THOMPSON HARRISON - Key Persons
Annie Feng's human resources career has spanned more than two decades of leadership in multinational companies with iconic brands such as Nike Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Unilever and Mars Inc., holding various senior roles at national, regional and global levels across Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Americas.
Her extensive professional experience, expertise, and insight centers around Strategy Development, Leadership and Organization Development, Capability Building, Succession Planning, Change Management and Culture Transformation. She is widely respected for her deep understanding of leadership and human resources in a complex world-influencing seamlessly across multiple cultures and geographies, contributing to more inclusive and engaged work cultures.
Annie's deepest professional ambition is to live out her personal values and purpose through her work. She is committed to using her considerable energy to help create a world where harmony, dignity, and equitable abundance are the rule, not the exception. In the human resources arena she has been dedicated to creating work environments that enable people to fully bring their gifts and passions to their work, while being in service to the global community and the world at large. To this end, Annie runs her own coaching and consultancy business, in addition to working for Economics of Mutuality Executive Education Program with the Said Business School of the University of Oxford as a tutor. As a dynamic, resourceful and creative coach, Annie provides a safe and rich opportunity for coachees to step into a much larger story and bolder actions than they would on their own, and supports their transformation that lasts a lifetime.
Annie holds a BA in English Literature from Jinan University in China and an MBA from McMaster University in Canada. She lives in Vancouver, Canada with her husband. When not at work, she enjoys reading, traveling, hiking, and cooking for her family.
Claus Jacobs specialises in creative strategising and strategic change, and is Professor of Strategy at the University of Bern.
Claus is director and founder of critical junctures, a Swiss-based consultancy that offers process consultation for strategy formation, organisational development and change. He holds a PhD from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and a Master's degree in Business and Economic Studies from Witten/Herdecke University, Germany. He has worked as a management consultant and executive educator with the Imagination Lab Foundation, Lausanne, the Universities of St Gallen and Bern as well as with Gemini Consulting. As a consultant and educator, his collaborations include Arvato, Bombardier, Celgene, CERN, LGT Venture Philanthropy, UNICEF Germany and University Children's Hospital Zurich among others. He is also a co-director of University of Bern's KPM Center for Public Management. Claus has been contributing to the Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme (OSLP) since 2005 as faculty and tutor. Together with his OSLP colleagues, he has explored the role of critical thinking for leadership development in the Oxford Answers series. He has also reflected on the pivotal role of metaphorical reasoning in strategy work in 'Crafting Strategy: Embodied Metaphors in Practice' (Cambridge).
Dr. Reima Shakeir, is an international scholar, author and executive focused on improving diversity/ access and belonging for all with a focus on minorities from marginalised communities. Reima thrives at the intersection of sociology, communication and leadership. Reima has coached execs in strategic impactful communication for over 15 years. Reima has developed an intersectional leadership framework to coach leaders to navigate organizations and multiple stakeholder expectations in a timely and impactful way.
Communication is about connection and leaders who are able to harness narrative are able to direct outcomes. Leaders find themselves flooded with data. Seeking historical truth is vital to good decision-making. Yet, as you grow into leadership positions, you'll spend most of your time communicating about the future state others need to create with you. Communicating data shapes our future truth-our future facts. Communicating it well is central to shaping a future. Pulling on narrative and diving deep into subjects as disparate as social psychology, linguistics, social anthropology, musical theory, and market strategy, Reima uses a systems' thinking bespoke intervention to catalyse all these elements for authentic leadership called the Decolonial Imaginarium.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Founder of Dynamics of Power
Robert Rowland Smith is a British author and philosopher. His books include Derrida and Autobiography (Cambridge University Press, 1995), Breakfast with Socrates: The philosophy of everyday life (Profile Books, 2009) and AutoBioPhilosophy: An intimate story of what it means to be human (4th Estate, 2018). He is a regular speaker at public- and private events, addressing a wide range of topics that includes philosophy, psychology, politics and art.
Robert was elected to a Fellowship by Examination (‘Prize Fellowship') at All Souls College, Oxford and was awarded a Doctorate in Philosophy in 1991. While a Fellow of All Souls, he also held lectureships at both Mansfield College, Oxford, and Hertford College, Oxford, as a member of the English Faculty. Robert sits on the board of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology and of the Institute of Art and Ideas.
He is a founding faculty member of The School of Life. Robert is the founder of Dynamics of Power - focusing on power dynamics in business, family, government, society and relationships.
Elly is Head of Operations at Thompson Harrison. She has extensive experience across a variety of different sectors, including in roles for both charitable and educational organisations. Her appetite for making a difference at work has led her from primary school teaching to a qualification in Law. And now, to Thompson Harrison.
