territorial logistics of the merger by which Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz became Novartis. Prior to joining Grass Roots he worked in Life Sciences consultancy. As well as looking after major clients such as Barclays, Ford and InterContinental Hotels, Richard also champions much of the best practice learning and development that goes on within Grass Roots. In 2007 Grass Roots was listed as a Sunday Times Top 100 company to work for.

Contact Richard Leech for more information.

Sue Nickson – Partner & International Head of Human Capital

Sue is the International Head of Human Capital at Hammonds. Her practice involves dealing with the whole range of contentious and non-contentious employment issues acting for both private and public sector clients. She has particular experience in relation to the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations, corporate re-structures and re-organisations and gives strategic employment "surgery" advice. Sue has driven the growth of the pan-European employment practice and can be regularly found co-ordinating cross-border cases. According to Chambers & Partners Europe 2006, clients are more than willing to endorse that the pan-European employment team offer a uniformity of service level that "cuts across borders" with a quality and consistency across offices encompassing their can-do attitude and no-nonsense approach.

Sue is an acknowledged expert in her field and was quoted in Chambers & Partners UK 2006 as "smart and responsive" with clients noting "she doesn’t mince her words or hedge her bets".

Contact Sue Nickson for more information.

Ian Sparrow – Programme Director

Ian Sparrow is one of ADP’s chief visionary strategists, who has lead a group of highly experienced payroll and HR service management experts, production specialists, implementation consultants and innovative technologists to conceive the future of employee administration and HR management, known in the market place as ADP Freedom. Drawing on his capability for seeing the long game and the positive impact that essential change can have on corporate organisations today, he is able to build strategies that work for both the cultural changes required of people while also meeting client’s business goals. In his many years prior to ADP he has been at the centre of the relationship between finance and HR, giving him an unrivalled insight into the process mechanics and, vitally, the soft skills required to run effective employee administration services.

Contact Ian Sparrow for more information.

John Salt – Website Director

John is website director for totaljobs.com and heads up its commercial teams across the UK, serving the 3,500 recruiters that use totaljobs.com in any one month. With 15 years’ commercial experience in recruitment advertising and branding, John has helped build the recruitment offering of websites such as Guardian Unlimited, CWJobs and Retailchoice into market leading job boards. Over the past 18 months John has led totaljobs.com to become the UK’s leading commercial recruitment website, working with recruiters and their agencies across the country so that together they can make the most of online recruitment and job boards.

Contact John Salt for more information.

Brian Cormican – Human Capital Management Consultant

Brian Cormican is a human capital management consultant at Oracle. A main part of Brian's role is in advising many of the leading UK organisations on how technology can enable people management processes to deliver true business value. In his seven years with Oracle, Brian has assisted organisations on the transforming their HR and Payroll functions by adopting leading practice processes. He has a wealth of experience in developing business cases, advising on strategy at the board level and realising the 'art of the possible'. Based on his work with customers, he offers a pragmatic approach on the challenges faced by HR directors and stresses the importance of people, processes and technology working together.

Contact Brian Cormican for more information.