Business Coaching

Meet the BGCN Coaching Team

We know how difficult it can be to successfully run your own business, we know lots of businesses realise they could benefit from a trusted adviser, a critical friend or a just someone to talk through the ideas, the pressures and frustrations and the opportunities that come with running your own venture.

<h5>Simon Baker</h5>
<p>Simon has over 30 years senior leader, advisor and doer experience in the low carbon energy sector. His passion is solving challenges for start-ups, joint ventures, mega-projects and large corporates, both alone and leading multifunctional, multinational teams using his extensive breadth of experience from shop floor to the Board room. He focuses on delivering simple solutions to complex problems, be they: defining growth strategy; developing projects and supply chains, or shaping investments for successful delivery. Skills in: coaching, mentoring, acquisitions and divestments; corporate risk and governance; transformation and change. Operates authentically with high integrity.</p>

<p>Qualifications include: MBA, first-class engineering degree and practical qualifications. Covering the UK from his East Anglian base.</p>

Simon Baker

Low carbon economy

<h5>Peter Basford</h5>
<p>Peter had 33 years banking experience and is used to dealing with clients of all types from Start ups to £500M+ per year turnover Multi National Businesses. He has worked in commercial, private banking and retail Banking.</p>

<p>His real passion is for helping others realise their potential and has mentored colleagues, Businesses and for the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE). </p>

<p>He has a post graduate diploma in coaching to back up his years of practical knowledge. Peter specialises in helping growing SMEs particularly with Customer Service, Business Development, Finance and using new technology to do things in a better and more efficient way. </p>

<p>He is a qualified Clarity4D coach and trains people on how to make the most of LinkedInCo founder of the Innovation Lab in Suffolk, which is a co working space for early stage technology businesses which enables him to support many start ups and promote Suffolk as a great place to live and work</p>

Peter Basford

SME

Alison Beech

SME

<h5>Dave Betts</h5>
<p>An Entrepreneur & business leader who has experience in turning Vision, Purpose, and Mission into reality. Successfully taking a number of his startups from an idea through the various stages of scaling through to final sale.</p>

<p>Likes to create a working environment of high support, high challenge. Has a clear blueprint underpinned by gaining the organization’s trust via an authentic leadership style.</p>

<p>Enjoys coaching and mentoring, trained in CBT and Personality profiling. Believe that people learn from making mistakes. The role of the coach is to ensure that we create a safe environment for people to make mistakes but can help shape and nudge people forward into greater success.</p>

<p>Proven ability to help teams solve problems whilst working through the polarity of short, medium, and longer-term objectives.</p>

<p>20 years of delivering leadership training for all types of organizations and charities Can engage at all levels within an organization from the Shop floor through to C suit.</p>

Dave Betts

SME

<h5>Brian Bush</h5>
<p>Brian is a sales/business development and relationship specialist having worked in a number of areas across the private and public sectors. From involvement in growing business (small to large) to creating and growing his own ventures Brian has a real passion for business. He has been directly involved in business through insurance, UK Gov, digital & technology, cyber, physical & asset protection, learning & development, education, healthcare/health & wellbeing and manufacturing.</p>

<p>Driven by purpose and able to motivate and inspire others Brian can bring connection to a team or business to ensure a positive culture can exist to enhance efficiency and therefore profit.<br>A very well networked individual Brian always brings his extensive connections to all projects and businesses that he works with and uses strategic partnerships to drive forward opportunity.</p>

Brian Bush

Business Development

<h5>Mike Cornell</h5>
<p>Michael is committed to construction mentoring and coaching small construction companies. Michael became a contracts manager at the age of 24.</p>

<p>For 22 years, he assisted in developing a plastering and dry-lining company to become one of the largest in East Anglia that worked with all the top national Construction Companies. Before moving to Spain, CMC (Construction Made Clear) managed the construction of villas for ex-pats by managing Spanish builders and supplying clients with weekly reports and photos through construction management software.</p>

<p>Michael brought CMC to England, managing projects through the Planning, Design, Pre-construction and Construction stages. As a result, CMC gained a merit award from the Bury St Edmunds Society for the best improvement to the town’s gateway in Bury St Edmunds,</p>

