Team

Our Team

Our core team in the beautiful highland setting at our base in the grounds of Inverdruie House.

Standing: Left to Right: Roz Mitchell, Barney Mackie, Sam Weir, Helen Walker, Rod Pashley

Kneeling: Left to Right: Tony Mitchell, Heather Burns

Our success depends on the quality of our people. At the core of our business are our directors and a central team of very special people who ensure the highest standards of operational support. To make sure that we always connect with our clients’ needs, we have built a fantastic team of Associates. Collectively, we offer a broad span of experience from qualified outdoor development training instructors to highly experienced facilitators and business consultants.

Rod Pashley - Founder and Managing Director

Rod has over 30 years of experience as a Development Trainer. His early career was in Local Government but before too long he headed south to work with the British Antarctic Survey for 2.5 years. From there he moved to the Outward Bound Trust, one of the UK’s largest outdoor development training organizations, where he spent 16 years gaining extensive international experience - particularly in Africa and in the U.S.A. He eventually returned and became the Principal of the Scottish Centre. In the business world he works as a consultant to many major corporations including Shell, BP, Motorola, Cooper Cameron (UK), Bass Brewers, Scottish Courage and Technip Offshore. Rod continues to travel and expedition and sees this as vital to maintaining energy and vision. He is a keen skier, qualified mountaineering instructor, scuba diver and occasional fly fisherman. Rod is also an NLP Practioner.

Barney Mackie - Director of Knowledge & Innovation

Barney has been involved with people=positive™ since 1995. He has considerable training and development experience and a creative flair which adds colour and richness to any programme. He moved from a career in teaching to outdoor education in 1985, working for the Abernethy Trust, where he set up and became the Director of the Trust’s Ardgour Centre in Lochaber. Barney has an inspiring and very hands-on approach that works at all levels within organisations. He is a qualified ski instructor, mountain leader and accomplished musician.

Tony Mitchell - Commercial Director

Tony is the Commercial Director of people=positive™ in the UK and VP of Operations in the USA based in our office in Houston. In addition, he plays a major role in developing and delivering our development and facilitation programmes. He joined the business after 21 years with BP, where he started his career as a research chemist. His interest in business led him to various roles in the Oil and Gas production arm of BP, particularly in strategy and business development. What really inspired him was developing high performance teams and that led him to engage people=positive™ in various BP projects. He enjoyed the experience so much that he decided to join the company!

Andrew Thacker - Director
Andrew has been associated with the business since 2005. He brought with him a track record of successful delivery of high profile projects and great experience of people management. He has spent time managing in industry and in central government and the NHS. He struck out on his own in 2002 and quickly built a reputation as an innovative and accomplished presenter and facilitator.

He has delivered senior management leadership programmes and, for people=positive, has designed, developed and delivered a number of courses and events in behavioural safety. These have been successfully delivered in the rail industry and other commissions have been made as a consequence. Andrew is underpinning his delivery of behavioural safety events with accreditation as an Insights practitioner and is currently undertaking relevant study and research.

Andrew has also worked with clients in the Oil and Gas, Construction and nuclear industries. He is developing people=positive's profile in the US, with Tony Mitchell and in Australia and the Middle East.

Helen Walker - Finance Manager
Helen has been part of the people=positive™ family since 2001. After graduating from Strathclyde with a BA in Business Administration and Economics, she spent some time with the Foreign Office in London. However, ultimately her love of the outdoors overcame city life and she moved to sportscotland's National Outdoor Training Centre - Glenmore Lodge - as Office and Finance Manager. Apart from her family, Tim, Kirsten and Tana, her main interests continue to be out of doors: walking, sailing; paddling, skiing and golfing.

Heather Burns - Office Manager
Heather joined us in 2005 having owned and run an independent book shop for 10 years. She trained in Management and Catering originally with a spell in Special Needs Youth Training.

Dave Latham - Principal Consultant
Dave has been part of the people=positive team™ for the last 5 years and acts as a senior consultant delivering safety culture, leadership and team development programmes. His experience of working in development training goes back 20 years and he has worked with groups on expedition, in the classroom and in the workplace. Before that, he worked for a major oil company as a well site drilling supervisor and that industrial experience helps him to understand and connect with his clients. He’s happiest operating with people in the outdoors where he can help the experience make the difference. Dave is a qualified outdoor professional and when not working he can be found skiing, canoeing, kayaking and walking to interesting places or just sitting still on his croft in Aberdeenshire. Dave holds a First Class Honours Degree (BSc) in Psychology from the University of Aberdeen and a Masters Degree (MSc) in Logic and the Methodology of Science from Sussex University.

