Meet the Team
Christina Reet
Christina is the Marketer for the Consortium. She has a varied background in graphic design and marketing and is central to promoting the Consortium's products and events to the right audience. Christina works closely with the rest of the marketing team, using her creative and critical thinking skills to ensure the Consortium's strategy delivers. You will find her at a gig in her spare time, doodling new ideas for funny greeting cards or planning her next wild camping trip.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/christinareet
Claire Cocks
As part of her role as Strategic Engagement Lead, Claire seeks to help organisations on their journey to business agility. She does this by connecting people to the many products, services, and business agility communities the consortium supports. She also manages relationships with many of the consortium's partners, working to increase engagement and explore new ways of delivering value across the consortium's ecosystem.
Claire spent ten years of her career, from 2007, working for agile consultancies in relationship management, sales, and marketing. She is now passionate about helping organisations achieve business agility in every department - not just IT.
In her spare time, Claire can be found pottering in her vegetable garden or walking her dog.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/clairecocks/
Dawn Newman
As part of her role in Communities Engagement at The Agile Business Consortium, Dawn is dedicated to fostering collaboration and connection within the agile community. Dawn supports members by curating resources, facilitating knowledge sharing, and encouraging networking, ensuring that the right tools and guidance are available to help individuals and teams thrive in their pursuit of business agility.
Dawn has over 15 years of experience in digital transformation, professional development, and community building. Her career has seen her work across various industries, where she has successfully driven initiatives that bring people together to solve complex problems, enhance digital capabilities, and champion organisational change.
Outside of her professional life, Dawn enjoys spending time with animals, listening to live music and making things from string and yarn. She is also a keen advocate for lifelong learning and personal development, always seeking opportunities to expand her knowledge and skills.
Emily Ruffle
Working as part of the Engagement team, Emily looks after the professional member journey, a varied role working with the team to enhance the Consortium's communities, partnerships, and products and services. Her evenings and weekends are spent running around after her toddler and dog, exploring the great outdoors – following her mantra “live your life and eat cake!”.
Fallon Taylor
Fallon is our Knowledge and Content Lead who is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge as a gateway to personal and collective growth. Her role focuses on the creation of engaging content that educates, inspires and sparks curiosity.
With demonstrated experience in large organisations, Fallon is a logical thinker who identifies creative solutions for the intended audience. She believes in decisions that are data driven and represent what our audience is asking for. This involves collaboration with all other roles across the Consortium to ensure consistency in the value of content we publish.
In her spare time, Fallon has enjoys digital illustration, gardening, gaming and training with her Australian Shepherd, Arlo.
Faye Wickham
As Events and Engagement Lead, Faye is responsible for creating and executing both internal and externals events that the Agile Business Consortium run, host and attend. When Faye is not planning events for the consortium, she loves planning adventures with her husband and two young sons, finding lots of new experiences that they can do together - often involving dinosaurs, science, theme parks or a combination of all!
Hugh Ivory
Hugh has been helping people and organisations to become more resilient and adaptive for about 25 years. He is the Transformation Director at the not-for-profit Agile Business Consortium, where he works with a highly talented and super motivated team of learning experts, change agents, marketers, content developers, business operations and digital product and service transformers to develop, operate and grow the professional body for Business Agility.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/hugh-p-ivory/
Jennifer Martin
Jen has many years' experience within Business Operations, Including Finance and HR. In her role as Operations Lead, she works closely with the Managing Director to support and implement the delivery and development of the Consortium’s objectives.
Jen is passionate about creating an engaging workplace culture while building and developing teams.
Outside of work Jen enjoys spending time with her family.
Josie Robinson
As the Web Lead, Josie's role involves creating and updating the Consortium's website. She also spends time developing SEO techniques and exploring our monthly stats, which she finds particularly interesting. Josie has two small children and a dog to look after outside of work, so there is always something to keep her busy. In the evenings, she likes to wind down by crafting, especially making homemade cards and cross-stitching.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/josiejfrobinson
Karen Mcallen
Karen has extensive experience in business leadership across multiple functions. As the Consortium’s Managing Director, Karen oversees daily operations and leads the development of our exceptional team, ensuring alignment with our strategic objectives and the evolving needs of agile practitioners and businesses.
Karen is passionate about creating environments where teams can thrive and adapt to ever-changing business landscapes.
Outside of work, she enjoys spending quality time with her family, staying active at the gym, and indulging in true crime podcasts.
