Executive Board

Rita Symons

President

Rita is President of EMCC UK. She has over 25 years senior leadership experience in the health service and local government. After acting as an internal coach for many years, she left a CEO role in the NHS in 2016 to pursue coaching full time. She is Managing Director of her own consultancy, offering 1:1 coaching, supporting formal leadership programmes in the NHS, and working with organisations to develop outstanding teams.

Rita is passionate about inclusion and coaching being a vehicle to allow courageous conversations. She has gained experience in the design and delivery of coaching programmes and is excited about contributing to the development of coaching and mentoring practice. She joined the Board as she is convinced of the value of professional organisations and wants to do her part to encourage new and established coaches, mentors and supervisors to join EMCC UK.

Claire Davey

Chair of Governors

My relationship with EMCC started over 10 years ago as an organisational member, when Deloitte and EMCC UK founded the Professional Services Network (PSN). That was during a time when internal coaching and supervision were gathering huge momentum. The PSN provided a unique opportunity for me to connect with like minds in other organisations to drive the agenda forward, individually and collectively. While that is something I miss now I’ve started my own business, I continue to have interesting dialogue with individual members at EMCC conferences, network events and webinars. I’ve really felt the sense of community during this time of transition.

It was after speaking at EMCC’s first International Internal Coaching Conference that I started to consider making time to volunteer for EMCC UK on the premise that I could be part of something bigger, working in collaboration to shape the future of mentoring, coaching and supervision. There are many volunteer projects coming up over the coming months, which create the opportunity to make a real impact – find out more here. I encourage everyone to get involved where you can.

Mark Ellery

Development Director

We are living in a time of rapid digital innovation – many observers are calling it the Fourth Industrial Revolution. During this time, coaching and mentoring has a key role to play in enabling individuals to lead, and teams and organisations to innovate and flourish. I am particularly interested and engaged in how we can embrace digital technology to support and innovate our coaching practice.

I have worked in the private sector for many years, including senior roles at global organisations including Hitachi, Verizon and Microsoft. Since stepping back from the corporate world at the end of 2019, my focus has been the development of my own consulting and coaching business in the East of England. I am a trustee and director of a national charity supporting disadvantaged young people, and I am on the strategic advisory board of an insurance start-up.

Throughout my career, I have mentored and supported young people in their early-in-career phase, either as a manager or through in-house coaching and mentoring schemes. As part of my ongoing development, I am about to complete my formal coaching and mentoring qualification. Alongside my coaching and mentoring clients, I support students at University of East Anglia and Norwich Business School through the UEA Mentoring scheme.

Away from the professional life, I live in rural South Norfolk with numerous animals, including donkeys, chickens, cats and Parker the cockapoo. I enjoy walking (especially long-distance trails), gardening, food, drink and getting away on our motorhome for weekends by the sea.

Peter Duffell

Governance Director

Peter is the Governance Director for EMCCUK. He is an experienced, board level, executive and personal coach with 30 years business experience before becoming a full time coach. He has worked in senior roles with a number of global Financial Services organisations such as HSBC and UBS. He has many years practical experience of coaching and mentoring individuals in a leadership capacity and has led a number of organisational transformations. Peter has an MA in Coaching and Mentoring Practice from Oxford Brookes University and is a qualified Coach Supervisor.

Peter has coached at senior levels in a range of different organisations, from Financial Services to Education and Health. He is currently a retained coach for a number of Health related organisations and has a number of large organisational clients. In addition, Peter also works with a number of personal clients.

Paul Crick

Professional Development Director

Paul is an EMCC accredited coach (senior practitioner) and is Professional Development Director for EMCC UK. He has been a management consultant, coach, educator, facilitator and trainer for over 20 years, working across the world with private, public and voluntary organisations for PriceWaterhouseCoopers, CapGemini and IBM. He recently transitioned out of IBM and is currently preparing to launch his own leadership development consultancy, The Elevate Partnership, in the second half of 2020.

The Elevate Partnership seeks to help change our culture of leadership, one leader and one organisation at a time. It focuses on taking an inside-out approach to leader development, leadership development, and culture shift using a potent mix of coaching modalities and best-in-class technology and tools.

Paul previously co-led IBM’s Global Coaching Community of Practice of 4,000 coaches across 80 countries, and served as an Executive Coach in IBM’s Professional Coaching Service. He has taught and coached leaders individually and in groups, both inside and outside IBM, across 22 countries up to and including C-Level Executives.

Paul lives happily in the middle of nowhere in the UK, nestled in nature with his wife, Tina, their dogs (Jock and Maisie) and horse (Penny), indulging his passion for Aikido, music and exploring new developments across a variety of psychology-related disciplines.