Steve Howe MVO- Principal Consultant

Profile and commercial experience

Steve has developed a highly practical and no-nonsense approach to coaching commercial team behaviour and communication in a number of sectors.For the last four years he has specialised in construction and utilities working at senior levels achieving significant results with bid teams and during client/contractor engagement workshops. Formerly a journalist, Steve’s ambition to work with people was fulfilled with The Outward Bound Trust, where his management skills led naturally to his appointment as Director of Sales and Marketing and then Director of Communications. During this period The Trust enjoyed spectacular growth in sales. He was awarded membership of the Royal Victorian Order by Her Majesty the Queen for his contribution to the development of The Outward Bound Trust

Angus Crockett - Principal Consultant
Angus comes from a management background in manufacturing and engineering over a period of 16 years. Having graduated from York University with a physics degree he spent the early part of his career in textiles and managed a plant in Durban, South Africa. His interest in people and employee relations encouraged him to become a Human Resources Manager with Rolls-Royce plc in the Marine sector of the business. Having completed his MSc in Strategic Human Resources Management and with itchy feet he set up his own management consultancy business in 2006 and works for people=positive as a consultant. Angus is proud to have been a venturer on Operation Raleigh’s Zimbabwe Expedition in 1990 and never misses an opportunity to get out climbing, walking or mountain biking in the Peak District with his wife Angela.

Sam Weir - Consultant

Sam, has worked with us as a consultant for 6 years and runs his own outdoor activity business Kayak Scotland which provides sea kayak guiding throughout Scotland. He has lived in Scotland since 1990 and during that period has worked coaching and guiding outdoor activities to a wide variety of user groups. When not working he enjoys spending time with his partner Melanie, getting out mountain biking and enjoying the Scottish coastline in his sea kayak.

Neil Millward - Consultant
In addition to running his own consultancy business, Neil has worked with us as a Consultant since 2002. He comes from a background in the outdoor education / voluntary sector where he spent many years setting up and running projects for the personal development and training of young people. When not working, he is often helping with young people’s projects or teaching archery in his local area. He is a powerboating and VHF instructor and holds a BSc in Chemistry and an MBA.

Fiona Begbie - Consultant
Fiona has been involved in occupational health and safety education and practice for over 25 years. She has experience of developing and delivering graduate level education, working with groups in the classroom and with practitioners in industry. Most recently Fiona has been leading a national work-health educational project. She has been providing coaching and undertaking Post Graduate training in coaching. She has a specialist interest in positive psychology and mental health promotion (MHP) and experience of case management in occupational health; leadership, stress management, and person based behavioural safety training; policy development, inter-disciplinary training, policy implementation audit, learning needs assessment and commissioning education. To top off her impressive list of achievements, she has also completed a Masters Degree in Education undertaking research into critical thinking.

Karen Darke - Consultant

Karen spent 8 years working in the oil and gas industry for Shell before joining the people=positive team. Originally a geologist, she re-trained in the field of development training, after a climbing accident which left her paralysed initiated her passion for how people learn and develop. She is a trained coach and learning and development specialist. Her personal experiences have led her to work as an author and motivational speaker covering topics of overcoming challenge, teamwork, leadership, change and risk (see www.inspireandimpact.com). Karen holds a PhD in Geology, an MA in Development Training and a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry and Earth Science. She is also a qualified coach, NLP practitioner and complementary therapist. Karen is currently in training with the British Paralympic Team in preparation for competing in the London Olympics 2012.

Peter Cable - Consultant
Prior to coaching leadership in the commercial world, Peter was a senior infantry officer with a deep interest in leadership development at all levels. Leaving the army in 1998, he became a director of a leadership development company, delivering powerful programmes of personal leadership development to middle and senior managers drawn from major clients across the commercial and public sector. He is married and lives in the Black Mountains in South Wales. He does not have children but brings up two Labradors, a cat and chickens!! He is a passionate traveller, enjoys keeping fit, trekking and motorcycling and has a Private Pilots Licence.

Jonathan Hill - Consultant
Jonathan is a qualified coach, NLP practitioner and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) consultant with training programmes fully accredited by the International Coaching Federation. Prior to setting up his own coaching practice, Jonathan enjoyed ten years blue chip corporate experience holding senior management positions with Coca-Cola and Red Bull UK. As well as 1:1 executive and personal coaching at all levels of seniority, Jonathan is highly experienced in team development and facilitation. His delivery of work includes bite size performance workshops and team building and development workshops, focussing on three key themes: Visioning for success, talent engagement and corporate health checks, with experiential learning delivered via a sailing theme or land based ’crystal maze’ type challenges. Jonathan has worked with a number of high profile companies including the BBC, Welsh Assembly Government, Leaseplan, Lexis Nexis and Pfizer.

David Napthine - Consultant
I live in County Durham and have worked for a number of years as an actor, actor/facilitator, devisor of training programmes and writer of scenarios for drama-based training. In all of these capacities I have worked in the oil, rail, construction and engineering industries and also for local authorities, charities and health trusts. As a professional actor I have played God, Prospero, Bottom, murderers, dodgy photographers, army officers and a deranged lighthouse keeper. I have written extensively for BBC Radio Drama, theatre (including librettos and song cycles) and for site-specific productions (e.g. swimming pools, cathedrals, housing estates). I also work as a theatre director and many years ago I was the Ribena Picture of Health!

Rob Walker - Consultant

A psychology graduate, Rob has considerable experience focussing on people development as a trainer, coach and facilitator. Currently supporting People=Positive with Network Rail, he has also successfully run behavioural change and development programmes across a wide range of public and commercial sector organisation.

A daughter and twin sons take up a lot of Rob’s ‘leisure’ time and he enjoys most sports, participating in squash, golf and running. He also is a cub scout leader, although can’t tie a knot to save his life, and runs a small stress management/counselling practice.