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Leadership Team
Zenon Gray
Chief Executive
Zenon has held senior board level roles as CEO and Group CIO with 30 years experience across Capital Markets, Commodities, Retail Banking, Food Retail, Logistics, Consulting and Software sectors. Zenon has managed 1000's of resources in global multi-cultural teams driving major operational transformation, and mergers and acquisitions programmes. Zenon founded the Nicer Group with Sterling to focus on people, their career aspirations, to empower individuals to maximise their true value and to fulfil their desired work and personal lifestyles.
David Bainton
Chief Operating Officer
David has held senior roles in Human Resources and General Management and has over 25 years consulting experience in the Automotive, Energy, Financial Services, Leisure Retail, Logistics and Telecommunications sectors. A certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and a member of the British Institute of Psychology, his passion is maximising value by enabling individuals to achieve their full potential and overcome the apparent constraints in corporate life.
Katy Maguire
Chief Commercial Officer
An ex-serving officer in the military with over 25 years' experience, Katy has worked with a number of highly established and global organisations both in the UK and internationally such as Disney, Google, McLaren and Maersk. An expert in business development, transforming senior leadership teams, launching new brands into the market, and with extensive experience of physical and digital products.​
Sterling Grychowski
Chief Product Officer
Sterling has used his experience of product management at tech start-ups and leading teams of software developers to help create Nicer technology solutions. Sterling believes that the current recruitment and career development landscapes are outdated and failing. As Product Owner, Sterling and his team have developed solutions with the aim of modernising the existing recruitment model and creating a career development tool for our members to use to design their career path, and achieve their career goals.
Dr Guillermo G. Schiava D’Albano
Head of Data Science
Guilhermo is an internationally recognised leader in advanced data engineering within the Financial Services, Logistics and Retail sectors where huge data volumes drive complexity in design and place the most demanding expectations on technology solutions. Guilhermo leads our data science capabilities. Guilhermo has worked with some of the largest organisations including Nordea, Barclays & Databricks.
Darren Hinde
Chief Technology Officer
Darren has over 15 years senior development expertise developing commercial products in the insurance, financial services and retail sectors. Darren has extensive expertise in data intensive analytical platforms and the application of new Agentic AI design concepts. Darren has joined Nicer to accelerate the adoption of AI within our Talent Analytics platform.
Maurice Mcdonald
Consulting Partner
Maurice has more than 25 years experience working across all sectors within financial services, but primarily focused on the Banking and Wealth Management sector. He has practical experience of supporting firms with implementing and embedding regulatory change (MiFID II, SM&CR and Consumer Duty) and more recently has been focused on supporting firms through the merger & acquisition process.
Saeed Saddique
Legal Counsel
Saeed has over 15 years’ experience as a legal, commercial & contracts executive with both UK and International companies. He has extensive experience with national and global corporate businesses working with legal, procurement & finance teams. He specialises in contract & vendor management, working with corporate clients, third party vendors in IT transformation for technology companies. Saeed’s has advised many global organisations including the ECB, Equinix, Capita Group and CSC.
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Expert Partners
Toby Larkman
Associate Partner
Toby is a highly skilled senior executive with extensive experience in commercial and operational executive positions. With a background in developing business strategy, delivering transformation and executing commercial deals, Toby specialises in bringing together diverse multi-functional and geographically remote teams to deliver results in high pressured situations
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Velida Jahic
Associate Partner
Velida is an experience Director having worked in the past 15 years in the Wealth Management Sector primarily in a sales role working with some of the largest pension funds, and family offices across Europe. Velida has prior worked with Lombard, Nordea and Nomura Asset Management. Velida is a lead transformation Partner focused on Sales Strategy and operational improvement in sales and institutional sales.
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Zaid Hameed
Associate Partner
Zaid has extensive experienced of technology change across Insurance and Retail Banking. Zaid specialist in agile development and expert in testing strategies. Zaid began his consulting career at Accenture and has since built a reputation working with many leading financial services companies with an emphasis on data warehousing, data management and compliance programmes.
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Frances Edwards
Associate Partner
Ex-COO of Blackrock with extensive change management and operating experience at board level and front line to auditors, investment company boards and regulators. Frances has recently been at the forefront advising new product / new market /new asset class innovative businesses within the Fintech sector at the intersection of Traditional Finance DeFi. Specialist in product structuring, management and distribution; exchange traded funds, mutual funds, structuted products and complex derivative instruments.