<p>Michael introduced CMC Contractors, managing and constructing a 650m2 new eco-home near the centre of Bury St Edmunds that won the RIBA Suffolk Design award.</p>

<p>Michael mentors and coaches start-up to medium-sized companies to keep good records like Change Orders, Client Goal & Brief Identification and Management, Development Appraisals, Risk & Opportunity Management, Scheduling & Budget Management, Tendering & Appointing External Consultants and Contractors.</p>

Mike Cornell

Construction Specialist

<h5>David Crabb</h5>
<p>I am a commercially focused board advisor and mentor. I have decided to develop a portfolio career as I can solve leadership problems and enjoy making a positive impact through others.</p>

<p>I help companies to improve their performance through operational and commercial changes, engaging teams and delivering results through others by providing focus, accountability and purpose. I have the energy, EQ and Leadership experience to positively impact to companies who are open about their challenges and need more than just regulatory governance.</p>

<p>I have sold three companies, raised investment on both the London Stock-Exchange and from private investors, demonstrated turnaround success on four businesses from losses to profit and led £MM contract negotiations with blue chip companies. I have restructured teams and companies in different market sectors from SME to PLC and led teams from fifty to three thousand five hundred people working with start-ups to multi £billion turnover corporations.<br>I have delivered success with major redundancy and scale up programmes and achieved ‘The Sunday Times Top 100 Companies to work for’ accreditation with two separate companies, reflecting the cultural impact that I have made.</p>

<p>I have published two books, love portrait photography and taking relaxing holidays in the sun.</p>

David Crabb

SME

<h5>Sim Goldblum</h5>
<p>Sim is a very experienced leader, non-executive director, board adviser, senior manager, consultant, coach and mentor. He has worked with companies across many sectors from global automotive to SMEs, in business development, JV creation, M+A activity, team leadership and development.</p>

<p>He is passionate about helping business owners recruit, develop and retain the right people for each role, and is adept at addressing under-performing teams and dysfunctional boards.</p>

<p>Sim is very effective when advising SME business owners and leadership teams and brings independent thought, creative expertise and strategic wisdom to bear in all his assignments.</p>

<p><strong>Key Services</strong>:</p>

<ul><li>Implementing effective business growth solutions to add six figures to the bottom line in 12 months</li><li>Improving the business 1 person at a time by creating and delivering coaching and development plans</li><li>Building/Rebuilding Purpose for the business and for teams</li><li>Coaching and Mentoring senior staff/board members and owners</li></ul>

<p><strong>Sectors</strong>: Engineering, manufacturing, biotech, automotive, NHS, services</p>

Sim Goldblum

SME

<h5>Paul Greenhow</h5>
<p>Paul is an enterprising and energetic individual with over 30 successful years FMCG experience in both Retailing and Manufacturing operations. He is a people orientated and insightful character with proven abilities in sales management, and a track record of driving exceptional profitable growth through creativity and strategic business development.</p>

<p>He has now turned his experience to wanting to help others and as such, is now a seasoned Mentor with The Princes Trust and holds several Board advisory roles. A structured thinker who succeeds by understanding the wants and needs of the customer and matching this by driving positive change within the business team.</p>

<p>With a post Graduate Diploma in Marketing, Paul is a rounded Coach who looks to drive the commercial agenda with a focus in the Food & Drink sector. He has worked with multi sited operations predominantly in the East Anglian region but also in Ireland, Holland and Scotland. Paul Lives in Cambridgeshire with his Wife Fiona, Son Oliver and Daughter Holly.</p>

Paul Greenhow

Food and Drink

<h5>Sylvia Karantani</h5>
<p>A professional Business Growth Coach passionate about helping Business Leaders, Organizations, Entrepreneurs and Sales professionals converting vision into results. Her 3-Pillar methodology (mindset, communication, processes) is designed to bring continuous improvement and tangible growth.</p>

<p>Born and raised in Athens (Greece), Sylvia has +19 years of international corporate career in well-known multinational matrix organizations in Healthcare, Construction & FMCG Industries, in the areas of Procurement, Supply Chain and Logistics where she had the opportunity to lead her teams to growth and bring exceptional Business results.</p>