Katie Taylor
Katie has been a director of the Agile Business Consortium for 16 years and now leads this professional body as Chair. Through her background as a consultant and in academia, she launched the UK’s first Masters in Agile Leadership, and co-founded the Agile Research Network.
Lucy Bishop
Lucy is a Learning Content Developer at the Agile Business Consortium, and has over 10 years experience producing learning materials for organisations and individuals seeking to improve their personal and professional skills. She is passionate about producing learning content that is highly accessible, engaging and supportive for those working in agile business environments.
Maher Hasan
Maher is an accomplished product manager with experience in agile, Lean and PRINCE2 environments helping launch multiple start-ups. He thrives on taking complex challenges and translating them into business value via simple user experiences, ensuring that good designs are backed up by good quality and accessible build. Maher is experienced in designing and implementing business solutions and has a proven track record of delivering technology products within budget, time and specification.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/maherhasan
Niamh Trundle
Niamh is an Experienced Learning Designer and educator with a demonstrated history of working in the education management industry, designing, developing and delivering training programmes for a variety of clients across different industries. She is a strong education professional with extensive experience working in educational institutions abroad and in the UK. Niamh is passionate about creating engaging and interactive learning experiences and using the latest technological innovations to facilitate learning. She is committed to staying up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in learning design to meet the needs of diverse learners and help to achieve their goals. Niamh's interests include applied linguistics, learning languages and travelling. She also enjoys cooking different international cuisines.
Peter Coesmans
Peter has been involved in agile working and its predecessors since 1997. He has helped to forward professionals in agility (co-authoring Agile Portfolio Management), project/programme/portfolio management (co-authoring IPMA’s ICB4 standard), and facilitation (setting up the international CPF assessment for IAF international). Peter often gets the opportunity to speak at professional conferences worldwide, on a myriad of topics. He is always looking for sustainable improvements and believes true change is brought forward in small steps, through learning and experimenting, and by collaborating with people with a common goal.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/petercoesmans/
Richard Campbell
To deliver on our mission to advance business agility worldwide, we develop and offer a range of knowledge products for agile practitioners and professionals. Richard's focus is building engagement with those using or potentially using our knowledge products to understand the challenges and opportunities to which we must respond. He seeks to understand what we can do to facilitate the adoption of agile principles to both improve delivery and the human experience when applying business agility. Richard's passion for agility translates to his life outside of work as a sustainable, ecological house self-builder, and advocate for social justice.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/rjcampbell
Stephen Clark
As Systems Architect at the consortium, Steve's passion lies in shaping the technological framework of the company as it pioneers innovative solutions in the field of information technology. His primary role involves strategising, designing, and implementing complex systems architectures that align with the company's vision and goals, as set forth by the executive team.
Wayne Gosden
Wayne has over a decade of experience in marketing for non-profits. He is responsible for leading the marketing efforts at the Consortium; developing and implementing marketing strategies to enhance our industry presence, grow our audience, and solidify our position as the global authority for business agility.
Wayne is passionate about lifelong learning and helping others achieve their goals and fulfil their potential.
Outside of work he likes to stay active with snowboarding, mountain climbing and mountain biking.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/waynegosden/
Board of Directors
Peter Coesmans
Peter has been involved in agile working and its predecessors since 1997. He has helped to forward professionals in agility (co-authoring Agile Portfolio Management), project/programme/portfolio management (co-authoring IPMA’s ICB4 standard), and facilitation (setting up the international CPF assessment for IAF international). Peter often gets the opportunity to speak at professional conferences worldwide, on a myriad of topics. He is always looking for sustainable improvements and believes true change is brought forward in small steps, through learning and experimenting, and by collaborating with people with a common goal.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/petercoesmans/
Vince Grant
Vince has been a Director of the Consortium since 2019. Currently, he chairs the Board’s RemNom (Remunerations and Nominations) Committee in addition to taking an active interest in supporting the overall organisational strategy. Vince's company Catalyst has been unconsciously run as an agile organisation right from its foundation over 25 years ago; the penny finally dropped when he attended the Consortium's annual conference in London some years ago, and he has been involved with the Consortium ever since! Outside of business, Vince has interests in music (including as a local church organist), reading, walking, cycling, gardening, and occasional online studies in Astrophysics and related fields.
