Our Team

Sarah Elliott has been working in the Training Industry for over 20 years. She brings an infectious enthusiasm for both account-managing clients and hands-on delivery of specific Microsoft Office Training courses. Sarah’s background in IT helps enormously, as she is able to advise clients of the best route to take when designing courses to ensure maximum effect.

After graduating with a degree in Maths and IT, Sarah gained her extensive experience working as a Training Manager for The Civil Aviation Authority. Elliott Training was developed in 1996, and since then Sarah has worked with a wide variety of companies, developing and nurturing client relationships. Her forté is to listen, advise and then deliver an exceptional training experience.

“Training is an essential part of an individual’s career path, and with the right training a huge difference can be made to a working day. My passion is to develop inspirational, fun and energising courses that make an impact. I love working with delegates who are focused on the programme objectives, up for a challenge, have a sense of humour, and really want to learn and progress their own abilities.”

I have been an IT trainer for many years and have experience of delivering Microsoft Office training, including Power BI, to a wide range of organisations. I combine my empathetic approach, ability to build a rapport and high level of technical knowledge to deliver engaging, interactive and above all, productive training.

I have a strong flair for helping learners find answers for themselves, and have proved to be resilient, patient, fair and respectful in all dealings with them, often under highly challenging circumstances. I have achieved some excellent results which have made a significant contribution to learners’ self-esteem and future employment prospects.

Engaging, approachable, action and results-oriented soft skills trainer and performance coach. Consistently provides practical solutions to individuals and organisations for increased productivity and improved job satisfaction. By utilising outstanding inter-personal and communication skills can build rapid rapport.  Sally integrates business experience, coaching skills and psychological methodology to deliver the ultimate learner experience.

Key Skills

• Responsible for building and managing excellent client relationships
• Design, delivery and evaluation of a range of bespoke earning interventions and workshops
• Facilitation of strategic awaydays, teambuilding events and client project meetings
• One to one executive coaching, mentoring and mediation
• Design, delivery and evaluation of leadership and change programmes to staff at all managerial grades
• Team leader responsible for the day-to-day design, delivery and evaluation of corporate training, induction, diversity, bullying & harassment, recruitment & promotion interviewing skills, facilitation skills, train the trainer and a range of interpersonal skills training
• Design and delivery of ILM modules to staff at all managerial grades
• Delivery of coaching workshops to senior managers
• Design and Delivery of Customer Experience Programmes

Leanne has a breadth of experience in sectors including automotive, engineering, banking, and the pharmaceutical industry.  She specialises in training and coaching leaders, managers and developing executives from both public and private sectors, working at all levels including Board Directors.  Leanne holds a BA Hons in Business Studies, a post-graduate diploma in marketing, is a qualified business coach and trainer, a member of the CIPD, an experienced lecturer and HR/People Development Manager.

Sophie has over 13 years’ experience as a people development specialist gained with blue chip companies such as Volkswagen Group, Centrica Energy, Three and Virgin Media. Associate clients include an international entertainment organisation, a UK based retailer and an international FMCG business.

As a trainer and facilitator, she is experienced in designing and delivering a range of learning solutions to support behavioural change. As an Assessment and Development Consultant, Sophie regularly works on several competency certification programmes at Manager and Advisor levels for a major automotive client. Other assessment work includes a number of development and assessment centres for manager level roles.

Sophie specialises in supporting individuals and teams with a wide range of development interventions to achieve their goals and high performance. Having worked across a diverse number of sectors, Sophie has developed a wide-ranging appreciation of organisational and people challenges. This appreciation has supported her in working with organisations with management and leadership development, performance management and organisational change as well as team building utilising psychometric tools such as Talent Dynamics, DISC, SDI, MBTI Step 1. Her experience also covers coaching of senior and first line managers.