<p>Having lived and worked in Dubai (UAE) for several years, further to her experience in European markets, she travelled and collaborated with professionals from Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia and USA and got passionate about empowering Business teams and Professionals reach their full potential, in a highly volatile Business world.</p>

<p>Main Coaching areas: Strategic Thinking, Growth Mindset, Effective Communication, Business Digital Transformation, Time management, Productivity, Motivation, Conflict Management, Problem Solving Mindset, Sales growth, Decision making, Emotional Intelligence, Resilience.</p>

<p>Certifications include: BSc in Industrial management & Technology, MSc in Logistics, International MBA with major in Finance, Business Growth Coaching, Executive Coaching, Life Coaching , NLP Master practitioner.</p>

Sylvia Karantani

Strategic Thinking

<h5>Rob Lawrence</h5>
<p>Rob Lawrence is a strategic advisor, coach, audio producer and podcaster. As a sought-after speaker, mentor and coach, he frequently addresses small business and university audiences on creative leadership, advising start-ups, and large corporations on innovation and business strategy. His career spans leadership and managerial roles having lead award-winning technology teams across the globe. </p>

<p>Today, Rob holds a first-class honours degree in audio production and is also a qualified and experienced life coach. His podcast series, Inspirational Creatives, has interviewed over 150 successful creative entrepreneurs, artists, producers, and business leaders on what it means to create a living doing what you love and how to create a business that grows as part of a bigger vision. </p>

<p>Rob is also the founder of a pioneering audio production company that specialises in creating immersive audio listening experiences for thousands of listeners across the world.</p>

Rob Lawrence

Podcasts & Audio

Rob Hall

SME

<h5>Mikael Korsgaard</h5>
<p>Helping people helping themselves to transform has been of interest to me since my teenage years. In 2004, I finally decided to gain insights about the art of transformation through coaching. Since then I have coached people of all ages and from many diverse fields, including athletes.</p>

<p>I invest myself into the dialog with the coachee (you) and become involved in your path. With empathy and the understanding of what the challenge is for you and what you would like to evolve away from and into, I focus on the importance of valuable and sustainable change by you for you. From our first intake conversation, the focus is you and the change you are seeking. Through listening with the intent to understand and learn about you, with encouragement and by holding you accountable in being persistent, our conversation will have one primary focus: ‘what change by you, will change a lot for you’?</p>

<p>There is an opportunity for growth and learning in all situations and challenges that we encounter. Throughout our work I will help you recognise your strengths and support your growth in areas where needed. By putting your problem areas and your challenges into new perspectives, you will gain new insights and grow personally.</p>

<p>I work primarily with SME’s, personal owned businesses and start ups. I also work with leaders who wish to become a better leader, especially around values, goal setting and influential and intentional leadership.’</p>

<p>As I am based in Denmark I suggest that we make meetings and coaching environmentally friendly and sustainable.</p>

<p>On-site coaching and training is of course also an option that I provide. It is also easy for me to schedule meetings anywhere in the EU if required.</p>

Mikael Korsgaard

Danish International

<h5>Richard McEvoy</h5>
<p>Richard is a Finance professional with a long history of stakeholder management at Board level, supporting setting of strategy and delivery. Also recognized for M&A experience, Change Management and has a passion for developing people around me, including their Health & Wellbeing.</p>

<p>Richard has considerable business-to-business experience in a service-led industry, supporting core economic sectors including Banking, construction, house-building and manufacturing across both SME and Mid Corporate Regional business.</p>

<p>Richard currently has a number of Non Executive and Board Advisory roles, with an emphasis on commercial aspects and transformational change. Richard is also presently driving organisational capability at an LSE Listed Property Fund.</p>

Richard McEvoy

Org. transformation

<h5>Phil Mowat</h5>
<p>Following a career in the events industry straight after university, Phil became involved in franchising at the start of 2009.</p>

