Bedford Mentors

Alison Peacock

Alison started working at Barclays Bank Plc in 1989 as a trainee clerk and worked her way up. Alison then left the world of banking for a period to work with an accountant for 12 months.

In 2004 Alison returned to banking and has been in her current role for the last 4 years.

In her current role, as a Senior Relationship Manager at NatWest, Alison looks after a portfolio of customers that run their own businesses with turnover of £2m - £25m supporting them with cash balances, borrowing and other financial solutions for their business.

Outside of work Alison plays hockey and helps with her partners manufacturing business.

Bill Chalker

Bill Chalker recently retired after 38 years at NatWest/RBS. After entering the Bank in a traditional manner of doing all the jobs in a Branch he then

became involved in the launch of NatWest Life and then the advent of Electronic Banking. Other roles have included Relationship Management, Sales Management, Product Management, Project Management, Cash Management, Business Development, Training & Development.

Joining the Bank straight from School Bill followed an occupational academic path rising to become a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and an Asscociate of the Chartered Insurance Institute.

Bill has been an active School Governor for nearly 20 years and is currently Vice Chair of the Academy Federation of North Bedfordshire Schools and a Trustee of the North Bedfordshire Schools Trust. Bill lives in Oakley with just his wife now that all three children have nested elsewhere.

Carolyn Dawson

An experienced professional coach and workshop leader, Carolyn specialises in working with senior women on a one to one and in groups. Having worked with hundreds of women in a variety of sectors over the last 5 years, she has gained a solid understanding of the unique challenges senior women face at work and the keys to them being a successful female leader.

Carolyn is an International Coach Federation (ICF) Professional Certified Coach (one of only 129 in the UK) and has 8 years experience coaching over 80 different CEOs, directors and senior leaders in diverse organisations such as BT, Neale’s Yard Remedies, Network Rail, Allianz, Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer, Jacobs and The Woodland Trust.

She has designed and delivered leadership development workshops for groups of senior women for the last 5 years on a range of topics such as strategy, raising profile, impact and influence, powerful communications and organisational politics.  Carolyn has also worked with professional service organisations to design and deliver programmes aimed at developing and retaining their female talent.

An active volunteer with a UK charity that includes training new volunteers and working with prisoners, Carolyn combines work and volunteering with what she says is her most important job: being a mum! 

Mayor Dave Hodgson

Dave Hodgson is Mayor of Bedford Borough. He was first elected as Mayor in October 2009, and was re-elected for a four year term in May 2011.

Dave’s family moved to Bedford when Dave was 9 years old. His father was a local Headteacher at Westfield School and Mark Rutherford School and also served as a senior steward at Putnoe Heights Church.

Dave has lived in Bedford for over thirty years, in various parts of Bedford town both north and south and lived for several years in one of Bedford Borough’s rural villages. He is married to Christine and they live in Kathie Road, Bedford.

Dave worked at Charles Wells Brewery in Queens Park as a summer job and his first job after graduating was with Prime Computing in Bedford town centre. He has a degree in computing and business. Dave has had a varied career university lecturing and running his own business supplying secretarial services.

Dave served as a Councillor representing Kingsbrook ward from 2002 until his election as Mayor in October 2009. His portfolio responsibilities include Economic Development, Rural Affairs, Diversity and Partnerships.

In his spare moments, Dave enjoys keeping his garden under control, watching football and the odd round of golf.

David Brewer

David Brewer has worked across a range of public services, including local government and health, for 25 years. David’s career development has included research and community intelligence, hospital patient information analysis, performance management, consultation, complaints management, community engagement and partnership working.

David’s particular interest and passion is working with people to better understand their needs and aspirations and get them better reflected in the services that the public sector delivers back to citizens and communities. David’s current role at Bedford Borough Council is Head of Partnerships and Community Engagement, developing the council’s capacity and reputation for listening to people and responding appropriately.

Diana Saulsbury

Diana has worked in further and higher education for many years. She is dually qualified as a teacher and a librarian and has worked both as a lecturer, a manager of library services, and is currently Associate Director of Learning Resources and Student Services at the University of Bedfordshire.

Diana is particularly keen on supporting mature students back into education and ran a successful Gateway Programme for De Montfort University at Bedford. She has a responsibility for liaising with the student services departments and libraries of the University’s partner colleges.  She served a term as an elected staff governor on UoB’s Governing Body.

In her spare time Diana enjoys the theatre, cinema and meeting with friends.

