Horace McDonald has spent his career managing clients or people and fell into negotiation by accident. It never ceases to amaze him how little people understand it.
The team of negotiation experts at Scotwork regularly post short stories on the company’s blog illustrating the way in which this essential skill for life and business plays out in companies around the world every day.
Scotwork has been in the business of developing capability in commercial negotiation for nearly 50 years, and continues to lead the way in helping people not just negotiate better, but enjoy the process more.
Diana Marsland’s varied career has seen her work in marketing, project management executive roles roles in the corporate, public and third sectors including Halifax plc, the NHS, Action Medical Research and City University. She believes that managers’ abilities are vastly underrated and that they can flourish with support and encouragement.
Julie Nerney, MBA, Chartered Director (CDir), Fellow of the Institute of Directors (FIoD)
Julie was a serial entrepreneur, starting, running and selling 14 business in the UK and overseas. She then had a successful interim career as a business transformation expert, spanning private, public and not for profit sectors. These ranged from complex change programmes through to whole organizational turnarounds and high profile projects, including a leadership role in the delivery of the transport operation for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. She has experience of every stage of the organizational life cycle from start up through to disposals and acquisitions, and has worked in dozens of Executive and CEO roles. Her transformation work is complemented by a varied portfolio of Chair and NED roles, she is a guest lecturer at Oxford Said Business School, public speaker and author. Whilst her experience has real breadth and depth, Julie is struck by the commonality across the hundreds of organizations she has worked with. Regardless of why there are there, how teams and leaders approach their work is a far bigger determinant than what they do. The what is important, but it is the how which is the game changer.
A qualified NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Master Practitioner and Hypnotherapist, trainer, presenter, life coach, energy therapist and an EAM (Energy Alignment Method) founding Mentor, Karen Shaw has been passionate about coaching parents since she discovered the skills, tools and techniques she learnt that helped change her relationship with her three sons for the better. Sons with disabilities, physical and psychological, complex medical conditions and labels.
As a single parent since 2001 she has discovered many ways of creating a fulfilling, loving relationship with her children by putting together elements from Personal Development, NLP, Hypnotherapy, energy therapies, living a ‘heart-centred’ life and incorporating Eastern philosophies and spiritual practices.
She has appeared on national TV and radio and has spoken on stage at international conferences on parenting communication. She was nominated for a UK national Women Inspiring Women award.
Jude Jennison is a leadership author, international speaker and pioneer of Leadership with Horses, helping leaders to develop their non-verbal communication, self-awareness and emotional resilience. She works with executive boards, senior leaders and entrepreneurs to develop embodied leadership skills and create behavioural change. She combines 16 years’ senior leadership experience in IBM with executive leadership, coaching and team development skills, as well as the unusual approach of working with a herd of horses to help leaders become more confident in leading through the uncertainty of our time.
Nicole Goode is a functional medicine practitioner, registered Nutritional Therapist (BANT CNHC) and BANT-registered Nutritionist. An associate of the Royal Society of Medicine and a Member of The Institute for Functional Medicine, she is the founder and Clinical Director of The Goode Health Clinic, named Best Functional Medicine Clinic UK in 2023 at the Health, Beauty and Wellness Awards.
As one of the UK’s leading voices on immune health and optimal health, Nicole is a postgraduate specialist in autoimmune diseases, further specialized into thyroid, brain and fatigue conditions and optimizing health and longevity for creatives and ambitious high achievers. She provides bespoke, personalized functional medicine programmes for clients worldwide.
Nicole is also the creator and host of The Goode Health Podcast and regularly features as a guest on other podcasts. She has contributed to health articles in Women’s Health, Marie Claire and Thrive Global, amongst others, and was named a Tatler-Approved Nutritionist.
Nicole has partnerships with worldwide global leaders in functional medicine, including practitioner-only supplement companies and testing laboratories, to assess health and discover the underlying imbalances and root causes of sub-optimal health. Working with clients on their own personal health history, root causes and genetics allows her to achieve long-lasting, effective results for them, enabling optimal health.
Chaim Oren is a visionary strategist, international keynote speaker, and high-performance wellbeing architect. With decades of experience advising Fortune 500 companies (including Kraft-General Foods and P&G), leading advertising agencies like Y&R, and U.S. states, he has advised high-net-worth philanthropists. He was the Commercial Representative for the State of Connecticut, and most recently served as a brand ambassador for Hinsta Performance, the world’s leading, evidence-based coaching company, helping Formula 1 drivers and business professionals achieve sustainable success.
After surviving a massive heart failure with ‘one week to live’ and a subsequent battle with aggressive cancer, Oren identified the critical biological and systemic failure points of the modern executive. He pioneered the ‘Shock-Kinetic’ frameworks, proving that the traditional concept of resilience is impossible in an era of continuous disruption. Today, acting as a Brand Ambassador for Hintsa Performance (coaches to Formula 1 champions) and a premier guide for global leaders, he teaches executives to upgrade their Internal Operating System (I.O.S.), escape the ‘Control Trap’, and treat wellbeing as load-bearing infrastructure to rise forward in the Age of Shock.
He is based in Matan, Israel and Hoboken, New Jersey, United States.
Chris Simmance is a UK-based entrepreneur on three sides of the AI displacement question. He runs Orca, an AI operations platform that automates the work of a PA, social media manager, CRM administrator, research analyst, and junior strategist for a fraction of the cost. He previously co-founded Enterprise Skills, an EdTech platform measuring eight employer-valued human capabilities through business simulations, used in UK schools. His advisory practice at OMG Center works with professional services principals on AI, strategy, and growth; the honest conclusion is increasingly that businesses need fewer people. The Next Rung is his first trade book. Four earlier industry titles were self-published alongside his consulting work. It draws on all three roles, the builder, the educator, and the advisor, to map what is coming and what can be done about it.
Lucy Werner is the writer behind Top 50 business newsletter Hype Yourself on Substack.
With over 20 years of communications experience, she has taught hundreds of entrepreneurs through workshops and courses for creative spaces like The Futur, Bayes Business School, and the University of Arts London.
She’s the author of two bestselling books, Hype Yourself and Brand Yourself, and has been featured in the Alt Marketing Power 100, The Dots Rising Stars, and Start Up Magazine’s Female Founders to Watch.
She is a Domestika instructor and Adobe Express Global Ambassador, based in rural France..
Michael Brown runs his own training consultancy, specializing in building leadership, team development and negotiation skills. He has been working with complex international organizations for nearly 20 years, and over that time he has met nearly 10,000 people in organisations of all shapes and sizes. This has given him an in-depth personal insight into their hopes, fears and challenges as they try to keep ahead in a rapidly evolving and increasingly dysfunctional workplace.
Before joining the training industry he gained practical experience of managing people and developing small businesses from a 14-year career at Whitbread in logistics, sales and marketing.
He was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was an organ scholar.