<p>Nicky, his sister, was running a small hair and make up artist agency. Thinking about her growth plans, she looked at franchising as a route to growth. Phil, becoming tired of 15 hour days and late evenings in events venues, jumped on a train to the NEC in Birmingham and visited the National Franchise Exhibition to learn about franchising and what was required to develop the business into a franchise. In 5 years the booking agency had built up from a team of 10 to 350 make up artists, run by a network of 40 franchisees. Having reached critical mass and due to the rapid enhancements in automation, this allowed Phil to pursue other opportunities in franchising, whilst remaining (and to this day) a company director.</p>

<p>His next step was to take on a role as the Head of UK Operations to assist an Australian franchise business (Local Appliance Rentals) to open up and expand into the UK. Phil ran the operations, trained and onboarded new franchisees and led the day to day business, whilst working with Head Office in Brisbane, 10 hours ahead (no get away from the late nights!). The franchise network grew rapidly, from 5, to reach 35 franchisees by the time he left the business 18 months later.</p>

<p>Next up was a role working as a qualified Business Coach and the National Strategic Partnership Manager a leading coaching business. Phil worked with small business owners from a variety of industries, on a 1-2-1 and group basis, helping them to build systems for their business, build a team of employees, and allow them to work less, but make more money. Putting systems in place is one of the most important aspects of franchising, but it’s also very important for any business to work well. Alongside the coaching, the strategic partnership work was to form and manage partnerships that provided win-win-win solutions for the franchisor, the franchisees and the partner. The business partnered with the high street banks (HSBC, Santander, NatWest and Barclays), to run seminars and events to educate and teach the business building system to business owners around the country.</p>

<p>Phil’s last move was into another global franchise operation, working as the UK Country Director for Expense Reduction Analysts. He led the network of 100+ franchisees (all business consultants), as well as managing the internal departments and his own franchise support and recruitment teams. His biggest achievement was to help steer the business through the challenging Covid-19 pandemic and national lockdowns, allowing the franchisees to thrive and meaning the franchisor could continue to grow, in a very tough market. This role opened his eyes to the world of consulting and the opportunities that exist to help businesses to grow.</p>

<p>Phil loves the variety of businesses and sectors he gets to work with via BGCN. One day working with a small “mum” owned business to a much larger corporately owned business the next day.</p>

<p>His personal mission, by 2030, is to help over 300 businesses grow and create no less than 3,000 work opportunities. Off the back of this, he wants to raise £30,000 for good causes, by personally donating £10 for every work opportunity created. </p>

<p>A man on a mission!</p>

Phil Mowat

Franchise Specialist

<h5>André Neville</h5>
<p>André specialises in assisting new and established businesses in the engineering and manufacturing sectors in the Mid-Suffolk region. With his international sales, leadership and training background, he is adept at turning his hand to other sectors and has supported many SME’s in his time with BGCN.</p>

<p>André joined the British Army in 1994 where he spent 15 years as an engineering manager within rotary-wing aviation. After leaving the military he trained the British Army in engineering before stepping into a technical sales role in the heavy-duty off-road manufacturing industry.</p>

<p>As a Technical Sales Manager, André worked extensively in Europe, India, Africa and the Middle East, dealing directly with multi-national OEM’s and distributors while also managing the engineering design team. He is furthering his education by studying for a Level 5 Diploma in Education and Training and has recently completed an MBA at the University of Suffolk.</p>

<p>He is passionate about cycling and enjoys discovering the local roads in Suffolk and the hills in Spain. Other interests include spending time in Belgium, exploring WW1 history and of course sampling the local beer!</p>

André Neville

Manufacturing

<h5>Alison Newcomb</h5>
<p>Alison has a wealth of experience in leadership and Board level governance. She was a police office for over 30 years, rising to the rank of Deputy Assistant Commissioner, in the Metropolitan Police Service. </p>

<p>As well as delivering the operational demands of the job, Alison led one of the largest transformation projects in Europe. Her expertise in programme and project management mean that she is ideally placed to help SME’s develop their strategic vision; set realistic but challenging business objectives; plan and deliver outcomes, against an ever changing landscape. </p>

<p>Alison is also a qualified trainer, who places the individual and team at the heart of delivering success. Alison and her husband have two teenage children and have successfully balanced their family and the demands that come with operating at the highest levels. </p>

