TOTAL INTER ACTION - Key Persons


Andrew Pepar

Job Titles:
  • Master Trainer & Pitch Facilitator / Australia
Andrew has 6 year's experience as a senior consultant and manager with global consulting and IT&T organisations plus 10 year's experience developing and delivering successful behaviour change programs in team effectiveness, sales and communication. Coupled with a Masters Degree in Adult Learning, this wealth of experience provides a rare depth, breadth and relevance to Andrew's training sessions. Andrew works with all levels within organisations, from the most senior executive through to front-line staff. Industries he typically works with include: IT, Outsourcing, Public Sector, Financial Services, IT and Telecommunications. Recent assignments include delivering: Core sales training courses as part of a national ‘sales culture change' program for insurance brokers. Facilitating management skills program for 1500 middle managers for a large NSW Government agency. Leadership, Conflict Resolution and Performance Management training for 350 middle and frontline managers in a large Australian not for profit organisation. Strategic planning workshop for a large technology company Customer Service Improvement Program for a global technology outsourcing company Consultative sales curriculum for 300 Asia Pacific sales executives within a Global Telecommunications company Consulting skills program for a large Australian bank Andrew's experience includes three years consulting in Learning and Change Management at the world's largest management consulting firm, Deloitte Consulting, plus managing learning and development for global IT, security and communication solutions provider, Verizon. In addition to his L&D and management experience in global organisations, Andrew also pulls on solid hands-on new business development skills developed while working in and helping to grow smaller consultancies. Andrew is based in Sydney, is HBDI certified and holds a Masters of Education, Adult Learning and Globalisation from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Audrey Schroeder

Job Titles:
  • Consultant
  • Trainer
  • Trainer / Shanghai, China
Audrey Schroeder is a consultant, trainer and facilitator who works with multinational companies throughout the Greater China region and around Asia. As an American who has been in Asia for twenty years, she is uniquely positioned to work with westerners and Chinese to develop their abilities as teams, as strategic and creative thinkers, and as leaders. Her expertise focuses on training individuals and assisting teams to perform optimally through, among other things, communication, goal setting and leadership at all levels. Her professional experience spans the banking, travel, and consulting industries; and her academic background includes a Master's degree in Organisational Leadership, a certification in Coaching and a Bachelor's degree in International Relations and Chinese. Companies she has worked for include HSBC in Hong Kong, Accenture in Seattle and I Will Not Complain in Shanghai. Originally from the US, Audrey lived and worked in Hong Kong throughout the 1990s; she now resides in Shanghai and is a keen cyclist, adventure racer, and classical pianist. Fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese, Audrey is equally able to work with Chinese and English speakers. Clients include International Finance Corporation (Member Of World Bank Group), Voith Group Of Companies, Nokia, Swire Beverages, Coca-Cola, Ermenegildo Zegna, IBM, Sara Lee, Henkel Philips Maersk, E-Bay China and Unicom. In her sessions, she enjoys using experiential as well as adventure-based learning. She also uses tools such as the HBDI Whole Brain Thinking instrument to increase team and individual effectiveness. Audrey is an HBDI™ certified practitioner.

Betsy Whedon

Job Titles:
  • Communication Coach / USA West Coast

Candie Hurley

Job Titles:
  • Trainer
  • Advisor and Communications Coach
Candie Hurley is a trusted advisor and communications coach to global business leaders and team members. Prior to becoming a trainer, she enjoyed a 25-year corporate career in diverse roles in engineering, sales, services, business development, marketing and sales enablement. She has led the development of Strategic Client Engagements, Executive Briefings, and Customer Reference initiatives at multiple companies. She also brings a background as a hands on programmer, Systems Engineer, and SE Manager to the training she runs with IT enterprises such as Cisco, IBM, HP, Microsoft, and Apple. Candie's passion is around helping technical professionals be more confident, comfortable and effective when engaging with customers and key stakeholders. In addition to her core strengths within the IT sector, she has also worked internationally with the energy, healthcare, financial services, insurance, construction, real estate, and retail sectors. Candie holds a B.S. degree in Mathematics from the University of Denver and a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of Colorado. She is a Denver, Colorado, native and currently resides in Greensboro North Carolina.

Carol Tong

Job Titles:
  • Master
  • Trainer
Primarily with sales teams in High Tech companies, Carol has 20 years of experience as a coach and facilitator for programs focused on Presentations, Executive Dialog and Technical Communication. Carol is an internationally experienced Master Trainer, having worked with clients such as Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Avaya, Oracle, IBM, Cisco Systems, salesforce.com and VMware in 15 nations worldwide. Carol's IT training skills are supplemented by her background in the technology industry, when she provided sales support, program specs and testing, database management, software testing and customer liaison for AIQ Systems, as well as contracting for Hewlett-Packard. During her time with AIQ Systems, Carol worked as a Seminar Lead where she led educational seminars for groups of 50-175 attendees with lectures and labs, in addition to providing tuition on a consultancy basis. She was commended for outstanding performance and earned an increase in remuneration within four months of being hired. Carol is HBDI certified and holds a BS in Psychology from the University of California at Davis. She has strong intercultural communication skills, being bilingual and experienced in training in both English and Spanish.

