AS ASSOCIATES - Key Persons
Alan was Chief Executive of Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils, until June 2015, leading on the creation of a joint officer team and shared services
He was a Board member of Bucks Advantage which delivers economic development projects across Buckinghamshire. Prior to that, he was Chief Executive of Chiltern District Council and Chair of the District Councils' Chief Executives Network (2009-11) which he was involved in establishing.
Previously, Alan was Director of Planning at Leeds Development Corporation, handling a range of infrastructure and regeneration projects and the creation of new communities, and Employment Development Officer with Kirklees Metropolitan Council. Since (semi) retirement this year Alan has acted as an independent consultant on leadership, management, regeneration and planning issues. He is a Board member and trustee of Chartford Housing, a Bradford based Registered Social Landlord and charity and a National Citizen Service 'Dragon'.
As well as assessing for many senior corporate roles, Allan is also our Health and Safety and Environmental Services expert.
Allan has had a full and varied career in Local Government, the Civil Service and Private Sector. A range of senior manager positions culminating as a Corporate Director in local government, a senior Civil Servant and Head of Service reporting in at Board level in the private sector.
Barry has worked throughout his career - now spanning over 40 years - in the public sector. He spent 25 years in finance, latterly as a Director of Finance for a district council in England. He was then a district council Chief Executive for over 8 years.
Following his retirement from a full-time role, Barry has had extensive experience in interim management in a variety of senior roles within major urban unitary councils, including a strong focus on Housing services. Barry has also been a consultant with AS Associates for 14 years, and has wide experience of designing materials and leading assessment centres.
Bill is our Education Specialist, and following a career in education, became a Lead Adviser for Essex in Professional Development specialising in recruitment and skills development for leadership.
He has studied and practises process consultancy, and has recently become skilled in impact assessment and evaluation of complex soft systems. He is currently a director of a community interest company that specialises in promoting health and wellbeing through education, arts and health initiatives.
Bozena is a very experienced and seasoned consultant working in, with and across Health, Private and Third Sectors, as well as Social Care organisations.
As a former Director of Children and Adult services, she is a she is a highly respected individual with a very strong track record of delivering challenging and complex transformational and integration programmes. She has significant experience at both strategic and operational levels in working in these complex organisations and in close partnership with primary and secondary health sectors, commissioning services on behalf of Councils within restricted finances as well as ensuring the safeguarding agenda is adhered to.
She is bi-lingual (English/Polish) and has worked for UNICEF, UN and hedge funds working as a child care expert, advising governments in strategic and operational levels in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Romania as well as across the whole of UK.
Job Titles:
- Coach
- Executive
- Strategic Director for Wales Millennium Centre
David is currently the Strategic Director for Wales Millennium Centre, in Cardiff. His current role is part of the strategic leadership team of this award winning organisation where he is responsible for the overall business and artistic direction. After 25 years in a variety of private and not for profit organisations, David specialises in leadership and talent development as well as leveraging gain from the use of technology.
In addition, David is a qualified Executive Coach and Mentor and sits on the boards of several UK and international company boards.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive of Suffolk County Council
Deborah is currently the Chief Executive of Suffolk County Council, having also been Chief Executive at St Edmundsbury Borough Council and interim Chief Executive of Waveney District Council.
She was also Chief Executive of the East of England Development Agency between July 2008 and December 2011.
Deborah also has experience of central government; in 1998 she took up a two year secondment with the Department of Environment Transport and the Regions as Local Government Advisor to the Ministerial Team, with specific responsibility for the East of England. She was appointed the Audit Commission's Best Value Service Lead Inspector for the London region in 2000 and led on several national corporate governance inspections. Deborah was awarded an OBE in 2006 for her services to Local Government.
Denise is our Equality Expert, as well as our expert on Northern Ireland legislation. Denise was Head of Policy Services at Belfast City Council from 1993 to 2000. She established her own consultancy in 2001 specialising in supporting public authorities to implement the statutory equality duties.
