Corporate EDGE
Who we are
Corporate Edge has a team of experts focused on helping leading businesses to get the best from their people. Please find our biographies below.
John Tennent
Regional Director Europe, Middle East and Africa
Email: john-tennent@corporateedge.co.uk
Office:+44 (0) 1483 422 142
Mobile:+44 (0) 7767 497864
John provides a wide range of our portfolio of business courses though specialises in strategic financial planning, business modelling and investment appraisal.
His background is in finance, starting his career as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte & Touche in 1983. He went onto become the Financial Controller of a US bank before joining a training consultancy as Client Director. He co-founded Corporate Edge in 1996.
He is the author of the Economist Guide to Business Modelling, the Economist Guide to Financial Management and the Economist Guide to Cash Management. He is a member of an Institute of Chartered Accountants Technical Committee and Excel Advisory Committee.
Patrick Schmidt
Regional Director North America
Email: patrick-schmidt@corporateedge.co.uk
Office:+00 1 612-436-0559
Mobile:+00 1 612-812-7596
Patrick provides business valuation, litigation support, cash flow analysis, and corporate training. In addition, he has been an adjunct instructor at the University of St. Thomas, teaching corporate finance in its MBA program.
After graduating with an MBA (Masters of Business Administration) with a Finance concentration from the University of Minnesota, Patrick started his career as a business appraiser in 1991. In 1993, Patrick joined McGladrey & Pullen, a regional accounting and consulting firm headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1999, he became a partner with Baker Tilly, leading the firm’s business valuation and litigation support practice.
Throughout his teaching career, Patrick has received among the highest instructor ratings among his peers, reflecting his dedication and focus to providing first class instruction and facilitation.
Dr John Kenworthy
Regional Director Asia
Email: john-kenworthy@corporateedge.co.uk
Office:+65 91705908
Mobile:+65 6659 9887
John combines his strong business acumen with a passion for understanding how people learn and develop their skills and knowledge. John’s cultural fluency stems from over twenty years of experience in business extending across industries and across the globe in UK, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the USA. John is thus well placed to help business leaders achieve their full potential especially in the international environment. Highly pragmatic in nature, John brings a rare ability to leverage the best of leaders’ skills with a strong strategic business focus to clients and their organisations to get the results they want.
John earned his Doctorate of Business Administration from Henley Management College specialising in The Evaluation of Leadership and Management Competencies and Learning and continues to research and lead in the field.
John’s book, “Developing Managers Using Simulations” is published by LAP (2010) adding to an exhaustive list of academic and more business focused articles.
Paul is a management consultant and researcher in the strategy, sustainability, technology, knowledge and intellectual capital management spaces. He helps organisations with their strategic planning, manage information and set up knowledge communities.
Amongst his interests are the development of knowledge networks. Paul is deeply committed to sustainability and the environment; he is President of AEPA, the Professional Association for the Environment in Chile and of ADEMAR the association of businesses promoting marine energy in Chile).
Paul holds a master’s in engineering from Sheffield University; he has been a Humphrey Fellow at the University of Minnesota; and holds a doctorate in business administration from Henley Business School, where he is visiting faculty. He lectures on strategy, business planning and knowledge management, and he is a prolific writer in professional and academic publications and a renowned speaker at conferences and seminars.
Steve joined Dow Chemical Australia Limited in 1980. He has held marketing, regional and general management positions with Dow Chemical, Brambles Industries, Containers Packaging and Aarque Systems. In 1997 he launched IT services group Maralan Documentation which continues to serve the Australian and Singapore business and government communities. In 2003 he launched cleantech group Woodshed Technologies through which he has invented, developed or funded projects in the UK, USA and Australia relating to tidal power, energy storage and waste plastics to fuel conversion. Steve truly knows what it means to put one's own money into cash flow intensive projects. He "knows" financial risk. He identifies strongly with those who seek to understand and assess the cash flow of new and existing projects and businesses. Steve has trained in and utilised in his own businesses a range of business modelling techniques.
Angela Tennent
Director
Email: angela-tennent@corporateedge.co.uk
Office:+44 (0) 1483 422 142
Mobile:+44 (0) 7767 497832
Angela provides a wide range of our financial and business development training programmes. She specialises in running events that make finance engaging and practical for non-financial people. She also provides performance coaching for individuals which enables them to gain the necessary clarity to unlock their potential and achieve their goals.
Her background is in finance, starting her career with Deloitte. After a three year secondment to Australia she returned to London to run the firms National Leadership and Development programme for managers up to partnership. She co-founded Corporate Edge in 1996.
She is a Chartered Accountant, member of the CIPD, Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming, Time Line Therapy ™, Master Practitioner and Master Practitioner of Hypnosis.
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Lynne-Marie Eccleston
Lynne-Marie is an experienced management trainer with hands on experience as an Operations and Project Manager. She regularly delivers programmes in areas of strategic planning, supply chain management, coaching skills, customer and relationship management. The majority of her experience has been gained in the retail and technology industries.
Before moving into the development world Lynne was one of the five founder managers of Virgin Mobile Asia. As Chief Operating Officer she was responsible for setting strategic direction; launch implementation and operations. This included defining the customer strategy including, supplier and retail service strategy, customer journey, organisational design, assessment methodology and training plans for Virgin Mobile South Africa.
Lynne-Marie is passionate about developing people and is a talented leadership coach and regularly facilitates assessment, learning and development sessions using a variety of learning methods.
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Ian Hirst
Experienced in Sales Development and Commercial Leadership, Ian helps clients develop strategies and processes to drive business growth and embed value-based selling skills. He is also a qualified executive coach.
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Judith Hirst
Experienced in leadership and management development Judith works globally to help individuals and teams realise their full potential and succeed in this complex and unpredictable world.
