Facilitator bios

Katherine WoodsKatherine Woods, BEng, CEng, MIEE

Email: katherine@meetingmagic.co.uk
LinkedIn: Katherine's LinkedIn profile

  • Katherine Woods has 16 years of experience of facilitating meetings in large organisations. Prior to founding Meeting Magic Ltd in 1999, Katherine developed her graphic facilitation skills whilst working for Mars Confectionery in change management, communications and training roles.
  • Katherine’s passion for facilitation comes from what groups can achieve together. Her ability to focus on the results and design creative solutions enables groups to reach outcomes beyond their expectations. She uses her graphical talent to visualise and represent the group’s discussion creating outputs that all participants feel engaged with.
  • Katherine is the author of Meeting Magic - a practical guide to business managers who want to make their meetings productive and The Meeting Magic Method – seven steps to successful meeting design. She is also a tutor at Henley Business School (formerly Henley Management College), a UK business school with a global reputation for its management / business training.
  • Meeting Magic works with all kinds of groups from all types of organisations. Clients include Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Mars, Vodafone, Government and other public sector organisations.  The Meeting Magic Network includes strategic partners in the USA and Australia, to provide a global service to an international blue chip client base. Katherine has experience of working with senior groups and multicultural groups from across Meeting Magic's client base.
  • Katherine has a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Loughborough University and is a Chartered Engineer with the institute of Electrical Engineers. Prior to her career as a facilitator she designed and project managed the installation of Combined Heat and Power plants.

Catherine HennessyCatherine Hennessy, Chartered MCIPD

Email: catherineh@meetingmagic.co.uk
LinkedIn: Catherine's LinkedIn profile

  • Catherine Hennessy is an experienced facilitator who has worked with a diverse set of clients for the last eleven years. Her facilitation is underpinned by her grounding in Human Resource, Learning and Development and Retail Management.
  • Before becoming an external resource for teams and organisations Catherine worked as an internal Learning and Development Consultant for The Body Shop International supporting Marketing, Manufacture, Distribution, Legal and Corporate Affairs.
  • Catherine first worked with Meeting Magic in 2001 and since then has continued to deepen her graphic facilitation and advanced facilitation ability through development and training with Meeting Magic Limited, David Sibbet of The Grove and Robert Putnam of Action Design.
  • Catherine adds particular value to situations where conflict exists thanks to her ability to work confidently within complex, pressurised environments.
  • Meeting Magic works with all kinds of groups from all types of organisations. Clients include Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Mars, Vodafone, Government and other public sector organisations.  The Meeting Magic Network includes strategic partners in the USA and Australia, to provide a global service to an international blue chip client base. Catherine has experience of working with senior groups and multicultural groups from across Meeting Magic's client base.
  • Catherine is an NLP Practitioner, holds a Humanities Degree with Honours and Post Graduate Qualifications from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development of which she is a Chartered Member.

Helen ChapmanHelen Chapman, MBA

Email: helen@meetingmagic.co.uk
LinkedIn: Helen's LinkedIn profile

  • Helen is a former senior business manager with an airline and active leisure background who has led broad organisational development initiatives and acted as developer, owner and facilitator of new Company cultures. 
  • Helen joined the Meeting Magic team in 2006.
  • With more than 15 years experience as a facilitator Helen brings expertise, knowledge, intuition and flexibility. She finds group facilitation uniquely fascinating and challenging, believing that the best facilitators are the ones who create from scratch and design processes to get the best possible results for the people they are working with.
  • Helen designs processes that bring the whole group along with the discussion, processes that can handle the buffeting of company politics or personality tensions, processes that get the job done and at the same time bring the best out in people. 
  • Meeting Magic works with all kinds of groups from all types of organisations. Clients include Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Mars, Vodafone, Government and other public sector organisations.  The Meeting Magic Network includes strategic partners in the USA and Australia, to provide a global service to an international blue chip client base. Helen has experience of working with senior groups and multicultural groups from across Meeting Magic's client base.
  • Helen holds an MBA from Oxford Brooks University and is both an NLP and a Myers Briggs (MBTi) Practitioner. She is also a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council.

