Our team has over 80 years experience in running their own businesses and assisting private, public and not for profit organisations to succeed and thrive.
We offer our expertise on a number of committees and advisory groups across the Midlands to influence community business strategy and policy – so that everybody benefits.
Team profiles
Sue Fry – Leadership Coach and Enterprise Adviser.
Sue Fry is a self employed coach and business adviser with an MSc in leadership and management; ILM Level 7 in Executive Coaching; and SFEDI accreditation.
She has extensive, practical experience of organisational development at a senior level, built up over many years in the social sector in a wide variety of roles.
Sue enjoys helping forward-thinking social enterprises, voluntary and community organisations and small business to reach the next stage of their development; coaching leaders in a non-judgmental environment.
She has worked with teams and organisations to develop their capabilities, improve systems and performance, and implement change. She is well versed in Full Cost Recovery budgeting, having helped both medium income/turnover organizations and those with multiple funding streams and high turnover, to build systems and present costs confidently to funders and commissioners of services. She is also experienced in preparing for assessments against quality standards, and developing strategic, business, operational and project plans. Sue is also and experienced coach, specialising in supporting top teams and chief executives. She has developed mentor projects atnd training, and loves to see people reach theri potential.
Sue is an excellent trainer, facilitator, and communicator with the ability to develop relationships with both clients and suppliers. She is also skilled in building and maintaining partnerships and networks, working successfully with regional and national agencies, to deliver projects and facilitate productive working partnerships..
Sue leads the Women in Rural Enterprise Network for Worcestershire and meets regularly with women led businessess from a wide range of services and sectors.
For leadership coaching, development and enterprise advice contact Sue at suef@unlocking-enterprise.org.uk
Jill Hall - Associate Consultant, specialising in helping organisations plan, develop, review and improve performance
Jill works with organisations in the public, private and community and voluntary sectors to help them operate more effectively. Her process uses review, evaluation and business planning techniques to help clients identify how to improve performance.
She undertakes strategic planning, research and business consultation for economic development assignments.
Jill worked as a registered Associate for Worcestershire County Council's Changing Futures Scheme and a Growth Accelerator coach.
She serves on the Management Committee of her local community shop and on the Local Action Group for the LEADER programme in Worcestershire.
Jill has previously worked as Chief Executve of Busines Link and a Chamber of Commerce.
You can contact Jill at jillh@unlocking-enterprise.org,uk
Jane Holland – Associate consultant, specialist in market research and data analysis
Jane is a self-employed business coach, with extensive experience of working with statistics and survey results that she uses to help her clients develop a better understanding of their local economy and their marketplace.
She holds a degree in Management Science and a PhD in Operational research. Jane has also worked as an external examiner in Business Modelling for the Newscastle Business school at the University of Northumbria.
Jane has worked for British Gas,Sector Skills Councils Colleges, local authorities, Government bodies and a Chamber of Commerce, providing insight to senior managers to help with strategic planning, increasing sales and prioritising their funding. It's critical when planning new projects and ventures to asses what the intended outcomes and results could be; she ensures that the right data is captured and monitored to allow sound business decisions to be made, based upon insightful research.
You can contact Jane at janeh@unlocking-enterprise.org.uk
Gill Hutchinson - Associate Consultant, trainer and leadership & management coach, specialist in sales and marketing
Gill is a Director at Aardvark Marketing Consultants Ltd. She has worked as a Growth Accerator coach and trainer, Government Growth voucher coach in marketing and was a marketing specialist for the Worcestershire Changing Futures Fund. She worked as a trainer and mentor with MRE delivering the Women2Web project.
Gill provides sales and marketing support and advice to business owners and directors of successful small and medium sized companies, councils, charities and CIC's, predominantly in the West Midlands region. As a result of her work organisations aquire more customers, more sales and generate more profit.
Gill is a frequent blogger, writing about all aspects of sales and marketing and is a SAGE expert business blogger for sales and marketing.
Gill has been a member of the Federation of Small Business (FSB) Worcestershire branch committee and the Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire regional committee.
You can contact Gill on gill@aardvarkmarketing.co.uk
Suzy James - Associate Consultant, excellence and impact specialist
An experienced coach and consultant Suzy specialises in helping small organisations and charities develop their excellence and impact. She works with individuals and large organisations including the NHS, Princes Trust and has 10 years experience in Local Government and the voluntary sector.
You can contact Suzy on suzy@suzyjamescoaching.co.uk
Christopher Harvey, Business coach, specialist in innovation and business development
Chris works with clients in the private, public and voluntary sectors to help them change and grow. He has a reputation for innovative thinking and bring fresh ideas to help clients make a step change, develop new products and services and in today's phrase "do more with less."
Chris has helped private sector clients develop new opportunities and extend their markets and enabled others to take research from the laboratory to the commercial market place. We also support clients in making their views known to Government and public bodies in the UK and EU through advocacy, coaching and research.
He works with clients in the public sector to identify how they can improve outcomes through new strategic and operational structures and through research to underpin evidence based policy making. We have shown them how they can better engage the private sector for policy development and service delivery.
Chris has been a member of the West Midlands Rural Economy Group and head of policy at the Herefordshire & Worcestershire Chamber of Commerce.
You can contact Chris on Chrish@unlocking-enterprise.org.uk
Alice Jennings- Associate Consultant, specialising in business process improvement
I love to help small businesses work smarter. With a background in management consulting and business improvement I use the skills I developed saving millions for big businesses to help small businesses run super efficiently. Imagine having the work life balance you dreamt of when you started out or being able to grow with ease rather than overwhelm.
You can contact Alice on alice.jennings@gmail.com
Dick Willis - business coach and evaluation specialist
During the 80's he managed one of the largest YOP/YTS schemes in the country and, subsequently, the Avon Training Agency which provided short vocational training courses to unwaged adults - a programme of 10,000 training starts per year delivered by a network of 100 organisations, from freelancers to Universities. His interest in outdoor pursuits led him to move on to managing the Bristol Climbing Centre, one of the first indoor climbing venues in the UK and, in parallel, working on outdoor management development programmes with a wide range of clients, focusing on leadership and communication skills.
In 1998 he became MD of SBLN Ltd, an innovative not-for-profit organisation that pioneered ways to provide introductory and training programmes in the use of the Internet. He and his colleagues developed an approach that was commercialised in partnership with ICL as the international CyberskillsTM programme. In 2000 he joined CNR and became responsible for running the DTI's national network of ICT business advisers. His work to encourage the use of ICT by small and medium sized enterprises led to a role with the Technology Strategy Board's grid-computing initiative, working on ways to engage SMEs with the use of what we now call 'cloud' technologies. More recently, he has been involved in a diverse range of research and evaluation projects, from undertaking literature reviews about leadership to evaluating projects in the NHS. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Trustee of the Youth Education Service, a charity providing literacy and numeracy support to teenagers and young adults.
Dick also has a parallel career, he has been one of the UK’s leading explorers working with colleagues to map and study caves in Europe, Central Asia, China, S.East Asia, Indonesia and New Guinea. He is a founder of the Mulu Caves Project which has been exploring the world's largest caves in Sarawak, Borneo, since 1978 and his services to speleology have been recognised by the Royal Geographical Society which made him a recipient of its Patrick Ness Award in 1990, the same year in which he became a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellow.
Linking these two themes - exploration and business support - has been a constant recognition of the value of teamwork, communication and leadership skills.