Geoff started his career in Local Government started in Housing which was followed by Education in the West Midlands and then Regeneration in the North East. He worked very closely with Public Health in Liverpool and then became Chief Executive Officer for South Norfolk Council in 1999.
He moved to St Edmundsbury Borough Council in 2008 and left after he had overseen the amalgamation of the staffing structures with the neighbouring Council. Since this he taught for a year in a comprehensive school, acted as an Interim Chief Executive for Breclkand and South Holland District Councils and has also worked with the with the newly formed Councils in Northern Ireland
He is a Non - Executive Director on the Board of the Norfolk Community Health and Care Trust and is Vice-Chair of the Finance and Performance Committee; he also chairs the Charities Committee.
Huw is our IT specialist; a Graduate IT professional with 30 years Local Government experience covering IT strategy, project management, and IT service delivery and support with his last 7 years in employment prior to retirement were as Head of ICT for a large Unitary Authority in S. Wales.
Support was provided for an extensive range of services including Planning, Housing, Environment, Leisure, Highways, Engineering, Finance, HR, Legal etc. Experience also in managing significant contracts and outsourced services and has an extensive knowledge of Local Government. Huw has worked with AS Associates for 16 years and is a crucial part of our Assessment Team
Jennifer Cross is one of our most experienced Lead Assessors with a strong interest in performance management and efficiency. In her previous role, she was a highly motivated enthusiastic corporate director who wants to be known as 'being as far from a bean counter as you can get', despite being a qualified Accountant.
She has worked for five Authorities in Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Cornwall and Cheshire taking early retirement from her role as Director of Corporate Services. Jennifer's skills encompass Strategic Resource Management; Finance, Audit, Facilities management, Information and Communication Technology, Revenues and Benefits, E-government, Customer Service and Corporate Strategy and Service Planning.
John is a retired Chartered Town and Country Planner with thirty-eight years professional experience gained in Local Government. He was Neath Borough Council's Head of Development Control for a decade before joining the City & County of Swansea where, latterly, he led the Development Management, Urban Design & Conservation Division.
John has worked at Chief Executive and Executive Director levels in all types of local authority with 7 years in the NHS over his 40 year career to date. From a career originally in environmental services, John has lead most local authority functions and shared services organisations.
Since 2001 John has worked in his own business delivering services to local authorities and other public sector organisations as an interim manager and as an Associate of AS Associates supporting the recruitment of senior officers across sectors. In the last six years John has specialised in developing innovative commercial services both as the UK Commercial Director of a large private B2B and company and several local authorities.
John was formerly a Director of a multi-disciplinary front line service department in a large unitary authority before being appointed as Deputy Chief Executive and ultimately Chief Executive of the same council.
After his early retirement he served as an non-executive director on the Board of the UK's Food Standards Agency for six years and then spent a further seven years as the Vice Chair of an NHS Trust. He has also worked extensively in providing consultancy support to a number of public sector organisations.
Kim has over 20 years of working in the public sector in a range of Director level appointments responsible for organisation and development, strategic planning, human resources, leadership training and project/change management.
She is currently Chief Executive of a charity in London. Latterly she was responsible for providing Human Resource services for an organisation of over 1800 staff with offices around the world. She has an MA from Cranfield University, holds Membership of the City and Guilds Institute in Intelligence Management and is a PRINCE 2 practitioner.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director
- HR Specialist, Chartered Member of the CIPD
Lynne has been the Managing Director of AS Associates since 2008 and prior to that was a freelance HR consultant from 2003, a role which fitted in perfectly with her family responsibilities.
Lynne is an HR Specialist, Chartered Member of the CIPD and a licenced psychometrics assessor. She has extensive management experience in both the private and public sector in a wide range of HR activities having held a variety of senior posts prior to becoming a consultant. Whilst Lynne obviously has a busy role in running the company, she maintains her keen interest in the design and management of assessment centres and is frequently found assessing.
