HARPER360 Founder & Managing Director David Harper tells us why he gave up a senior role in Corporate world to follow his passion for Coaching & Mentoring:
“I have some good news and some bad news” said the oncologist “The bad news is we’ve found cancer cells, the good news is you have plenty of treatment options”…….
“Just run that good news past me again”……..
Now I’m not the only person to have ever been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease – and I certainly won’t be the last! But it’s like someone flicked a switch in my head – I was able to shed all those work-related fears I had carried around in my career. I was able to focus on a so-called ‘Right-to-Left’ plan and ask myself some key questions:
– “where do I want to be in 6 months time?”
– “what needs to be true to get there?”
– “what’s the very first step I need to take?”
This is why I took my 30 years experience of IT & 15 years senior leadership and formed HARPER360.
People still say to me “it’s alright for you … you’ve had cancer” – Really?!
But what about the rest who haven’t? If we believe that we all ultimately have a date with destiny at some stage in our lives then what do we do? Wait till it happens? Or act as if it just has and start reaching out for the things we really want to achieve, before destiny truly comes calling.
It’s your choice.
Meet the Team
Through our specially selected network of Trusted Associates, HARPER360 brings you over 100 years combined experience of Training, IT Expertise and Personal Development
David Harper
David Harper has over 20 years experience of delivering major projects and programmes of change in Financial Services and 30 years IT experience. During this time he has operated as a Programme Manager, Programme Director and CIO, collaborating closely with a number of outsourcing partners and suppliers to deliver cost effective and game changing outcomes. He has experience of using Systems Thinking techniques to significantly reduce the cost of change.
Rachael Butler
Rachael has 20 years of corporate experience, having started her career in marketing communications then moving into leadership positions. Rachael has a proven track record in managing teams and board level stakeholder management for some of the world’s leading brands. She has expertise in business strategy and aligning people planning and employee training and engagement programmes to business objectives. In 2014 Rachael left the corporate world to study a masters degree in Coaching Psychology at the University of Sydney. In addition Rachael holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, is Hogan Assessment certified and has completed an Introduction to Transactional Analysis – TA 101
Stephen Bedford
Stephen Bedford is an experienced Learning and Development professional with a passion for providing client led solutions that focus on clearly identified development needs and provide clear business benefits. He is Owner of Development For Results Ltd, which was set up in 2009, after 20 years within the financial services sector, in a variety of Learning & Development and Business roles. Since leaving the Financial Services sector he has worked with organisations within a variety of industries including Shipping, Healthcare, Building Services, Education, and Government. An associate, Internal Leadership coach and a member of a team delivering an MA in HRM, at Hull University. Accredited MBTI practitioner.
Joanne Thompson
Joanne’s passion for believing everyone should have the right to understand and reach their potential has led to her become a fully qualified ICF accredited leadership and career coach.
Her Corporate role spans 27 years, both in banking and insurance where she worked in Accounting and Reporting roles, leading on to change management roles and significant (£5m – £30m) transformation programmes using various change management approaches including Prince 2, Agile and Systems Thinking.
Joanne has a passion for developing leadership and career confidence in individuals. She supports business success through identification of their ‘why’, their purpose and creates actionable plans to achieve success.
Julian Jones
Julian has over 30 years IT experience in the Financial Services industry. Most recently, as Lead Enterprise Architect at Aviva, he formulated the 5 Year IT Strategy and developed the IT Investment Roadmap for a £4bn Corporate Benefits Business, simplifying a complex application estate of c430 applications. Julian created and led the Architectural Governance Process for Aviva UK and as an experienced Practice Lead, he had responsibility for 180 professionals including IT Architects, Business Analysts and Solution Designers. This involved all aspects of workforce planning, organisational change across the Practice and the introduction of a £1m technical and non-technical Training Programme. Julian was also instrumental in securing the BCS Investor in People Accreditation for the Practice.
Jim Hosier
Jim is a Scrum Master and Agile Coach currently working with a British multinational insurance company. He has a passion for software development, and firmly establishes a link between Scrum, Agile and the delivery of Business Value with the teams he works with. He has established a community of Scrum Masters, spanning a wide range of Programmes, with a shared goal of delivery transformation. Training has been critical to the success of this.
Jim started his career as a Developer, and later worked in various leadership positions. He has been a finalist for the Paragon “Leader of the Year” award.
Andy Harvey
Andy has over 30 years’ experience in IT and has performed a range of senior technical roles, most recently as a Lead Solution Designer. Andy led the large Solution Design Practice at Aviva for a number of years and was responsible for sourcing and placing Solution Designers into all major Programmes of Work in the UK. He owned the way Solution Design was performed, initially gaining CMMI level 3 accreditation for the end-to-end process, and later adapting that process to support an agile way of working. Andy also held responsibility for the training and career development of Solution Designers implementing a range of development and knowledge sharing approaches.
John Tattersall
John is an experienced Executive Coach and Facilitator with over 35 years business experience, having started his career in Commercial Financial Services where he advised wide-ranging businesses and latterly Corporate Real Estate Clients. John brings his business, culture and people experience together coaching executive leaders and senior management teams. Helping them realise their potential by creating an environment for growth and success. For the past ten years John’s value based coaching has helped people use their values as a foundation to their coaching experience. John particularly enjoys striving for the most incisive questions, that help the coachee’s approach to solving problems where increasing ones self-awareness can be life changing.
Don Kersley
Having developed Leaders globally now for over 20 years, it’s fair to say I’ve learnt so much about them and me. There is no bigger buzz than seeing existing leaders become more self-aware and recognise the imprint their leadership has on others, and seeing future leaders grow in confidence, capability and commitment. I’ve facilitated Senior Leaders events in Asia, coached team events across Europe and worked with leaders on a 121 basis to help them grow. With Care and Edge in the way I work, I support and challenge them, creating insight and fresh thinking, always with a desire to help them grow and fuel their business performance.
I bring a range of profiling and psychometric approaches and I’m a qualified coach with the International Coaching Federation ( ICF )
How Can We Help?
Career & Interview Coaching
We all experience highs and lows in our careers – maybe you’re experiencing a low at the moment, or maybe you’ve spotted a great opportunity to enhance your career prospects? Whatever your motivation for getting in touch, David Harper is an experienced coaching professional with over 30 years of real business experience and an over 90% success rate of getting people successful outcomes at interview.
Mentoring for IT & Change Professionals
Careers in IT and Change often come with promises of good rewards but also big demands – the expectations can feel daunting, particularly for when you feel so much less experienced than your colleagues and peers. David Harper can help. David has over 30 years experience in the field of IT and Change, having operated at all levels from coder through Project and Programme Manager to CIO and Programme Director. He understands the expectations and has learned the “do’s and don’ts” of IT & Change through the school of hard-knocks on multi-million pound, multi-disciplined projects.
Training, Facilitating & IT Insight
Whether you’re an SME or micro business, HARPER360 can put together and deliver training, leadership coaching and IT Insight tailored to your needs. As an experienced trainer with over 15 years senior leadership experience, David Harper is just one of a select group of HARPER360 Associates who can bring their experience and insight to you and your business.