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Leadership
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
Head of Advisory Services
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.
Sterling Vladimir
Head of Product
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 Sterling believes that the current recruitment and career development landscapes are outdated and failing.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.
Ollie Long
Head of Software Engineering
Ollie has a 1st Class Masters in Computer Science from Sheffield University. He with Guillermo lead the engineering team from the start of development. Our technology design pattern is based on the Azure cloud stack using big data architectures to support both operational processes as well as advanced analytics.
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.
Our 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.
Sarah Inigo-Jones
Professional Development Consultant and Coach
As a professional development consultant and coach, Sarah provides strategic advice, talent development programme design and delivery of training and workshops for leadership and career development. Her 30 years of experience started in strategy consulting followed by director roles at Coca-Cola and WPP; more recently she was head of professional development at London Business School. Working with a number of leading business schools, she has advised and designed programmes, both in person and digital, for individuals wanting to accelerate their career in their current fields, as well as those wanting to pivot to a new field or function.
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. Engagements have included the creation of strategic frameworks for long term growth, support for the execution of strategy, senior team development, the development of corporate culture, post-merger integration and the management of investors, customers and other key stakeholders.
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