Tom Russell Tom Russell, Chartered FCIPD, FInstLM

Email: tom@meetingmagic.co.uk
LinkedIn: Tom's LinkedIn profile

  • Tom Russell is an accomplished facilitator who has successfully integrated his facilitation skills with a multi-disciplined and strategic level career in Human Resource Management.
  • Tom joined Meeting Magic in 2010 having trained as a graphic facilitator with The Grove Consultants in San Francisco, and then went on to complement his study with Meeting Magic’s own Advanced Facilitation workshop. As well as facilitating groups Tom has undertaken graphic recording assignments in a variety of settings, such as conferences, meetings and learning events.
  • Before joining Meeting Magic Tom worked for a variety of high profile organisations including Safeway Stores plc, Volvo Car Corporation and latterly leading UK charity Cancer Research UK, where he was HR Director. Tom’s varied career in Human Resources has involved the facilitation of many events and meetings, including complex scenarios and highly sensitive issues. Tom is highly comfortable working with strategic concepts and combining this with a refreshingly visual approach.
  • Tom has experience of working with a range of stakeholders from a variety of functional and cultural backgrounds, including leading scientists. Tom holds a degree in Organisational Behaviour and is a Fellow of both the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) and the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM). Tom is also an active member of the International Forum for Visual Practitioners (IFVP).
  • Tom's clients span a broad range of sectors and include Microsoft, SCA, Novartis, ARUP, Elexon, UPC Broadband, TheCityUK, Pure Insight and Save the Children International.

Ben Robinson, BA Hons Ben Robinson, BA Hons

Email: ben@meetingmagic.co.uk
LinkedIn: Ben's LinkedIn profile

  • Ben has been supporting groups develop for over 10 years in both the public and private sector. He initially joined Meeting Magic as an associate facilitator in 2006 but became a full-time team member in the summer of 2010.
  • His real passion lies in creating an environment and designing conversations which allow groups of individuals to work together passionately, creatively and innovatively as effective teams.
  • Ben finds the uniqueness of every meeting an exciting challenge and has a real capacity for entering a new organisation and quickly being able to build rapport, empathise with the stakeholders, understand the context they’re working in, interpret the purpose of the event and develop an agenda to hit the mark.
  • As well as facilitating groups, Ben also loves the visual side of Meeting Magic’s work and records events, conferences and meetings.
  • In life before Meeting Magic, Ben graduated from University of Sunderland with a BA Hons in International Business and French, he then joined Orange and progressed through the local training team, the regional management development team to the Global Training Function.
  • In 2002 Ben joined Teesside University and spent 8 years as a facilitator, trainer and coach in learning and development, delivering many hundreds of events where people could develop as a team, learn new skills, iron out some functional differences and self-reflect etc.
  • During his career, Ben has had the opportunity to work with many organisations such as Mars, Danone, Microsoft, Age Concern, PD Ports, Environment Agency, Airbus, Vodafone.
  • Ben is also an accredited Myers Briggs Type Indicator practitioner and a 360° Emotional & Social Competency Inventory practitioner.

John Ashton B.Ed (hons) John Ashton B.Ed (hons)

Email: john@meetingmagic.co.uk
LinkedIn: John's LinkedIn profile

  • John has been helping people, teams and organisations develop and communicate for over 13 years in the retail and financial service sectors.
  • He joined Meeting Magic in June 2011 having run his own people development consultancy business for two years and working with clients including M&S and G4S.
  • John first experienced Meeting Magic during a development programme he was managing for an executive team. The way in which the visual approach to facilitation allowed the team to really engage with the subject made a great impression on him.
  • He attended Meeting Magic’s Advanced Facilitation Training in early 2010 and then introduced graphic facilitation and graphic recording into his own consultancy practice.
  • Following university (where he became a qualified teacher), John joined Boots The Chemists where he initially worked in-store before moving into the central learning and development team where he worked in a number of varied roles. After seven years with Boots, he then joined Nottingham Building Society as a Training and Development Consultant and progressed into the Learning and Development Manager role with responsibility for all people development across the organisation.
  • John’s background has provided him with a broad and deep understanding of how businesses work and a clear understanding of the key role clear communication between people plays in the effectiveness of organisations. He see’s Meeting Magic’s role as being a key facilitator in this process.
  • Since joining Meeting Magic, John has worked with a number of organisations including Deloitte, SAP, Anglian Water, Durham County Council and Grass Roots.