The Talent Pool team

Meet our directors…

Lisa Smale, Director

Lisa Smale is a management development specialist with experience of delivering high-quality personal development interventions.

She has over 20 years experience working with individuals and teams at all levels of management. She has held many corporate roles including that of Training and Development Director for a large retailer. She worked as a trainer and a coach at all levels from the sales floor through to the board.

Lisa has a BA Hons in Hospitality Management and is a member of Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. She is a certified Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and a licensed user of a range of psychometric profiling products including Myers Briggs (MBTI), the Emotional intelligence Competency Inventory, The Good Boss Questionnaire and FIRO-B.

Lisa lives the South West and enjoys spending time with her family, playing tennis with friends and baking to satisfy her sweet tooth.

Sally Rixon, Director

Sally Rixon is an organisational and management development specialist who has experience of formulating and managing training and development initiatives at all levels of the organisational structure.

She has spent 21 years in large FMCGs holding many corporate roles including that of Head of Organisational Development for a multi-million £ business. She has been responsible for delivering the people strategy, developing leadership capability, implementing performance management systems and complex change management programmes.

Sally has a post graduate diploma in Human Resource Management and is a member of Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. She is also a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner and is qualified to use a number of psychometric tests including The Good Boss Questionnaire, the Firo-B and Myers Briggs Type Indicator, step I and step II.

Sally lives in the south-west with her husband Neil and enjoys holidaying in unusual destinations, DIY, playing badminton and singing.

Jennie Davis, Coach

Jennie Davis is an organisational development specialist with experience in driving culture change and engagement, developing leadership capability, managing talent and delivering creative development solutions that improve individual and business performance.

She began her career in training and development in financial services before moving to the multi-million pound national FMCG arena, holding a range of development specialist roles and culminating as the Head of People Development. For the last 5 years Jennie, has held the role of Head of Organisational Development for a high profile public organisation with services touching 1 in 3 of the UK population. She has worked across all these organisations through transfers, acquisitions and business restructures and enables the organisation to deliver outcomes through effective approaches to people strategy, engagement, management and development.

Jennie has coached at a leadership level at Somerfield Stores Ltd, Ofsted, local schools, and charitable organisations and is now supporting Bristol University to effectively land a multi-million-pound project where she is leading engagement, change, communication and training across all faculties and support functions. She has facilitated a range of senior leadership and management programmes, developing in house leadership models, formulating competency frameworks, shaping 360 diagnostic tools and designing and running assessment and development centres to benchmark and feedback on performance.

Jennie is an ILM accredited coach, she has a post graduate diploma in Human Resource Management, a PTLLS qualification and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. She is also a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner and is qualified to use a number of psychometric tests including The Good Boss Questionnaire, Firo-B and Myers Briggs Type Indicator, step I and step II.

Jennie lives in Bristol with her partner Paul and their daughters who keep her busy and entertained. She is a prolific reader, couldn’t live without music and likes to spend her time at concerts, or relaxing on hot sunny beaches with headphones on with a good book in her hand.

Paul Gausden, Coach

Paul Gausden is a higly experienced management and leadership development specialist, delivering high impact personal, group and company development solutions.

He has over 20 years experience of providing a broad management development solution to many organisations, both as an employee and as an external consultant. He previously held a number of senior Training roles including Head of Retail Training at Argos and Head of Training at Going Places.

Paul has a Diploma in Training Management and is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. He is a certified Master Practitioner of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) and a licensed user of a range of psychometric products including Myers Briggs (MBTI), the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ), The Good Boss Questionnaire, FIRO-B and Saville & Holdsworth’s Assessment and Development Centre portfolio of products.

Paul lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife Tracey and 2 late teenage boys. He enjoys many sports (mostly as a spectator nowadays!) and is an active ‘puppy socialiser’ for the Hearing Dogs for Deaf People charity.

Julia Macmillan, Coach

Julia Macmillan is a management development specialist with extensive experience in delivering high energy creative training sessions and one to one and team coaching at all levels.

She has over 20 years’ experience in HR, Training and Development. Previous employment includes being an Area Personnel Manager for an internationally renowned security company; working as Head of Training in an acute NHS Trust for 10 years and 12 years running her own consultancy.

She has been responsible for a variety of culture change initiatives through helping organisation’s to identify and embed corporate values.

She has a range of qualifications which include a Bachelor of Education (Education) MSc. (Human Resource Development); is a practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and has an Advanced Diploma in Coaching. She is also a graduate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Julia lives on the south coast with her family, enjoys living a very active life including fund raising for a number of good causes and is a volunteer mentor for small businesses. When time permits she likes to relax at the beach hut.

Craig Buckler, Technology

Craig Buckler lives in the South West of England with his family. He has more than 20 years IT experience working for organisations as diverse as the UK Parliament, the European Parliament, Microsoft, Yahoo, Vodafone, ITN, The Times, FT.com and Plymouth University to develop and deliver award-winning, engaging projects which push the boundaries of web technology.

When not tinkering with technology, he likes cycling, body boarding, paintball, karting and following Formula 1. In addition to responsibilities at The Talent Pool, Craig is a Director of OptimalWorks Ltd and lead technical writer at SitePoint.com.