Key Skills

• Leading Change, Presentation Skills, Working Smarter not Harder, Connecting with Your Future
• Challenging Conversations to Manage Performance
• Designed and delivered “Emotional Intelligence for Managers” for One Housing Group for first line managers
• Providing coaching services for a client based on the Hay Group Emotional & Social Competency Inventory (ESCI-emotional intelligence) tool

Nina specialises in creating purposeful learning solutions for organisational and people change, for business growth and customer engagement. Nina draws on 20 years’ experience in a broad range of diverse business sectors such as Loss Adjusting, Construction, Manufacturing, Rail, Road, Water, Energy, Local Authorities, Hospitality and Retail.

An experienced leadership trainer, coach, mentor, facilitator, assessor and verifier.  Managing the quality process of funded and formal qualifications.

Nina develops and maintained strong working relationships with key stakeholders and decision makers in the full spectrum of business activity from FTSE 100 to SME’s; these relationships ensure that business strategies succeed and ensures employees feel “Valued, Supported and Engaged”.

As a licensed Insights Discovery® Practitioner, Nina uses a simple and accessible “four colour model” to understand an individual’s unique behavioural profile. Through such an understanding comes a deep insight into self and colleagues, focusing on preferences and behaviours.

This will enable organisations to:

• Adapt and connect with others to create strong and effective relationships
• Develop your interpersonal skills and so improve your communication
• Create better personal and professional relationships
• Increasing communication and customer performance

Area of expertise

• Insights Discovery® Practitioner.
• Experienced facilitator, trainer, coach and mentor in the full range of Leadership and Management skills.
• Customer Service, improving the experience and satisfaction of customers.
• Creating bespoke training programmes that incorporate organisational strategies, values and objectives.
• Quality management of formal and funded qualifications.
• Organisational Development.

Qualifications

BA(Hons) in Training and Educations
Certificate in Education(PGCE)
Insights Discovery Practitioner
Coaching level 5
Business and Finance HND/HNC
Customer Service NVQ level three
Brain Friendly Learning course
Basic Skills 9282
Assessor and Verifier awards

Louise is a highly motivated, business focused, HR & Development professional. She is a leadership coach and team facilitator. Louise has experience in designing and deploying talent & learning development programmes, organisational development, talent succession, strategic planning, acquisition integration, project management and external consultant liaison. Her key skills include networking to influence change, project management and highly organised, proven innovative and commercial abilities, communication and marketing. In the last 10 years Louise has been Head of Learning & Development at Endsleigh Insurance Ltd, Learning and Management Development Manager at Midas Group and Principal of Academy at Supporta PLC.

• Myers Briggs, NLP and Motivational Maps Practitioner
• Business Coach – Coaching Academy
• Leadership Effective Analysis – licensed practitioner
• Experienced Facilitator & Trainer in full range of management & leadership skills
• Group Training Techniques, Stonebow Training
• Advanced Food Hygiene, Microsoft suite, Internet
• Continue to act as mentor to a number of colleagues

A professional development and training consultant with well-developed communication, facilitation and presentation skills, having the benefit of a broad range of experience in designing and delivering development programmes at all levels across a wide range of industries. Able to work on own initiative or as part of a team, strong inter-personal skills and is friendly and approachable with a passion for supporting measurable business improvements in people and performance. Strong analytically and applies sound judgement to decision making. An effective team and individual coach and experienced in assessment / development centres.

PROFESSIONAL ACCREDITATIONS / QUALIFICATIONS

• TESOL Trinity College (University of Wolverhampton)
• NVQ Level 5 Training Strategy
• Psychometric testing
  • OPQ Level B
  • SHL Occupational Testing
  • SHL Test Administration
  • Criterion Level B
  • Emotional Intelligence (Previsor)
• Certificate in Personal Coaching
• MAP Assessor (Management Assessment of Proficiency) Licensed Accreditation
• NVQ Level 4 Training and Development
• NVQ Assessor Awards and D32 and D33
• NVQ Internal Verifier D34
• BTEC National Certificate
• Welcome Host Award for Customer Service Excellence
• Institute of Leadership and Management / City and Guilds Approved Centre
• Hi-Tec Training in Design, Delivery and Evaluation
• Nine Factors Accredited Consultant
• OPITO Approved Assessor for Gas and Oil
• Chartered Institute of Banking in Accounts and Law Related to Banking
• West Midlands International Trade Awards Finalist 2006