<p>Since leaving policing, she is the co-founder and Director of a small consultancy business. Alison is keen to use all of her experiences to help others to succeed.</p>

Alison Newcomb

SME

Tim Newcomb

SME

<h5>Nigel Sandbrook</h5>
<p> Nigel had a rich career with Lloyds Bank culminating in his dream job as Area Director – Manufacturing. His love of business started with his father taking him around factories when he was six years old. Ever since then he has been passionate about SME’s the challenges they face to produce and sell products and services.<br>He has wide experience in various sectors spending much of his time with clients although he has been a senior lending and audit manager.<br>A qualified banker gaining an ACIB. </p>

Nigel Sandbrook

Manufacturing

<h5>Gary Styles</h5>
<p>Gary joined us off the back of a successful banking career spanning 32 years including 26 years working closely with Commercial clients. During his time at Lloyds Bank, he over-saw and supported over 100 Private Equity backed businesses across the UK, with sales of £10m+ operating across a range of sectors; from Fertility Clinics to IT Support companies; Electronics Retailers to Travel Operators; Builders Merchants to Hair Straighteners.</p>

<p>His close involvement with Executive Management Teams and their PE investors gave him great insight into the plans and processes in making businesses more efficient and fit for growth, whilst at the same time, providing a trusted banking relationship hand to his many business customers.</p>

<p>Recognised by work colleagues and customers alike for his down to earth approach and ability to ask the difficult questions, Gary acquired a few grey hairs whilst directly supporting businesses through and beyond the Financial Crash of 2007 where the impact on his customers (and his own employer) needed close oversight. His last 3 years at Lloyds saw him appointed as Yorkshire’s main Credit Sanctioner in the Bank’s Mid-Markets Commercial team, before moving into business consultancy in 2019.</p>

<p>With an ingrained desire to see businesses succeed and flourish through great systems, data excellence and appropriate and deliverable strategies, Gary is keen to support small business owners in the Yorkshire Region in achieving their dreams and aspirations and is ready to hear from you!</p>

Gary Styles

SME

<h5>Neil Thorogood</h5>
<p>Neil has recently retired from banking after 36 years at Lloyds Bank of which the last 29 were working in the Small Business and Commercial sector. During that time Neil trained as a Business Mentor and worked with several start-up businesses in that capacity.</p>

<p>As well as working with businesses across all manner of sectors Neil holds a specialist Lexcel accreditation for his work with the Legal Profession over the past 12 years.</p>

<p>One of the many roles Neil fulfilled whilst at Lloyds Bank was the introduction and roll out of its Route Map programme which included a number of specially designed tools to help businesses identify Long Term goals and set Medium term targets as well as developing a better understanding of their market and key performance indicators.<br>Neil strongly believes that his skills can be used to support and coach growing and ambitious businesses to help them achieve their objectives by understanding what success looks like to the owners.</p>

<p>To supplement the support provided to potential clients Neil also has a wide network of contacts across Essex and East London to where specialist and bespoke services can be introduced where required. </p>

Neil Thorogood

Professional Services

<h5>Jane Warden</h5>
<p>I have been working as a business trainer and coach for the past 21 years, and previous to that I managed sales and admin teams. My passion is to help people to identify barriers and help people to remove them and grow their productivity to attain a higher level of business. I enjoy seeing improvements from my work and seeing the satisfaction from clients who can see a way forward. Firstly we ask questions such as ‘What is it I am aiming for?’ ‘How do I accomplish those?’ ‘What or who do I need to achieve the plan?’ After the coaching phase then usually there is some training required which is why I find it helpful in my experience of delivering a wide selection of courses from Sales Process to People Management to Resilience.</p>

<p>My personal mission is to provide high quality coaching and training courses which are interactive, enjoyable and affordable to any business of any industry or size. I strive to assist people to ‘think’ and to challenge them in a fun way and leave a lasting impression. In addition to this I aim to inspire our delegates and give them the confidence to adapt and change for the better so that they can achieve their aspirations and goals.</p>

Jane Warden

Sales Training