John Golds

John's passion is helping organisations to identify, develop and realise the potential of their people, and in helping individuals to grow, develop and realise their talent. He is a Chartered Psychologist with a Masters degree in ergonomics and a verified British Psychological Society Assessor for Level A & B training in occupational testing.

John's earlier career involved working for a major UK test publisher followed by British Telecom and the Burton Group (now Arcadia) where he worked as an internal consultant with responsibility for senior management assessment and development. Within British Telecom he was instrumental in designing and implementing a mentor programme to help engineers make the transition to management roles, whilst in the Burton Group he was responsible for senior executive assessment and development and instigated a number of innovative approaches to leadership development and career coaching.

John became a Director of Castleton Partners in 1998 having worked as an independent consultant for 8 years. He has worked with a broad spectrum of clients drawn from many sectors including Retail, Financial Services, IT, Telecoms, Travel, Utilities and the Public sector and has developed a particular expertise in advising and supporting the design, implementation and integration of selection, assessment and development strategies. Additionally John has a particular interest in the development of new approaches to leadership assessment and development.

John has extensive experience of psychometric testing, including the development of new and bespoke instruments for clients and is regularly called upon to advise organisations on their use of occupational tests and how they can be best used to support the recruitment, assessment and development of talent.

John lives in West Sussex and is married with two young children aged 7 and 2.5 years. He is an avid reader (Fantasy and Sci-Fi) and a keen golfer and clients should be warned that he will take any opportunity to integrate this obsession into his client meetings.

Jon's early career was with British Telecom as a telecommunications engineer, technical trainer, training manager, management trainer and internal consultant. As an internal consultant he worked in collaboration with line managers to support the implementation of large scale change initiatives such as customer care and total quality management.

His time in internal consultancy coincided with studying for a Diploma in Management Studies so he was able to sample the delights and dramas of working with individual, team and organisational change from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. One of the outcomes of this experience was a different appreciation of the opportunities waiting in the world outside of British Telecom.

In 1990 he left BT to work as an independent management and organisational development consultant, working with a variety of clients - mostly large organisations in IT and utilities - on issues of learning, development and change. He joined Castleton Partners in 1998, focusing since then on developing and delivering products and services based around coaching conversations, leadership development and building organisational capability.

In 1997, at the age of 42, he started his athletics career by entering the first London triathlon, followed over the next couple of years by another three events. Since then not much has happened and as the years pass he is becoming more adept at boring innocent bystanders with long-winded and barely credible stories that justify his lack of progress towards training targets. More than a decade later he remains "between triathlons". Outside of this punishing schedule his time is taken up with tending a vast collection of seashells he keeps on permanent display on beaches throughout the world.

Ann has eight years experience working at board level, including six years on management boards of FTSE 100 companies. Her first directorship was HR director of Burton Menswear (then part of the Burton Group, now part of Arcadia), followed by Next Retail. This has given her a wealth of experience of the design and implementation of organisation change, leadership and management development strategies and programmes including creating partnerships with external consultancies and academic institutions and how to ensure such programmes have real organisational impact through the engagement of both participants and senior management populations.

After leaving Next Ann worked for two years as an external consultant specialising in supporting board members in the development of Talent Management strategies. This led to her becoming a main board director for Bernard Hodes, a UK recruitment, marketing and HR consultancy, where she was responsible for establishing a consultancy practice called The Solutions Consultancy and for designing and implementing their talent development and retention programme for 120 employees.

Although still acting in an advisory capacity to Bernard Hodes Ann is now a director of Castleton Partners and is involved in developing approaches to Partnering strategies and leadership development. This is supported by her connections with the Talent Foundation, an organisation which is sponsored by a consortium of both voluntary sector and commercial businesses and tasked with researching best practice and pulling together the latest research into talent management strategies and practice.

Ann lives in Northamptonshire and is married with three sons. When not working and acting as a taxi service for her sons she is an avid reader of crime fiction and devotee of her local gym.

Charlotte Thom

Charlotte graduated with a degree in Psychology, and is currently in the final stages of completing a part-time Masters in Occupational Psychology. This background has given her an insight into how individuals and small groups behave in the work environment. She has a particular interest in the development of individual potential aiming to help enhance an individual's capacity to learn, which in turn will increase the effectiveness of the organisation.

Before joining Castleton Partners, Charlotte worked for an Outplacement organisation that specialised in aiding individuals through career transitions. She joined Castleton six years ago as a Client Support Manager and now works as a consultant. Her primary focus is the development and facilitation of assessment centres; often incorporating the use of psychometrics as part of the process of helping individuals to gain greater self-awareness.

Charlotte lives in South-East London, when not working she enjoys reading copious novels, and is a keen cook, she can often be found inflicting friends with new recipes that she has created.

Chris Burton

Chris has been involved in Learning and Development for the past 12 years. He started off as a Systems and Procedures Training Officer in the Contact Centre industry with Next Directory before moving into the Management Development training team responsible for providing management training for middle managers up to Director Level within the organisation.

After two years with Next Directory, Chris moved North to help set up a brand new training division for Next Distribution. Chris was responsible for recruiting and developing a team to provide training solutions to Operatives and Managers across two new state of the art warehouses and five existing units throughout the whole of Yorkshire. In 2000 Chris left Next to take up the position of Head of HR for a Recruitment Advertising business in London and Hertford managing a generalist HR and Training team. It was at this time that Chris began to specialise in Communication, Presentation Skills and Personal Impact design and delivery providing new and innovative approaches to management inside and outside of the business.

In 2003 he returned to Yorkshire to head up the Recruitment and Training functions at Ventura Customer Service Management. Chris was responsible for both operational teams as well as being the HR link for new business tenders and presentations to existing and prospective clients. He designed and delivered extensive Bid Skills Training programmes throughout the organisation to improve Ventura's offering in tendering for new opportunities. In the four years that Chris worked for Ventura the Company went from a portfolio of eight clients to twenty-one.

As well as his extensive experience of communications and presentation skills training, Chris has also been heavily involved in the design and delivery of a number of leadership and management programmes. He has offered ideas and solutions in all the organisations he has worked for on cultural and managerial change and development.

Chris joined Castleton Partners in August 2007. He lives in Leeds with his wife Meg and his two children Lewis, who is 7 and Eva who is 2. He is an avid football fan and plays golf whenever the opportunity arises. He is convinced that the more time he is allowed to play golf with his clients the better the relationships will become!

Ann Smith

With a professional background of HR, Training & Development and Change Management Ann joined Castleton in 2006 from the Water industry, having worked predominantly in the arena of Capital Programmes, with both the internal 'Client' organisation, and the 'Client~Contract Partner' interfaces and relationships.

Ann's reputation and track record for developing new and innovative approaches, challenging the status quo and catalysing learning and change was established through major projects and one to one support alike, acting as coach, mentor and consultant to Senior Managers and Project teams on the cultural and behavioural implications of change.

With significant involvement and contribution Ann was instrumental in Yorkshire Water's development of Contract Strategies, Design and implementation of Contract Partner Selection Processes, Client~Contract Partnering Relationships and collaborative working, Learning and Performance Frameworks, KPI's and Assurance and Improvement; many being recognised as leading edge developments in the Water and Construction Sectors.

Since joining Castleton Ann has continued to support all aspects of the interface and relationship between Client~Contract Partner, Customer~Supplier and Manager~Team. Her current development interest is in the area of sense-making and creating the conditions for success at strategic and operational levels in all these contexts of doing business.

Ann lives in West Yorkshire and enjoys the theatre, travel, walking and listening to music, especially at a rock/pop concert!