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Meet our Founders

The Transformational Leadership Group was founded in 2004 by David Holmes and John Baker.

Penny Wallace subsequently joined the Group as a Director.

The Group's mission is to transform individuals, groups and organisations in the literal sense - to change them in mind and heart - and bring about changes that are permanent, self-perpetuating and momentum building. When you meet David and John, you will quickly discover that they are passionate about leadership, in particular the kind of leadership style that can achieve real, sustainable improvement in organisational productivity, performance and bottom line profitability. Their decision to create the company was driven by their fundamental belief that, in today's ever-changing and fast-moving business environment an engaging style of leadership is the key to building and sustaining organisational success.

So, as successful business people in their own right, they decided to bring together their acknowledged skills and experience to offer their clients a unique blend of business acumen and insight into organisational alignment, team dynamics and human behaviour.

David Holmes

David Holmes is a senior business leader, executive coach and mentor with many years experience of advising and supporting executives in key positions. Working across a wide range of international organisations and industry sectors, he brings 30 years of his successful business career to bear on a pragmatic approach to business development.

Prior to devoting his time to consulting David had a very successful international career in the media sector, holding key board positions in a number of large corporations. Whist operating at CEO and Board level his main interests were in organisational and business development, marketing, brand management and innovation.

In most of these businesses change management and rapid growth were key to success, and David's focus was on developing and maximising their greatest asset — their people. He became more and more convinced that having a greater understanding of the people in your organisation, having the ability to motivate, communicate vision and strategy are essential to success.

As a consultant David believes in his own continuing professional development, he is accredited in Advanced Executive Coaching and a Member of the Association for Coaching. He is also certified in Career Counselling and is an NLP Business Practitioner.

He studied Foundations of Modern Psychology at Birkbeck London University and is accredited by the British Psychological Society in Occupational Testing with a focus on a wide range of Psychometric Instruments. David is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

“The wise advice of David Holmes — the first consultant we have ever hired that we admired” Dame Anita Roddick (d)

John Baker

John is an executive coach and mentor bringing to the leadership development field 30 plus years international business experience and the essential skills required for developing self-mastery. John works with senior executives to help them achieve significant shifts in thinking and create a clear vision for achieving personal and business achieve success. His extensive business experience makes him well-placed to act as a confidential sounding board with whom senior executives can talk openly about their key business issues and ideas.

John also works with management boards and senior leadership teams to help them understand each other better, and work together more effectively.

Prior to founding the Transformational Leadership Group, John had a highly successful career in the telecommunications sector, and held a number of senior executive appointments, latterly as Chief Operating Officer for the UK & Ireland business of the French telecoms company, Alcatel.

During his corporate career, John led a number of successful business transformation programmes to drive performance and profitability, achieve sustainable, positive change, and develop performance-led cultures. He developed a reputation as an engaging leader with a passionate focus on people as the key differentiator in driving results and achieving success.

John continues to invest in his own personal learning and development. He is an accredited practitioner for a number of psychometric and assessment tools and is certified in Person Centred Counselling by the University of Warwick.

John is also a Founder Director of Performance Coaching Tools, an internet provider of resources for HR professionals, executive coaches, career counsellors, and organisational development professionals.

John qualified professionally as an engineer, and holds a degree in Telecommunication Engineering from the University of Essex. John is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering & Technology.

Penny Wallace

Penny Wallace is an accomplished people development specialist with more than 20 years experience leading expert teams in large, complex organisations and in challenging sectors.

In recent years, she has worked successfully as an independent consultant and is a sought after executive coach, mentor and programme tutor with clients in engineering, utilities, consultancy, retail and leisure. She specialises in coaching and developing leaders, particularly supporting clients in their transition from specialist to true business leader, and in accelerating client capability and confidence to successfully perform at executive level.

Her clients include MDs, board directors and executives based in the UK, across Europe and the US, in vastly diverse roles from Heads of Innovation and HR Directors to Occupational Psychologists and Directors of Renewable Energy, all of whom value and trust her insight, challenging style and good humour.

Prior to working independently, Penny held pivotal roles in business including Director of Talent for The Spirit Group, at the time the UK's largest pub, bar and restaurant company with more than 2,500 locations and more than 50,000 employees. She was also Director of HRD for Scottish & Newcastle Retail and headed up the Group Learning & Development department for Sainsbury's - one of the UK's leading food retailers with over 450 stores and 145,000 employees. Her experience in leading teams, in people development techniques and in business leadership all provide a great foundation for supporting clients today.

Penny can be contacted:

By telephone on +44 07710 634575

By email at penny@transformationalleadership.com