Caroline Connor

Job Titles:
  • Master Trainer / United Kingdom & EMEA
Caroline Connor has over fifteen years experience of managing teams at a senior level in a corporate environment and now works as a coach, trainer and facilitator. Caroline has held senior commercial positions within major UK magazine publishing houses. Her roles included that of International Sales Manager for the National Magazine Company, Advertisement Director of Cosmopolitan and latterly Commercial Director of Hachette Filipacchi (UK).

Jan Abbey

Job Titles:
  • Trainer / United Kingdom & EMEA
Jan has a background in leadership development and executive coaching in a wide range of business sectors. She is an experienced coach and developer of talent and has a strong belief in the enormous potential of each individual.

Jo Fife

Job Titles:
  • Coach
  • Trainer

John Ogier

Job Titles:
  • Trainer / Australia & Singapore
With more than 20 years in international sales and marketing positions in the Telco and IT industries, coupled with an instinct for sales and an ability to motivate others, is what makes John such an exceptional trainer and facilitator. His experience in senior sales and marketing management has taken him across the world from Europe through to Asia and Australia where he was a member of the original Optus bid team that won the licence to become Australia's second telecommunications carrier. With this milestone under his belt, John hit the ground running to focus his career on the mobile devices business, positioning names such as Nokia and Siemens as undisputed leaders in their field. With ten years experience in Asia, John was responsible for Nokia's brand strategy and sales and marketing functions across the Asia Pacific region. He led a team of local and expatriate staff across 14 countries through the myriad of operational and tactical issues associated with developing a world-class brand. Additional experience in general management in Southeast Asia placed him at the forefront of implementing strategies to outperform competitors across many Asian cultures. Returning to Australia, he joined Siemens as General Manager for their mobile division leading his team to develop partnerships with major telecom carriers and blue chip corporations. Sharing his invaluable pool of expertise and knowledge through delivery of workshops in persuasion, influence, strategic value selling and Asian business culture, John prides himself on being able to contribute to the success of his client's business and to the growth of their people. John is an HBDI™ certified practitioner.

Kentaro Hayashi

Job Titles:
  • Trainer / Tokyo
Kentaro has over 10 years experience working predominantly in the sales development and leadership area for the IT industry. He has been working with the Telecommunication Consulting field specially dealing with Web-based marketing and advertisement and has been actively involved in roles of outsourced sales team management. His areas of expertise are in sales Development, sales Management, leadership, intercultural communication, organization transformation, and coaching skills for business environments. Prior to that he worked internationally in the FMCG business. His wealth of knowledge and experience allows Kentaro to be able to give accurate feedback and provide insight to those he trains and mentors. He is also an executive coach working mainly with business managers who are involved in the international business. He is a board member of Peak Balance Japan LLC, and is also a committee member of the ICF (International Coach Federation) Tokyo Chapter. Kentaro is bi-lingual.

Nicolette Moore

Job Titles:
  • Coach
  • Trainer
Nicolette has 30 years' experience in the technology and telco industries spanning UK, New Zealand and Australia with start-ups, local and global organizations including IBM UK, Optus/Singtel, Arq and Nutanix. This experience ensures concepts and theories are translated into practical application using real-world ‘war stories'. She has a track record of building trust, rapport, and engagement with multiple stakeholders across Enterprise and Government sectors; creating and executing transformational business strategies that deliver unique value plus leading and driving mergers and acquisitions across multiple technologies and teams. Her initial experience with Total Inter Action (TIA) was as a client where she leveraged the concepts covered in TIA training to create consistently high-performing teams. Her passion for helping individuals achieve their potential drove her move from corporate to consulting, training, and coaching. Nicolette primarily works with sales-led organizations in highly competitive markets that recognize their people's ability to think, plan and communicate effectively is critical to their success. She is a champion of inclusion and diversity and was a judge for ARN Reseller News Women in ICT Awards where she was highly commended in the Achievement category. She is an accredited Executive Coach through IECL as well as a certified HBDI® practitioner.

Paul Izbicki

Job Titles:
  • Global CEO & Master Trainer
Paul helps individual business people (primarily within organisations in highly competitive environments) to better engage and influence others. Arguably one of the world's leading presentation skills coach/trainers, Paul has spent over 15 years working on client pitches and presentations, coaching a number of the world's great presenters, and helping corporate leaders maximise their impact in front of key stakeholders. Walking the talk - Paul draws on over 25 years of experience communicating, persuading and developing business at the highest levels to bring psychologically proven influence and communication skills to life. Before starting Total Inter Action in 1997, he was Presentation and New Business Development Trainer at Rogen International (best known for their work on the successful Sydney 2000 Olympic Bid) where he trained, amongst other clients, the AOC and SOCOG. Prior to Rogen, he was Executive Producer and New Business Development Director at Caribina Wavelength (one of Australasia's largest corporate communication companies) where he developed a passion for creativity through communication. Training - Paul uses the HBDI™ (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) and other self-awareness tools to go beyond standard skills development. As most participants attest, Paul's courses regularly change lives.