Key Responsibilities / Achievements:

• Managed and delivered ILM Award, Certificate and Diploma Programmes from Level 2 to Level 5 to a variety of clients, including Alcoa Fastening Systems, Severnside Housing, Fruit of the Loom, Infotec, KPO (Kazakhstan) and through distance learning in Taiwan
• Design, development and delivery of management skills development and staff development programmes, including Shropshire Council, Bullock Construction, Ricoh, Sandwell Borough Council and Cap Gemini
• Management and People Portal trainer for Shropshire Chamber of Commerce
• Executive coaching up to senior management level at Wolverhampton Council & Shropshire Council
• Graduate development recruitment, assessment and development programmes including Severn Trent Water, Santander, Balfour Beatty, Cofely, TSB Bank
• Implementing a Customer Excellence Programme for Innasol UK working with Rowland Company, Austria
• Outplacement programmes with Royal Mail regarding mail centres and delivery office units
• Motor industry assessment, project activity and training course delivery including VW, Audi, Citroen, Peugeot, Bentley, Nissan, SEAT and Skoda
• Supporting assessment centres for Santander, Mark Group, Vodafone and E-on
• Development of annual single day “away-day” development and team building events at Wrekin Housing Trust

Jilly is a fully qualified consultant and has worked within the training environment since the early seventies. Working with organisations in both the public and private sectors she has developed and delivered a wide range of courses in management skills and personal development. She believes very strongly in running highly participative and interactive courses.

Jilly has experience of training and coaching in a variety of industries and has worked in various countries including Cambodia, Finland, France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland and the USA.

Jilly has worked with a number of organisations in both the public and private sectors including the NHS. This has involved both delivery of training on an IT based system for GPs all over the country and also a wide range of soft skills course to various PCTs including Sunderland, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. She has recently also delivered a number of courses for the BMA.

She has been involved in the development and delivery of a variety of courses including a Customer Care programme for the Commission for Equality and Human Rights in order to develop their help desk and customer facing personnel. Also delivered a Customer Care programme for Leeds City Council Social Care and Leeds PCT.

• Customer Care
• Leadership and Management Development
• Building & Leading Effective Teams
• Personal Development – Personality Profiling, Business Writing Skills, Assertiveness, Interpersonal Skills, Understanding Equality and Diversity, Facilitation Skills, Giving and Receiving Feedback, Managing Stress, Presentation Skills, Recruitment and Selection and Success through a Positive attitude

An experienced, professional and adaptable IT Trainer and Consultant with a proven track record of delivering solutions to high-profile clients in various market sectors in all the various Office suite of products. Proficient training consultant with over 25 years of training and technical authoring experience in the IT industry.

Feedback

Great American “The training was fantastic on Tuesday and Caroline is an exceptional trainer”

Saint Gobain “After carrying out the training today, I would just like to echo these sentiments and state that this training session was amongst the best that I have received whist working at Bristol UK. I know that others enjoyed it as much as I did.”

Computershare“Please pass on our thanks to Caroline for course last week, I don’t think I have received such good feedback for a course in the whole time I have been arranging the training for CCS. One comment was – ‘that was amazing training, Caroline was an excellent teacher…. Whatever you paid for that, it was worth more.’ Now that is great feedback, but if you put it together with the person who gave it, it is amazing feedback! I had to do a double take when it was said to ensure I wasn’t dreaming!”

Areas of expertise

Microsoft Office Professional, Adobe Creative Suite, Desktop Publishing packages, bespoke Software and Business Development skills InDesign

John delivering hands-on training in MS Office applications (including VBA and SQL and Access, Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project all to Expert level), also consultancy/development/ problem-solving in MS Access and Excel. John has a huge amount of experience in developing Access databases from scratch, as well as upgrading existing databases in line with clients requirements.

