Have you ever wanted to have a profound influence on the skills of the wider workforce beyond your company gates? Is your organisation forging ahead and as an example to others on skills development? Join our network of Skills Champions, senior business leaders across all industries – committed to the development of their own workforce.
Champions inspire and galvanise other businesses into action by acting as ambassadors to their peers, suppliers, clients and other business partners. Acting as a sounding board to Government, this powerful and inspiring Network is also a unique opportunity to have lasting effect beyond your organisation and to shape the national skills agenda.
Recent new Champions include...
We are delighted to welcome a number of new Champions so far in 2009. These include Paul Pagliari, UK Group Human Resources Director at ISS UK; Adrian Ringrose, Chief Executive of Interserve; Alan Johnson, Head of the Apprenticeship Academy at British Gas; Dan Maher, National Business Development & Bids Director at Kier; Mike Jepson, Managing Director at Healthcare Initial; Mike Lynn-Jones, Group Organisational Development Director at Wincanton; Richard Tyrie, Chief Executive of Jobs Go Public and Simon Bartley, Chief Executive of UK Skills. Profiles for all these business leaders will be coming soon.
Recent Champions that have joined us include...
Alan Johnson, British Gas
Alan began his career with British Gas in August 1978 as an Apprentice Engineer and has since held many operational and managerial roles within the business throughout his thirty year career. Since 2007 Alan has headed up The Academy within British Gas and is responsible for all recruitment and training of engineering and support Apprentices. This award winning, industry leading Academy has a well deserved national reputation for excellence and has recently been awarded a category 1 excellence standard from Ofsted.
As of January 2009, Alan has been appointed as Commercial Director for The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. Working part-time in conjunction with his role in The Academy, Alan is developing a commercial strategy that will optimise all new and existing commercial opportunities whilst supporting the award principles and enhancing The Duke of Edinburgh’s brand.
Heather Lee, Lincolnshire Cooperative
Heather Lee is Head of People & Performance for Lincolnshire Co-operative, one of the most successful independent retail consumer co-operatives in the country, with a diverse trading activity spanning Food retailing to Funerals to Pharmacy with 2,500 staff.
Heather has developed the Lifelong Learning Agenda within her organisation, promoting Skills for Life, Apprenticeships, NVQ’s, ILM and an array of other training initiatives open and accessible to staff across the organisation.
Heather is an HR professional, with nearly 20 year's experience spanning the retail, manufacturing and utilities sector, she is CIPD qualified, a Graduate of the University of York and has an MBA.
Paul Robinson, npower
npower won the prestigious 2008 Norfolk County Services Skills for Life Award for Excellence in recognition of its work on skills.
Paul Robinson, Senior Director at npower Operations Customer Services and the project sponsor, has been at npower for five years, bringing his previous experience of 17 years working with a large customer service company, Yorkshire Electricity.
Paul's story is inspiring, having left school at the age of 16, and working his way up the career ladder to his current position. It is a powerful testament to the importance of educational and skills support.
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