Rajiv Khanna

Job Titles:
  • Trainer
  • Master Trainer / India
Rajiv is a trainer with over 25 years working experience. He has achieved international recognition having conducted workshops for global participants in countries including Australia, Singapore, Dubai, South Africa, USA, Kuwait and Malaysia. His expertise lies in designing and delivering programs for all levels of management and staff covering topics in Communication Skills, Sales Management and Coaching. Before moving into Consulting at Bizvantage, Rajiv worked for more than 20 years in industry in various capacities. A brief recap of his industrial background discloses a wealth of experience he has garnered over the period: Honeywell International - A US Fortune 100 company as Head of Learning & Development in India. In this role, he was responsible for the design and delivery of soft skills programs in the Asia Pacific region. He was also part of the team that worked on launching a Talent Management system in the Asia Pacific region. Pharmacia - A US multinational Pharmaceutical Company. As Head of Training in India, he set up the training department, was closely involved in Corporate Strategic Planning that included interacting with different functions and was responsible for integrating Performance Management Systems with learning and sales force automation. Dabur Pharma - As a member of the Corporate HRD team, Rajiv set up the Training function, was responsible for designing and delivering modules on various soft skills for various divisions of Dabur and launching a new division at Dabur Pharma. Merind - A Tata pharmaceutical company. Rajiv started his career as a front line salesperson and moved up the Sales Management hierarchy before leaving in 1994 as Regional Manager. Rajiv has delivered to over 15,000 people through sales/training seminars at multinational companies from 1993. He has managed sales and marketing and has trained over 4,000 technical sales specialists.

Satish Kumar

Job Titles:
  • Certified Executive Coach from Results Coaching
  • Trainer / India
During this time Satish has also conducted experiential (Outbound Managerial Development) Programs focused on themes such as team building, getting and achieving challenging targets, creativity and innovation, interpersonal relationships and creating the passion to win. He has trained more than 5000 professionals from diverse industries including FMCG, Healthcare, IT, Writing Instruments. Satish is a certified Executive Coach from Results Coaching, DiSC profiler from Thomas International, a certified trainer from XLRI (Jamshedpur), and holds a Masters in Science and Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM) from Xavier's Institute Mumbai.

Takahiro Kurata

Job Titles:
  • Trainer / Tokyo
Taka mostly works with Global IT companies and technically-focused industries (such as Pharma and ICT) primarily working with executives, leaders, managers and front-line staff. In addition to learning development and coaching certifications, Taka is a certified Master Black Belt and a Facilitator/Master Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma.

Ursula Smit

Job Titles:
  • Associate Director
  • Client Services Director
Ursula is Associate Director / Client Services Director. During her 15 years at Total Inter Action she has become the primary interface between clients and TIA. With her vast experience, no issue is a surprise and she has both deep solution knowledge and dedication to avoid or resolve them rapidly. She is in charge of program implementation for TIA's national and global clients and manages the key stakeholder relationships with the business, HR, finance and logistics to ensure smooth and effective delivery of every TIA solution. Ursula's strength is in ‘getting the job done', keeping on track of budgets and ensuring accountability of team players in all projects. This can range from strategic advice on a budget to a CIO through to tracking down a new building access code when a trainer gets shut out of a building - whatever it takes to ensure the client's objectives are met. Clients rely heavily on her problem solving skills and she quickly becomes a valuable asset to them. She is enthusiastic, practical and has an analytical approach in helping clients achieve their strategic objectives through their engagement with Total Inter Action. The logistics of managing a global training organization are huge and Ursula's minute attention to detail is critical to make sure that no element, no matter how small, is overlooked.

Wing-Hoe Tan

Job Titles:
  • International Business Executive, Trainer and Consultant
  • Trainer / Hong Kong and China
Wing is an International business executive, trainer and consultant who draws on over 15 years spent managing people and developing business regionally. Prior to becoming a trainer and consultant, Wing was the Regional Business Development Executive for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts were he developed new, profitable businesses in the Asia Pacific region. Wing is committed to working with individuals and groups to help improve their effectiveness in their careers and the quality of their lives. He facilitates individual change that enables business and sales leaders to become self-correcting and self-generating in their performance. Wing is certified and accredited to conduct a number of Sales/Marketing, Communications, and Leadership/Team Development training programs including HBDI™ and is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese. Wing has also been a guest lecturer at HK Polytechnic University and HK Travel & Tourism Training Centre. Wing holds degrees in International Hospitality Management (University of Nevada Las Vegas, USA) and Hotel & Restaurant Administration (International College of Hotel & Administration, Switzerland).