Simon specialises in teaching Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access and OneNote) products using all versions up to and including Office 2016 and Office 365. An expert in OneDrive for Business, Yammer, Delve, Sway and Skype for Business.   Experience in dealing with many different abilities and have travelled across the country delivering training to various clients.  Always interested in MS Office migration projects involving seminars, webinars and face-to-face training. Also developing E-Learning content.

Gary is a first class trainer with 15 years’ experience in training and consultancy. He has an innovative approach to training that not only changes his delegates’ performance in the workplace, but has helped many develop techniques that can go beyond business to create change in other areas of their lives. As an NLP Master Practitioner and Trainer, Gary brings a different perspective on business skills to the professionals who attend his training courses. Gary has delivered successful programmes across the UK and also in Europe, India, USA, Thailand, Singapore and Australia.

Gary encourages individuals to tap in to their own personal resources to bring out the very best in themselves, which ensures the delivery of high impact events. He has delivered to a wide audience from Charities to Private Banks as well as working with individuals to create lasting change.

Key Skills

• Relationship Management
• Effective Communication
• Influencing Skills and Strategies
• Client Service Skills
• Behaviour Change
• Personal Coaching
• Presentation Skills

Gary has worked on a number of roll-out programmes including:-

• Lloyds Banking Group – Relationship Management for 300+ service delivery managers
• Deutsche Bank – Client Service Skills to 700 people across the world

Feedback

“Gary has vast skills and knowledge of all things relating to human beings, how they think, how they work and how they interact. This meant that he was able to train us in every tool that we could possibly need to create (and improve) excellent working relationships. His general demeanour and affable nature meant that he was one of the best trainers that I have had the pleasure of being taught by.”

“Gary’s totally professional and down to earth humorous style enabled us to grasp the concept of ‘what can be achieved in a relationship if your attitude/mindset is correct’ – This was brilliantly displayed throughout with the use of practical exercises and discussion. He opened up our heads with his experience of people interaction and shared knowledge that had the personal touch that we could relate to ourselves and use in our role of Relationship building. As an individual, Gary was simply the best trainer I have experienced in my career.”

Sara is a people development specialist and a real asset to Elliott Training. Her development career has been established within leading companies including British Airways, the Woolwich Building Society, Compaq Computers and Zurich Financial Services. She has held a variety of training roles from International Sales Trainer to Head of Learning & Development.

As an external consultant she has a proven track record of improving performance in over 80 leading UK and international organisations in most sectors including Financial Services, utilities, travel, retail, manufacturing, telco’s and the public sector.

She specialises in developing the customer experience, improving sales, coaching and leadership and has designed and delivered a wide variety of training programmes throughout the world. These have demonstrably improved performance for companies including; American Express, Barclays, Tui, RBS, Hampton Court Palace, Sage, Nationwide, Rolls-Royce, Orange, Qatar Airways, British Gas, British Airways, Toni & Guy, Virgin, Emirates and Pfizer.

She communicates exceptionally well and influences at all levels of the organisation taking into account all levels of experience, attitude and ability, identifying the best that each person has to offer and inspiring them to develop their performance.

Key Skills

Sara has a wealth of experience in design, delivery, evaluation and consultancy in improving performance in sales, service, management & leadership including:

• Managing effectively in sales and service environments, in contact centres
• Foundation to executive coaching skills
• Understanding behaviour & personality types
• Foundation to advanced communication skills
• Performance management
• Handling challenging conversations
• Assertiveness
• Counseling Skills
• Management skills including appraisals, creating the motivational climate, building teams, communication skills, delegation, personal impact and presence.
• Developing the customer experience
• Sales Training – foundation & advanced account management & business development
• B2B & B2C Sales
• Sales & Service Coaching
• Executive Coaching

Feedback

“I attended this programme under duress and feeling skeptical; I leave enlightened and motivated”

“Brilliant course, brilliant trainer thank you”

Duncan qualified in 1987 as a civil engineer, and in 1994 as a project manager. He spent 9 years in the construction industry in various parts of Africa working on projects ranging from high rise buildings to bridges. He worked for Grinaker Construction – an international construction company – and during this period he was promoted from site engineer to branch manager, ultimately being responsible for up to 15 projects at a time.

