MAKING BUSINESS MATTER - Key Persons
Alison is pragmatic and results-driven, specialising in design, delivery and facilitation of personal, team and leadership development, behavioural training and change management via facilitation and coaching. She has project managed SME led programmes, capability frameworks/assessments and designed her own programmes. Alison has worked across fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), financial services, oil, gas and energy, public sector, retail and third sector.
Alison is passionate about development and is a Master Practitioner and Coach in NLP, a mBIT Coach and a MBTI Practitioner. She is currently focussing on developing herself around Susan Jeffer's material from ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway'. Alison is an energetic individual, with excellent people and relationship building skills who welcomes the opportunity to make a difference. Outside of work Alison can be found in the Girl Guiding community, running both Rainbow and Ranger units.
She is also a trustee of a charity and uses this to support others with the same condition as herself. Alison often claims to work to pay a Disney addiction and for visits to Walt Disney World. Her favourite films range from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original) to Inside Out. She also loves to grab an opportunity to attend Disney Institute workshops when she can.
Job Titles:
- World Class Tutor With over 30 Years Experience of the UK Grocery Industry
Andrew has extensive Commercial Buying and Marketing experience gained at a senior level with a number of the UK's largest and most respected retailers. A graduate trainee at Sainsbury's, 13 years at Tesco UK and Internationally -responsible for numerous product categories including Fresh Foods, Impulse and Non-Foods.
Experience of Entertainment categories at WH Smith and Beers, Wines, Spirits and Tobacco experience with both Thresher Group and Somerfield Stores. He combines this comprehensive category knowledge with highly developed negotiation skills and an in-depth experience of category management and business development planning gained trading with major blue chip FMCG suppliers. Andrew has a BA(Hons) Degree in Human Geography from University of Reading. His favourite film is Die Hard.
Job Titles:
- World Class Tutor With over 23 Years Experience of the UK Grocery Industry
Andy started at the coal face with eight years in food retailing. During this time he spent many years in management understanding the fundamentals of grocery retailing. Prior to joining MBM he then spent five years in the supply base in positions of category analysis, category management and account management.
He works as part of the team enabling suppliers to UK supermarkets to secure more profitable wins through people development. He specialises in Category Management Trainin g and has created the Category Management Scorecard which is used by many suppliers across the globe. He is also a qualified HBDI ® practitioner, which means that he understands how people prefer to think, communicate, make decisions and learn. He understands the psychology of learning retention, which, coupled with MBM's unique training method Sticky Learning ®, is used to ensure all that work with him achieve great things, and that those things stay with them for the long term.
He has published many articles including, ‘What is Category Management' and ‘How to Bake a Better Pie‘ and the ‘Benefits of Team Building and The Art of War‘. He used to have passion for rock climbing and mountain biking and will tell you he still does. The reality is time is taken up with family and kids, which is equally as fun and about as painful. His films of choice are anything with a light sabre in it or The Shawshank Redemption.
Job Titles:
- CEO of Making Business Matter Limited
- Founder and World Class Tutor With over 25 Years Experience of the UK Grocery Industry
- Member of the Council
- Our Founder
Darren A. Smith was vetted and selected by a review committee based on the depth and diversity of his experience. Criteria for acceptance include a track record of successfully impacting business growth metrics, as well as personal and professional achievements and honours.
"We are honoured to welcome Darren A. Smith into the community," said Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, the collective that includes Forbes Business Council. "Our mission with Forbes Councils is to bring together proven leaders from every industry, creating a curated, social capital-driven network that helps every member grow professionally and make an even greater impact on the business world."
As an accepted member of the Council, Darren has access to a variety of exclusive opportunities designed to help him reach peak professional influence. He will connect and collaborate with other respected local leaders in a private forum and at members-only events. Darren will also be invited to work with a professional editorial team to share his expert insights in original business articles on Forbes.com, and to contribute to published Q&A panels alongside other experts.
Darren has worked in the world of supermarkets and suppliers for over 24 years. His story is one of a game of two halves. For the first 12 years, he worked as a Buyer & Category Manager in one of the big four UK supermarkets buying mainly fresh foods, from cheese to fruit to ready meals.
Seeing the opportunity to enable supermarkets and suppliers to work better together, he founded MBM and has spent the last 14 years working with suppliers on People Development to enable them to get the best from their people with their retail accounts through Sticky Learning ®. His main specialities are Category Management Training, Negotiation Skills and Time Management. The latter particularly because he was once an ‘email inbox junkie'!