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Andrew Needham
Andrew excels at improving the business knowledge and skills working with people at all levels – from graduates through to main board directors – across commercial management disciplines.
Having qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1982, Andrew has spent his career in management development, including managing Ernst & Young's business finance training group. He now works with many "blue chip" businesses developing and delivering a range of management development and learning initiatives.
Andrew’s particular strength is working with executives to build capability in the areas of strategic thinking, financial management and business development. His practical style of engaging people is highly successful in creating business knowledge and skills as well as instilling the confidence to apply these back in their workplace.
Andrew’s current clients include 3M, BT, Mattel, McCann Worldgroup, Rolls Royce, O2 and Sony Music. He is also a visiting faculty member on executive programmes with several leading business schools.
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Bryn Jones
Bryn started his career in training as a Management Tutor at a Regional Training College with British Gas. After two years he moved to Head of Training at the Alliance & Leicester where he managed a team of internal trainers for ten years. He was invited to join a Midlands-based training consultancy, operating primarily in the Financial Services Sector. He went on to become a freelance consultant designing and conducting courses in a variety of business sectors and project managing the training and internal marketing of a major IT project for a UK based American Finance House.
In 1991, Bryn joined a training company as a Management Trainer, specialising in all aspects of people management for a wide range of blue chip clients, including Unilever, ICI, Pearson, Deloitte & Touche, British Airways and BP. He became Director of People Management with a strategic and operational role which included the management of all the consultants, management of a client portfolio and designing and delivering a range of people management programmes. Bryn joined Corporate Edge as an Associate Consultant in 2003 working on assignments with GE and Unilever.
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Ian Northmore
Ian is an experienced customer management trainer with extensive knowledge and experience of customer management and business transformation. He has worked with clients across the world in a variety of industries, including Communications, Financial Services, Government and Oil and Gas.
Ian's work experience includes international contact centre and business set-ups and change initiatives. He brings this hands-on expertise into the training environment and specialises in delivery of Coaching Modules, Customer Management Skills and tailored Strategic Customer Relationship Management Programmes and is an established leadership coach.
He is passionate about customer service and achieving excellent results through teams of people, and his achievements have been built upon the application of strong customer management principles and a strong focus on performance management and people development.
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Georgina Perrott
Georgina is a qualified accountant who is one of our leading associate tutors and facilitators focusing on business skills development for young graduates and managers at a number of blue chip companies.
Having graduated in 1998 with a first class MSc in Management Sciences from Southampton University George has held management positions in marketing, commercial management and finance with both Unilever and Pfizer Inc.
Georgina's claim to fame outside of work is being the world number one female referee of men's rugby – a sport that she is passionate about and a role that takes her all over the world.
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Craig Laviano
Based in North America, Craig was a management consultant at PwC, he did organisational and operational consulting for Fortune 100 companies. At the beginning of the internet revolution, he joined Digital Think, a pioneer in digital learning solutions, to lead enterprise-level, multi-channel change initiatives. Craig earned his MBA from Claremont University and BA from UCLA.
His background of practical business experience allows him to simplify complex organizational situations and help his clients navigate changing environments. His decades of training in executive assessment, learning methodologies, and technology-driven tools allow him to create programmes that combine high-tech with high touch to create deep learning experiences and lasting impact.
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Mandy Aston
Mandy heads up the central administration activities for Corporate Edge. Mandy joined the company when it was formed in 1996 and is responsible for maintaining the quality of external and internal communication in addition to the development of course material.
Following her HND in Modern Languages and Business Studies, Mandy gained a broad experience from administrative roles in various companies including Morgan Stanley, Christies International and UK Nirex.
Mandy enjoys liaising between clients and the team. She can be contacted on the number below.
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Daniel Kettle
Having graduated with a Business Administration degree from Brunel University, Daniel’s initial line of experience was within Marketing, culminating in becoming Group Marketing Manager for the then 19 Stratstone Land Rover dealerships across the UK.
Since then he has changed career direction moving into Business Development and has worked with a variety of marketing and media companies. Within this period Daniel concluded a successful management buyout of one of those businesses.
In 2012 he entered the training sector in a Business Development capacity to explore and align the provision of tailored management learning solutions to improve business performance of high calibre managers of blue chip companies.
Working closely with tutors, he explores potential development opportunities with a variety of contact points including L&D, HR, OD and Finance decision makers. Daniel has also supported delivery of learning programmes in particular some of the interactive tutor-led virtual classrooms.
What we do
Financial Management
Enable managers from all disciplines to make improved business decisions with a clearer understanding of their financial impact on the business.
Strategy & Planning
Reconcile the needs of your markets to your resources, in a changing world, to determine the direction and scope needed to achieve success for your organisation and meet the needs of your stakeholders.
Excel Business Modelling
The key to understanding your business propositions is to construct business models; only by developing assumptions, applying scenarios and testing options can the real value be explored and evaluated.
Value Added Marketing
Equip your people with the skills and techniques to identify and deliver market leading products or services that are fully aligned to changing customer needs.
Supply Chain Effectiveness
Enable your people to apply best practice as they plan, source, make and deliver your products and therefore provide your business with greater flexibility, reduced costs and improved availability.
Business Simulations
Develop a virtual reality representation of YOUR business to facilitate real strategic choices; or alternatively develop a tailored, interactive simulation for teams within a competitive environment to obtain real-world business understanding.
Driving Sales Growth
The key to growing sales is to fully understand your customer, enabling you to create value propositions that really meet their needs better than the competition.
Raising Consulting Performance
Developing the professionalism and competence of consultants, technical specialists and professional service deliverers, Elevation Learning (part of Corporate Edge group) specialises in raising consulting performance.