Duncan Stirling

Duncan has a broad spectrum of work experience having started his working life in a shop at 17, moving to manufacturing, then for the last 25 years working for both large and small IT companies, both UK and US based. His breadth of experience is drawn from across several areas of the business from Procurement, through HR and to Consultancy, each time building on his previous experiences. He works for BT heading up Service Improvement activities within one of the business units within the company. A passionate believer that everyone should have the opportunity to succeed in the work place regardless of background, he is looking forward to help the younger generation recognise that potential as part of the UpRising programme through his own experiences.

Isobel Stephen

Most of Isobel's career has been in DWP and its predecessor departments, with a short spell at number 10. She has worked both in operations in a Jobcentre Plus District and in policy, across areas such as incapacity benefits; disability and work; contracted programmes and welfare reform.

James Scouller

James Scouller started The Scouller Partnership – an executive coaching practice for CEOs, MDs, and senior managers – in 2004 after 11years as a CEO in USA- and UK-owned multinationals and nearly 30 years in industry.

As a professional coach he combines four characteristics which make him unusual. He has been a CEO, so he understands the pressures that business leaders face. He had a coach for four years, so he knows what it’s like to be the client. He has two advanced coaching qualifications. And he has undergone in-depth applied psychology training.

He is the author of ‘The Three Levels of Leadership’, the ground-breaking guide to developing leadership presence, knowhow, and skill.  

James is married and has three adult children. He has a 3rd Dan black belt in Aikido. 

Jacinda Humphry

Over her career in the Civil Service, Jacinda's work has focused primarily on delivering greater equality of opportunity.  She has worked disability equality, including commissioning the Government’s first ever comprehensive disability survey and establishing the Office for Disability Issues.  She also had a spell in the Cabinet Office Women’s Unit and has delivered legislation and plans for the modernisation of the Department’s delivery systems and customer service.  

John Reeds

John Reeds is CEO of REJEL group of companies. He has been running his own business for 16 years, which has changed significantly in that time to meet changing demands.

John is also Marketing Chairman at Bedford and County Golf Club, where he manages strategy and direction for the club, and the Captain of a snooker team in Stevenage.  

John lives in Bedford and is married to Louise who is a Lecturer at Luton 6th form college and Tutor at the Open University. He has two girls aged 22 and 24 – both are university graduates and are now working in key positions. 

Karen Nicholson

Karen has worked at bpha for more than eight years – a leading provider and developer of affordable housing – bpha now works across central, southern and eastern England, including Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Karen is bpha’s Youth Participation Co-ordinator, in this role she supports, develops, and coordinates appropriate interventions to address youth anti-social behaviour (ASB). Karen works with young residents to identify and offer them development opportunities, especially those that are not engaged in education, employment or training (NEET) and pre-NEETs (14-16 years). Karen also works with hard to reach groups, particularly BME young people within the age bracket of 11-19 years (up to 25 years if those young people suffer from learning disabilities). Karen’s role sits within the wider community development team, which is based in Bedford but operates throughout all bpha areas.

Kate Jacques

Kate Jacques qualified as teacher in the 70s and has spent most of her career in teacher training. Her last post was Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Bedfordshire responsible for the Bedford Campus at Polhill and as Dean of the Faculty of Education and Contemporary Studies. She continues to be a Visiting Professor at the Faculty and leads a British Council Project in Malawi which provides professional development for primary teachers in places where teachers have very little training.

Before coming to Bedford Kate was the Director of Education at Manchester Metropolitan University. She was also adviser to to the Teacher Development Agency and OFSTED. She has taught in schools in the UK and spent 5 years teaching in the Caribbean for the then Ministry of Overseas development.

Kate has published books and papers on teacher training and professionalism and continues to be actively involves in a number of educational organisations.

Kathy Toogood

Kathy Toogood is a Personnel and Training Professional, with more than 13 years’ senior retail management experience.  She has spent over 13 years in a coaching, training and consulting role, working for a range of large organisations spanning finance, manufacturing, retail, utilities, service industries and the public and charitable sectors. 

Drawing on her broad knowledge of leadership development, she supports clients with a range of developmental approaches, ensuring that interventions improve individual effectiveness and capability, and drive business results.  Kathy designs, delivers and manages bespoke leadership development programmes using coaching as a base.  She also supports organisations in establishing their own coaching or mentoring culture and is regularly engaged to train leaders wanting to apply effective coaching or be a mentor in their own organisations.

Kathy has just completed an MA in Coaching and Mentoring Practice. Her special area of research interest was the fairly new concept of strengths-based coaching.

Martin Hazell

Martin Hazell is the Director of Simplexity, a company specialising in change leadership, and strategic programme and project management. He has a strong focus on outcomes and a passion for enabling people to understand and overcome barriers to personal and corporate change.