Myriam Hamed Torres
Myriam is the Innovation Lead at Thomson Reuters Labs collaborating across business segments and customers to deliver the next generation of data-driven solutions through rapid prototyping and agile research and experimentation. She is also an agile coach, mentor, author, speaker, and event organiser with the goal of bringing individuals, teams and organisations together to help them thrive in a VUCA world. As Director of the Consortium Myriam's ambition is to bring industry insight to support our members with relevant knowledge and products as well as guide the next generation of professionals.
Ed Holt
Ed has been involved with the Consortium for over 30 years, having been its founder and first Chair. In those days it was all about software and projects, making them business-driven, with collaboration between customers and their IT suppliers. He recalls he had a ‘Eureka’ moment, thinking of the idea for a Consortium whilst in the shower!
He has been involved in the Consortium’s major initiatives over the past 10 years – from the move to ‘Agile Business’ in 2016, to authoring many of the Agile Leadership Principles, and to it becoming a Professional Body. He developed the Thought Leadership level of professional membership and has assessed most of the Consortium’s ‘Level 5’ Thought Leaders. Today his focus is on helping the Consortium further develop its strategy to fulfil its vision of advancing business agility worldwide.
Outside his commitments to the Consortium, Ed plays bouzouki and percussion in a couple of folk bands and spends a lot of time tending a very large garden!
Giles Lindsay
Giles Lindsay is a technology executive, business agility coach, and CEO of Agile Delta Consulting Limited. Giles has a track record in driving digital transformation and technological leadership. He has adeptly scaled high-performing delivery teams across various industries, from nimble startups to leading enterprises. His roles, from CTO or CIO to visionary change agent, have always centred on defining overarching technology strategies and aligning them with organisational objectives.
Giles is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute (FCMI), the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT (FBCS), and The Institution of Analysts & Programmers (FIAP). His leadership across the UK and global technology companies has consistently fostered innovation, growth, and adept stakeholder management. With a unique ability to demystify intricate technical concepts, he’s enabled better ways of working across organisations.
Giles’ commitment extends to the literary realm with his forthcoming book: “Clearly Agile: A Leadership Guide to Business Agility”. This comprehensive guide focuses on embracing Agile principles to effect transformative change in organisations. An ardent advocate for continuous improvement and innovation, Giles is unwaveringly dedicated to creating a business world that prioritises value, inclusivity, and societal advancement.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/gileslindsay/
Karen Mcallen
Karen has extensive experience in business leadership across multiple functions. As the Consortium’s Managing Director, Karen oversees daily operations and leads the development of our exceptional team, ensuring alignment with our strategic objectives and the evolving needs of agile practitioners and businesses.
Karen is passionate about creating environments where teams can thrive and adapt to ever-changing business landscapes.
Outside of work, she enjoys spending quality time with her family, staying active at the gym, and indulging in true crime podcasts.
Katie Taylor
Katie has been a director of the Agile Business Consortium for 16 years and now leads this professional body as Chair. Through her background as a consultant and in academia, she launched the UK’s first Masters in Agile Leadership, and co-founded the Agile Research Network.
Sophie Theen
Sophie joined the consortium recently as a Non-Executive Director in hopes of supporting the consortium's ambitious growth plans in bringing the world of agile closer to organisations, companies and individuals who aren't part of this ecosystem yet. Sophie is the Chief People Officer at Oakam, where her aim is to shift cultural paradigms within organisations and to champion diversity and equality using structured, disruptive thinking. Sophie has been featured on the Women in Fintech Powerlist for three consecutive years and was the first HR professional to win the top 35 Standout in Fintech!
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/sophietheen
Kevin Withane
Kevin is a senior legal and compliance director (UK qualified) with over 18 years experience gained globally in both in-house and private practice roles. He has broad experience managing a legal function spread across regions and direct involvement in developing and driving forward company strategies, with a particular focus on advising on corporate governance, corporate finance, regulatory matters, M&A, ethics and compliance, diversity, equity and inclusion.
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/kevinwithane
Jason Wright
Jason is an Agile Trainer, Coach, and Consultant, and he is passionate about bringing together his extensive and diverse business experience with hands-on agile transformation expertise to help individuals, teams, and organisations on their agile journey. He has been a director of the consortium for seven years, and he feels fortunate to be able to apply this experience to supporting and influencing the evolution of business agility worldwide. He is particularly excited to be a part of the next stage of the Consortium's journey to becoming the Professional Body for business agility professionals.