He has spent the last 11 years training and consulting on Project Management, Project Server and SharePoint Server to many companies; assisting companies to define and streamline their internal project management processes and then setting up project management systems to manage these processes.

Duncan believes that by combining consultancy with training he can present a more accurate view of how the products can be used by organizations to streamline processes.

Duncan has also presented seminars – on behalf of Microsoft Gold Partners – to business owners indicating how new technology can be used to make their businesses more streamlined, and how they can get the most out of the technology they have bought.

EPM and SharePoint projects

Below is an indication of some of the Project Server and SharePoint Server environments Duncan has worked on.

1. BT DUBLIN – Project Server

   A full design, installation, configuration and training roll-out; for a design department (50 people) within BT, with the option to expand across multiple departments in the future (up to 200) without having to do a complete reconfiguration.

   All information needed for the project was gathered in discussion with managers in the company; and then summarized in a project document following the Microsoft Solutions Framework methodology.

2. CDS Group

   SharePoint and Project Server installation, customisation and training.

3. Merthyr Tidfill College

   SharePoint 2010\InfoPath consultancy, configuration and support.

Sandy is an experienced trainer with many years of training starting in 1990. She ran her own business in South Africa for 6 years working in many different areas, from Corporate Companies to Colleges helping learners to develop their skills from introduction levels to advanced levels in IT. Sandy has now been living and working in the UK for 11 years, she presents herself very professionally and always delivers an exceptional course.

Sandy has the amazing ability to adapt her training to suit the total Beginner or Advanced User on a course – either on a one to one basis, training at executive level or in groups from 6 to 20.

Feedback

“They had a totally fantastic and productive day – they loved the training. We are having a think about how we can use you again, thanks so much. Please pass on my personal thanks to Sandy who was flexible and immensely helpful”

Areas of expertise

Excel, Access, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Visio, Publisher, Bespoke IT Systems

A versatile and highly experienced training professional holding a wide range of qualifications from a Teaching PGCE to IT qualifications to include the Institute of IT Training’s e-Tutor Certificate and being a Microsoft MOUS Master Instructor. Additionally, Sarah has the ability to speak German fluently and French to a working level. Prestigious clients have included ICI, Iceland Foods, Dounreay Power Station, The Rullion Group, The University of Wales, York NHS Trust and The Planning Inspectorate.

Sarah has huge experience in working with and developing an e-Learning strategy within the NHS. She loves working with teams to help review the IT Training provision within organisations and helping manage a blending learning project to including Training and E-Learning – her skills in this area are invaluable.

Feedback

“The course was very well portrayed and it became obvious that Sara knew the subjects she was teaching ‘inside out’ and felt very strongly about the subjects. Overall, I think it was a very beneficial course, which needs to be delivered to the higher ranks as well as the lower ranks. Thanks.”

Areas of expertise

Excel, Access, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Training Needs Analysis, management of e-Learning development projects

Nicola works as a trainer specialising within the Microsoft Office environment training groups ranging from one to ten delegates. She trains using a comfortable, easy to understand and informative style. Nicola has a very personal and friendly approach adapting to all various types of queries. She is very professional and confident visiting customer’s sites to deliver floor walking, drop in surgeries and classroom training.

Accreditations

• Institute of Learning Management Train the Trainer Master Class Award
• Official MCAS Instructor (Microsoft Certified Applications Specialist)
• European Computing Driving License (ECDL), Exam Tester and Invigilator

Feedback

“I feel what I have gained this week is invaluable not just in the work place but in life in general”

“I felt that the course was excellent and that the delivery was outstanding. May I thank you once again and wish you all the best for the future.”

Areas of expertise

Excel, Access, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, Manual Writing