Jonathan Lane
Associate Partner
Joanthan has over 15 years experience in project finance, direct private equity, private equity secondaries and M&A for listed corporates, private companies, investment funds and governments. Sector expertise includes natural resources, renewable energy and infrastructure. He has worked in both developed and emerging markets and is currently focused on projects in Africa, Central Asia and Southeast Asia. A British Citizen, he is fluent in French with a working knowledge of Spanish and some Japanese..
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Peter Clithero
Associate Partner
Peter's experience lies within the Technology Sales arena having worked within Global Technology companies for over 16 years. Peterhas broad sector knowledge gained across International Markets with experience selling to Retail & Manufacturing, Banking & Finance, Telecommunications and Technology companies. Peter has an established career in Sales Management, Leadership and Sales Operations that focuses on market growth and development of sales teams. Currently undertaking his Doctoral Research into Ethical Practice within Technology Sales, Peter is well positioned to advise on how Organisational Culture has a direct effect on salesforce behaviour and company results.
Executive Advisors
Anne Adams. PhD.
ACS
Anne has worked with many Fortune 50 companies and educational institutions both nationally and internationally for more than 30 years. Anne's work has been with senior leaders and their teams from companies as varied as IBM, Mars, Heinz, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Procter & Gamble, Prudential UK, The Hershey Company, EZ Communications, to government entities like the Pentagon and nonprofits, e.g. Institute of Noetic sciences (IONS), and schools throughout the United States and India.
Lawrie Philpott
CEO - Phillpot Black
Lawrie Philpott, formally head of Coopers & Lybrand's UK Human Resource Advisory Group and Partner-in-Charge at PwC, is a human resource, change management and organisation consultant with over 25 years' experience in the UK and internationally in both the public and private sectors. Lawrie leads his own consultancy organisation 'Philpott Black', that builds exceptional skills in business leaders and develop high performing leadership teams to deliver strategic business change.
Danuta Gray
Chair - Direct Line Insurance Group
Danuta has over 30 years experience in leadership, sales, marketing, customer services and technology. Danuta has held numerous Executive, Non-Executive and Chair positions at industry leading organisations such as: CEO of Telefonica O2 Ireland for 9 years and acting as a Non-Executive Director at Michael Page, Paddy Power and Aer lingus. Danuta has been working as Chair of Direct Line Insurance Group for the last 4 years.
Peter Ward
Chairman - Telos Partners
Peter is a chartered accountant and was a partner with Deloitte and, through merger, Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) for 15 years. He was a member of the Tomorrow’s Company Inquiry, which inspired his move to consulting on the development of businesses and organisations to achieve long-term sustainable success. Peter works internationally with chief executives on the transformation of their businesses and their growth, both organically and through acquisition.
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Rob Millar
Director - Devonshire & St Andrews
Rob has over 20 years' experience of working globally with major brands across multiple industries. Rob is an internationally recognised thought leader in the discipline of customer-led change. Rob has worked across Financial Services, TMT, Retail, Utilities, B2B, Logistics, Real Estate, Utilities and Events. He has held senior MD and Partner roles in several leading international consulting organisations
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Emma Movitz
Senior People & Data Transformation Consultant
Emma is a senior executive leader with a solid operational experience from the world of Finance, both locally in Nordics and internationally. As a leader Emma has conducted many change management journeys, both strategic and with practical implications through regulatory change, technological innovations, merger and acquisitions, other investments and cost efficiency initiatives. Emma has a broad international and global network through work and studies in the Nordics, UK, Europe and India.​​​
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Simon Rayne
MD & Revenue Growth Specialist
Simon is a senior executive sales leader with a background in international positions covering networks, software, cloud and hardware sales aswell as CPG. He is an accredited coach, and is skilled in team development, C Level client relationships, customer success and operational excellence. Simon has a breadth of experience in Private Equity, Public and Blue Chip organisations such as LEGO, Microsoft and Nokia.
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Barry Gould
CTO - Concord Resources Limited
​Barry has held various senior executive roles in technology, including over 26 years working in Investment banking, physical commodities and other areas of the financial services industry. He has worked for Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Citibank and Noble Group and has also worked for the UK Government at the Home Office. Barry is currently Global Head of Technology at Concord Resources Limited. Barry has a very broad range of experience and skill sets together with a track record of building, implementing and remediating large complex technology solutions for many organisations. Barry is also involved with a number of UK Internet start-up companies and also works as a mentor for TechStars UK.