Martin has served in several Local Authorities since 1976, latterly as Head of Public Protection Services and previously as Head of Environmental Health and Principal Building Control Officer for the City and County of Swansea Council since his appointment in 1984.
He retired from this post in November 2013 at that time being responsible for several front line services including; Community Safety; Environmental Health, Trading Standards; Building Control; Bereavement and Registration Services, Pollution Control, Health Promotion and Licencing.
He is a Chartered Surveyor and is also a member of the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal.
Reena has recently taken early retirement from her role as a Corporate Director of Environment in a local authority in Wales, having also worked in a number of Authorities in England, including London.
She is a graduate Environmental Health professional, and Member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. She is currently an Environmental and Management consultant and is working with the University of Wales Trinity St David and the Local Health Trust in this capacity, as well as being one of the AS Associates. She is also on the Management Board for Wales of the CIEH and a Board Member of a local Environmental Centre.
Richard has had several Director level roles in the arts, heritage and not-for-profit sectors. This includes the national museum Wales, the Wales Millennium Centre and the Thomson Foundation.
As an award winning charity development professional, Richard has delivered a range of high profile fundraising campaigns in the UK and Europe, helping drive revenues and broaden the income of dozens of important causes.
Roger is our legal expert, having had a long and varied career as a local government lawyer, both in County Councils and at District level. In his final years in local government he was a chief officer, the Council's Monitoring Officer and a Management Team member.
In addition to responsibility for legal and governance matters, he had managerial responsibility for the Planning; Estates; Committee Administration; and Common Services functions. Following his local government career he has practised in a variety of consultancy work
Job Titles:
- Local Authority Chief Executive
Stella has been a Local Authority Chief Executive for four authorities, a Senior Civil Servant in National Government and also has experience of the private sector. She has a strong track record of reorganisation and restructuring to improve efficiency, effectiveness and value for money, including in a newly created local authority.
Stella has experience of change management building new cultures in local authorities, including producing training and development strategies and linking customer care and equalities issues. Co-author of Open University published paper on Leadership with Political Astuteness.
Steve is one of our housing experts. He is a chartered member of the CIEH and a member of the CIH. He has over 30 years experience in private sector housing and he has been a Principal Officer in Local Government with responsibilities for housing enforcement and regulation, including housing renewal and housing grants. He was the chair of the All Wales Housing Technical Panel for eight years and has been an advisor to the Welsh Government. He was also responsible for Public Health enforcement.
Su has been part of the AS Team for about 9 years. She is a Fellow of both the Faculty of Public Health and of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, reflecting her 15 years in local government before her move to the NHS.
As an Environmental Health Officer, Su worked across a range of specialised areas in two large local authorities until moving to a strategic policy role within the Welsh Local Government Association. Secondments to Welsh Government and the NHS followed and Su gained recognition as a Consultant level specialist in public health. Su retains a keen professional interest in local government matters and is experienced in public service management.
Susan is an original Director of the Company, having founded it in 1996 with Andrew Boatwain. Her career was spent in both Local Government and the health services.
She specialises in the design of assessment materials and management of assessment centres.
Susannah worked at a strategic level as a manager and corporate policy-maker and had a successful public sector career in Housing, Education, Corporate Strategy, HR and OD, prior to becoming an independent management and organisation development (OD) consultant and associate with AS Associates.
As an associate, Susannah is an assessor for Assessment and Development Centres and delivers our assessment centre training to help candidates prepare for Assessment Centres.
Susannah is an experienced team facilitator, executive and performance coach and a mediator. She designs and delivers training courses for elected members, managers and staff in a wide range of topics including leadership, managing change, performance management, negotiating, selection and recruitment, customer service, and presentation skills. She is also licensed to use a variety of feedback and development tools.
Trudi is an OD specialist, with more than 20 years' experience planning, delivering, and managing the delivery of a wide range of professional and personal training, education and development services in the public sector. This has included the management of contracted services as well as considerable experience as a line manager of educational and support staff.
Throughout her career; she has developed extensive expertise in assessing individuals against objective criteria and in writing evidence-based reports