He has had articles published by The Grocer, FPJ, Supply Management, Forbes & many more, and written the GSCOP book, plus a testimonial for his work on the Free Guides from Charles Jennings (Founder of 70:20:10). His favourite film will send him into a tailspin as he has so many, yet with his arm up his back, he chose ‘Gladiator'.
When he's not working you'll find him living in Thame with his wife, Gayle, and children, Gabby and Jack, creating memorable experiences because he believes ‘life is for the taking'.
Our founder, Darren A. Smith created MBM after spending 12 years at a big four UK supermarket as a Category Manager, he saw the need to help suppliers work better with retailers.
Farah is a medical student with a love for writing. Her blog writing experience covers a wide range of topics, including business, productivity, sustainability, and science, lending her a diverse perspective. Her experience in SEO ensures that her content is not only engaging but also reaches a wide audience. Connect with Farah on LinkedIn.
Nathan has over 20 years of leadership experience from multiple sectors across multiple continents. Starting in hospitality, moving through retail, into manufacturing and into call centres environments. From construction to insurance, banking to magazines, including Santander, Time & Fortune and Harvard Business Review. This eclectic mix of experiences working inside the FTSE 250 provides a superb melting pot of practical, hands on stories that help people instantly relate, comprehend concepts and grow inside the inclusive spaces Nathan creates and fosters when he trains and coaches.
Having delivered leadership development content for over 8 years in a mixture of roles and whilst working 1-2-1 with an array of leaders, executives and entrepreneurs Nathan has carved out his niche for helping people transform what they do, from where they are and actualise what their teams and businesses are truly capable of. "Your impact has been nothing short of sensational…what you have done so well is to ignite that spark of self-development in our leadership team" His expertise is truly capitalised when focused on Leadership Mindset, enhancing coaching skills and helping others maximise their own potential in the pursuit of maximising others.
Nathan brings healthy challenge to his spaces, a new lens to look at the world through and the ability to transform thinking at every level of leadership. It's these penny dropping moments combined with the future successes where Nathan seeks his greatest pleasure,A qualified coach - with the ILM, holding a Lvl 5 Diploma, further combined with various certificates in coaching, NLP and PermaCulture. Nathan is also, accredited coach for ICQ - GlobalDISC
Nathan holds his Mental health first Aid Certificate, and celebrates this with multiple opportunities to volunteer and coach others where possible including the Hospice sector, ex-veterans and coaching young adults Nathan is futurist, an out of the box thinker, martial artist and has a hobbyist enthusiasm for epigenetics and the science of purpose. Spending much of his spare time devouring seemingly unrelated ideas and constructing new concepts and possibilities for the leadership of tomorrow to ponder upon and be excited about.
Job Titles:
- Coach With the Academy of Executive Coaches
- Executive Fellow at the University of Aberdeen
- International Trainer
- Senior Trainer
Peter is an experienced international trainer, facilitator, and coach, for over 25 years he has worked for complex global organisations. Peter has worked across many channels, gaining experience working in the UK, Europe, North America, and the Middle East.
He regularly works with organisations to support them in their growth plans. This work has covered several areas including Sales Strategy & Planning, Leadership, Management, Bids/Tenders, Coaching and Mentoring.
As an accredited coach with the Academy of Executive Coaches, Peter offers Executive Coaching and 1-2-1 coaching, within his coaching practice he works with a leading UK organisation supporting people with neuro-diversities.
Peter is an Executive Fellow at the University of Aberdeen, Business School. In this role, he works with under-graduate, post-graduate, and MBA students, where he delivers Sales, Entrepreneurship & Management courses, at both the University's Aberdeen and Qatar campuses
Peter lives with his wife, Paula in Carnoustie and they have 2 grandchildren. Peter loves golfing, and has been a member at the Caledonia Golf Club since the age of 14.
Job Titles:
- World Class Tutor With over 28 Years Experience of the UK Grocery Industry
Sally remains a retailer at heart, having worked for 14 years with one of the big four UK supermarkets, both as a Line Manager and within the Training function, she has practised what she preaches regarding People Development! Sally is passionate about bringing learning to life and enables participants to really experience a new skill and work on it live in the room so that they can see it, hear it, think it and feel it. Her particular expertise lies in the areas of Personal Coaching; Influencing Skills Training and Leadership Training.