Martin is skilled in decoding motivation and behaviour of managers and in coaching and mentoring people. He is a rigorously logical analyst who asks questions that others haven’t thought of and is persistent in seeking answers. Martin has over ten year’s management experience in high technology industries and sixteen years in transformation consulting.

He was Director at KPMG Consulting responsible for Strategy and Innovation within the Information Communication and Entertainment sectors. He holds an MBA from Cranfield University and is a Chartered Management Consultant, a PMI Project Management Professional, and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Matthew Jamieson

Matthew Jamieson is a boarding housemaster at Bedford School where he teaches history and politics.  He is also a community governor at Biddenham International School and Sports College.

Matthew served in the Scots Guards for seven years after graduating from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.  He served in Iraq and Afghanistan where he led units of infantry in a wide spectrum of tasks.  He also served within an international operations headquarters in Bosnia.  His wide experience of project planning and leadership is utilised in the educational environment at Bedford School and he is set to co-lead the school’s expedition to Everest Base Camp in 2012. 

A very keen games player and committed to the provision of sport in schools, Matthew has played representative levels of cricket and hockey and still tries to play as much as his young family will allow.  He is married to Emma and they have a two year-old daughter (Grace) and a ten-month old son (Luke).

Murray Stewart

Brought up and educated in Scotland, after graduating from Christ’s College, Cambridge, Murray Stewart joined the investment management business of Schroders plc in London.  After training as an analyst and portfolio manager, he spent five years working with the group holding company in a business planning role.  Returning to the asset management business, he held a number of management positions in client service, marketing and product development, with both UK and international responsibilities.  He was latterly an executive director of Schroder Investment Management.

Murray is currently a member of the East of England Industrial Development Board, which advises the regional development agency on capital grants principally to small- and medium -sized enterprises.  He is also an Associate of the Society of Investment Professionals.

Murray has lived in Bedfordshire with his wife and two daughters since 1998. He is Deputy Chairman of the Bedford Charity (The Harpur Trust) and also a member of Policy, Endowment and Bedford Girls’ School Committees.

Noaman Hasan

Noaman Hasan is a Senior Executive with HSBC Holdings Company, leading the Organisational effectiveness Programme. He has substantial experience working in several geographic locations (Europe, Asia, and North America) and multiple business spheres including Strategy, Planning and Projects Management, Product and Proposition management, Relationship Management, and Business Development.

Noaman holds a BA (Hons) in Economics and gained a distinction in his MBA from Bradford School of Management. He also won the prize for best student in the Economics and Corporate Planning Option.

While at HSBC, Noaman has conducted one of largest research pieces on the growth of Asian businesses in the West Yorkshire region (1997) and has designed and delivered a “Cultural Awareness Workshop” promoting diversity across the Northern Division of HSBC UK (2002). In 2000 Noaman won HSBC Bradford’s area performer of the year and in 2002 won “Professional of the Year” at the Yorkshire Asian Business Convention.

Noaman is married with two children and a dog! He lives in Biddenham.

Paula Grayson

Paula Grayson runs Bell Consultancy, working with individuals, organisations and Government Departments on good practice in resourcing, appraisal, talent development, equality and diversity issues. 

She is a former Vice President of the Institute of Personnel and Development, and has provided expert evidence to the UK Select Committee on Employment and chaired the working parties which created the IPD Codes of Practice (now CIPD Key Facts) on Recruitment, on Psychological Testing and for Executive Recruitment Consultants. 

Paula began her career at Unilever in 1974, where working within Lever Brothers Ltd she progressed through a variety of posts associated with all areas of the manufacturing and distribution business.  In 1983 she took on the role of Recruitment, Career Development and Training Manager with Unilever Research, and in 1985 she was appointed Senior Recruitment Manager for Unilever Head Office managing the graduate selection process for the thirty UK Unilever companies.

From 1989 Paula worked as the Personnel Executive for the newly independent Luton College of Higher Education. As one of the Board members, she worked towards the successful accreditation of the new University of Luton on 14 July 1993. 

She also holds a large number of voluntary positions including: Chairman of East of England Judges for National Training Awards, Chairman of Equalities Group for East of England European Programmes Strategy Group, Chairman of Bedfordshire and Luton Fair Play, and Vice Chairman of Central Bedfordshire College.

Sally Peck

Sally Peck studied Agriculture at Rodbaston Agricultural College, Staffordshire, and subsequently worked in the agricultural industry as a grain trader for 7 years, before joining her family farming business in Cambridgeshire. She also works for a sports charity – SportsAid Eastern – the national charity for sport.

Sally is a Trustee, and currently Chairman, of a local endowed charity in Bedford. She is also a fundraiser for SportsAid Eastern, who since their re-launch in 2000 have raised over £1.5m for talented sportsmen/women.