Faried is an experienced and dynamic global leader with proven audit, risk management, finance, and business transformation capability grounded in 25+ years of first-hand experience in the corporate world. Faried's career included international experience in multi-national organisations such as SABMiller plc, Travelex, and Deloitte. He is a Non-Executive Director on the Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust board, several sub-committees, and an Independent Non-Executive Director at Grant Thornton UK.
He is known for his ability to lead global teams through diversity and inclusion, understanding the importance of empathy in collaborative work with people in matrix organisations. He was nominated 18th out of 100 LGBTQ+ leaders in the Financial Times in 2014.
His passion for coaching and mentoring others to reach their full potential led him to professional and executive coaching. Faried founded equarius8coaching, helping Rising Stars/ Future Leaders and professionals from the LGBTQ+ and BAME communities and allies recognise and harness their unique gifts, gaining clarity to focus on what matters most and achieving success and prosperity.
Faried is a qualified Chartered Accountant with several degrees and certifications.
Job Titles:
- Associate & Consultant Lead
Gavin is a clinically-trained psychologist who consults to individuals, teams and organisations, on leadership and behaviour change. His work focuses on helping leaders and their teams to make organisational changes through shifting behaviour. He helps clients design leadership models, make values-led changes and ensure their teams are able to manage the complexities they are faced with.
Gavin draws on a professional background in clinical and sports psychology to build performance, and understand and overcome barriers to change. He has a wealth of international experience in multinational organisations, consultancy, sport and in various clinical psychology roles for the NHS. He has a doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Masters of Science in Neuropsychology.
Grant lives in Lisbon and is passionate about leadership and people development which he pursues through Executive and Leadership coaching. He is a tutor on the Oxford University Said Business School Economics of Mutuality program which helps leaders put purpose into practice. Prior to this he was part of the process of growing SABMiller from its South African roots into a global business, more recently he was part of the Asahi European operations looking after Germany, Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
A native of South Africa, Grant has lived and worked in a number of geographies including Hong Kong, India, Mozambique and Zambia. In these geographies he has been exposed to business and social issues and was actively engaged in trying to solve social issues through business opportunities, such as the commercialisation of Cassava in Northern Mozambique, water harvesting in Rajasthan, supplier development in Africa and more recently, circular packaging in central Europe.
Mike Stopforth is an entrepreneur, writer and speaker, passionate about transformational leadership and organisational change with a focus on the digital context. He works with fellow business owners, executive teams and CEOs to get the best out of their people, and the technologies those people use to do their work, in the midst of rapid political, technological and socio-economic change. In this line of work Mike is often invited to offer business commentary for industry publications, on TV and on radio.
Mike took the entrepreneurial plunge to start a company called Cerebra in 2006. With a specialist focus on digital content and engagement, Cerebra won numerous multinational accounts and grew quickly to become Africa's leading social media agency. In his role as CEO of the business he worked with executive teams in Coca-Cola, Samsung, Toyota, Vodafone, AB InBev, Ford, Huawei, Barclays, and more to build digital capability and agility, and to equip their leaders for success in the social and digital era of business. Cerebra was acquired by global advertising giant WPP in 2013.
In 2007 he co-founded a web start-up called Afrigator.com that was acquired by Naspers just 18 months later. Around the same time, Mike began hosting a popular networking event called the 27dinners, which went on to catalyse business collaborations and relationships through hundreds of successful events.
Shruthi Vijayakumar is passionate about education, leadership development, and enabling businesses to be more purpose-driven and contribute to social and environmental outcomes. To this end, she runs her own coaching and facilitation business, in addition to working for the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University, running impact and leadership programmes for MBA students.
She began her career as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group, advising large corporate and government clients in Australia. She has since led operations for an education start up in India, managed a social enterprise accelerator in New Zealand and run various environmental campaigns.
Shruthi has been recognised as a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum, and was a semi-finalist for the Young New Zealander of the Year Award. She completed her Masters in Business Administration on full scholarship at Oxford University.
Tracey is the co-founder of Thompson Harrison, along with Sam Rockey, and is an Associate Fellow at Oxford University's Säid Business School (OSBS). At OSBS, she has designed and directed the flagship Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme (2012-2022) as well as bespoke senior development programmes. She is known for her innovative design approach, her focus on the dynamics and practice of successful groups and what it means to lead healthy, thriving organisations in a world increasingly dominated by process and machines.
Earlier in her career she variously ran her own consulting company, WMC Communications, worked as an associate for the private investment bank, Allen and Company, as new business director for the publishing company, Marshall Cavendish, a teacher of English literature at St Paul's Girls' School, and as a research associate at Bain and Company. Her book, 'The Social Brain: The Psychology of Successful Groups', written in partnership with Sam Rockey and evolutionary psychologist, Professor Robin Dunbar, was published by Penguin Random House in Spring 2023. Tracey has an MA from Oxford University.