We are running our popular event, Inspirational Indies again on Tuesday 20th April.

Last year, we had a panel of inspirational Indies sharing their journey and top tips on how they grew their business. We are putting together another set of amazing inspirational Indies to share their experiences again with you. Every Indie has a unique journey and a beautiful story to tell.

Join us on Tuesday 20th April at 12:00pm for an enlightening discussion with our panel.

Meet our amazing panel:

Peter Colby

Pete is the founder of Pragmatism (UK) Ltd who specialise in dispute resolution mainly through mediation. He helps organisations to not only resolve workplace disputes, but to prevent them in the first place. Other than workplace and employment, Pete also mediates civil and commercial disputes whether that be issues between neighbours, landlords and tenants or high value commercial contract claims.

Alongside being a professional member of the Civil Mediation Council, Pete is also a Fellow of CIPD and has held a number of executive level HR positions in organisations ranging from small businesses through to blue chip companies such as Rolls-Royce and British Steel.

During his 35 year career Pete also spent a number of years as a Factory Manager running two high-volume food manufacturing plants, being directly responsible for around 850 employees, and demanding customers such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s. He therefore understands first-hand the significant challenges faced by line managers in balancing customer demands, product quality, and the safety and health of employees.

Pete’s real passion lies with preventing what he sees as wasted time in grievances, helping organisations and employees to have proper conversations, working through issues together pragmatically – hence the name of his company.

Sue Bradnock

After graduating with a BSc from University of Edinburgh, Sue studied a post-graduate diploma in Personnel Management at the University of Strathclyde, also giving her CIPD qualifications and she is now FCIPD.

After graduation, she moved South to take up a graduate Personnel Office role with ICL. The first project was assisting with a massive redundancy exercise – very much thrown in the deep end! Sue gained a lot of exposure throughout the corporation and was involved in several projects at HQ. From here she joined Harris Systems Ltd, an American IT Company; after two years, she was promoted to European HR Director with responsibility for seven countries. When asked to relocate to Belgium, Sue declined and joined Toshiba as Head for HR where she stayed for nearly 7 years.

Having met her now-husband, Sue decided to set up her own company – SVB Solutions – and has never looked back! As a member of IT HR groups, Sue had numerous contacts in the industry and specialised in the IT sector until the first recession hit and that was decimated. Sue now has clients across different sectors e.g., hospitality, financial services, legal, manufacturing, construction.

Sue is a member of TEAM, UK’s largest network of independent recruiters, that collaborate to share ideas and business. It has proved successful being able to call upon specialist recruiters to assist with assignments.

Nicole James

Nicole is an HR Consultant and coach with over 16 years’ experience across a number of industries. Nicole started Bamboo People Solutions in 2019 with a focus on supporting SME’s to become more productive and profitable through improving employee commitment and dealing with people management frustrations. Nicole’s focus is on improving leadership style and the employee experience to maximise the value that HR can add to a business.

Nicole provides support to clients from both an operational and strategic perspective. She creates close partnerships with leaders to ensure that they benefit from the value that HR and a focus on people can add.

Providing a balance between risk management and the commercial realities of life, Nicole provides pragmatic support that is tailored to the business. She enjoys supporting leaders with complex problems and ensuring that solutions are delivered with respect and kindness.

Rebecca Woolmington

Rebecca launched HRCentral in 2006. Prior to starting this reputable generalist HR consultancy business, Rebecca spent many years rapidly progressing and developing in the HR world.

A highly qualified and accomplished HR Consultant with over 25 years’ experience, Rebecca has successfully managed and grown HRCentral. Her experienced and talented team of Associates fully support HRCentral’s SME clients – most of whom have been with her for many years – with all their HR related issues.

Before establishing HRCentral, Rebecca’s last employed position was as Senior HR Manager/Business Partner in a large Engineering contractor based in Reading, with 3500 employees this was a busy role encompassing operational and strategic initiatives in the industrial relations and learning development arena. Responsible for a large team of HR professionals her roles have always encompassed recruitment and generalist advice.

Rebecca invests considerable time and effort into ensuring that HRCentral’s clients receive the best service. Clients benefit from pragmatic and current HR advice, ensuring that their HR processes are both right for their business and legally compliant. Using large corporate style processes scaled for SME.

The focus on expert customer support has earnt HRCentral the reputation of trusted provider of HR generalist advice.

Emma Del Torto

Originally from London, Emma went to law school at Cardiff University in 1993 before qualifying as a solicitor in 1998, specialising in employment law. She also holds a Master’s degree in employment law.

With over 20 years’ experience in employment law and HR, Emma established EffectiveHRM in 2011 with a mission of becoming the UK’s most cost-effective, personable and valuable HR service. Ten years on and she still feels passionately about her vision of creating a nation full of positive, proactive and empowered employers.

The expert team at EffectiveHRM provide a full service HR department to their small to medium sized clients and provide bolt on change management projects to support their larger clients. Emma is particularly proud of the full service HR and H&S team at EffectiveHRM and the comprehensive and expert service and problem solving that they bring to their 200+ clients.

Straight talking, pragmatic and a great team player, Emma focusses on delivering expert legal advice, combined with the preventative good practice of HR management and commercial realism. She’s particularly talented at getting to grips with complex issues quickly and resolving problems with a collaborative and solution focussed approach.

June Hogan– Host of the event

June has enjoyed a variety of roles during her 20 year HR career including HR Business Partnering, Reward and Policy, and Learning and Development. Having managed organisational change programmes and been made redundant herself, in 2019 June decided to bring together her personal and professional experience, and her coaching skills, to offer outplacement support services.

June is now the owner and Director of Wildwood Coaching Limited, a business which provides a variety of outplacement support services to values led organisations wanting to do the right and help their leavers with advice, guidance and support in preparing for a future after redundancy.