Introducing the Talent Innovations team...

Elva Ainsworth
Managing Director

What are you passionate about? 
Empowering people in their jobs and careers, particularly women and their need to integrate all the areas of life
What are your outside interests? 
Singing, church bell-ringing and homeopathy plus enjoying my 3 children of course
What do you love most about work?
Partnering inspiring clients in their quest to make a difference in their organisation and for their people
What can your colleagues and clients count on you for? 
Being enthusiastic and visionary – and “loud” so I gather!
What are you accountable for at TI?
The strategic direction, the team and our consultancy practice, everything really
What background and training do you have that is relevant to your work at TI? 
Degree in Psychology, Masters in HR, 11 years in HR, 6 years in SHL managing the 360 business followed by 10 years of running the business and personal transformation training and coaching.  I’ve been involved in over a hundred 360 projects and given over a thousand 360/personality coaching feedback sessions.
 

Read Elva’s biography here

Mark Ainsworth
Technical Director
 

What are you passionate about?
Creating amazing tools that ‘wow’ people
What are your outside interests?
Taking photos of my lovely family, church bellringing
What do you love most about work?
Making a difference to people, creating
What can your colleagues and clients count on you for?
Knowing how to do something whizzy in Excel, running down our supply of Diet Cokes
What are you accountable for at TI?
Our technical, financial and operational systems and processes
What background and training do you have that is relevant to your work at TI?
1st class degree in Experimental Psychology from Oxford University, MSc in Operational Research, experience creating tools and analyses that provide insights from complex data in British Airways, McLaren F1 team and Tesco.
 

Read Mark’s biography here

Isabelle Courtney-Guy
Sales and Marketing Director

What are you passionate about?
Personal development, great relationships, good food and vitality
What are your outside interests?
Yoga, cooking and eating, ethical food production, dancing, capoeira and my daughter Ines
What do you love most about work?
Really understanding our clients and creating exciting and effective solutions that key into the strategic aims of the organisation and make my clients look good!
What can your colleagues and clients count on you for?
Being supportive, nurturing, energetic, enthusiastic, creative, high standards and a bit chaotic (which is a good thing apparently!)
What are you accountable for at TI?
Growing revenue through an effective Sales and Marketing strategy and implementation, bringing in new business and growing existing business.
What background and training do you have that is relevant to your work at TI?
Over 12 years working to grow small businesses with 6 years selling to HR and 9 years selling online tools with an emphasis on management information. I am currently training to qualify as a yoga teacher and have taken a number of personal development courses including the Landmark Forum all of which give me an insight into continuous personal development.

John Burnett
Senior Developer

What are you passionate about?
I just love making things that work. I’ve always been a techie and have never lost my enthusiasm for creating systems, especially when driven by new ideas.
What are your outside interests?
Family comes first: My wife Christine and I have 2 grown up sons. We now have a grandson for me to play with.
Others include: listening to rock music; watching sci-fi/horror films; reading sci-fi novels; playing with new technology, time & funds permitting.
What do you love most about work?
I enjoy the 100% concentration required for each project/task, whether large or small, with the opportunities to learn new and improve upon existing techniques for developing software systems.
What can your colleagues and clients count on you for?
I am committed to delivering good quality robust and usable new and/or improved facilities to MyTalents, on time.
What are you accountable for at TI?
Senior IT developer responsible for the ongoing development of the MyTalent application and database.
What background and training do you have that is relevant to your work at TI?
BSc (Hons) Electronics; Many, many, many.... years developing initially electronic but mainly software based systems and applications, including (most recent first):
3 years as both freelance and as a contractor developing web applications, most recently related to Enterprise Content Management systems for HM Govt.;
18 years at BT as a senior software engineer developing a wide range of systems from Billing to web-applications using various technologies and databases;
Have previously developed web-sites/applications using object oriented PHP and MySQL, which is the same technology underlying My Talent.

Adebola Olowofela
PHP Developer

What are you passionate about?
Just writing lines of codes that makes the web interesting... I love anything and everything about web application development.
What are your outside interests?
My family comes first and then football (Chelsea!!!), I love politics and I love music. I am super addicted to my headphones.
What do you love most about work?
The fact that every project/task is usually a new learning curve, web technologies evolves fast and been at work helps you keep tab on them because you are always solving new issues.
What can your colleagues and clients count on you for?
Being happy to take on new challenges anytime and applying new technologies to solve issues.
What are you accountable for at TI?
Usability of the MyTalent application and database, also creation of new features for the MyTalent application
What background and training do you have that is relevant to your work at TI?
1st class degree in Computer Science, Msc in IT Security from University of Westminster, I started developing at age 15 in 2004 and I have since gathered extensive knowledge of the use of PHP, JavaScript and JavaScript Frameworks most notably the jQuery Framework and also Coffeescript.  I love creating secure data-driven web apps using Object Oriented PHP and MYSQL. I am a Zend Certified PHP Developer and I have a great love for Relational Database Management Systems such as MySql, MSSQL, SqlLite and Oracle also my new found love "NoSQL" CouchDB and MongoDB. I am an Oracle 10g Certified Administrator and Professional, also an Oracle Certified MySql Administrator and Developer. I have in the past developed series of data-driven web applications using PHP, MySql and JavaScript(JQuery).

Sarah O’Reilly
Operations Manager

What are you passionate about?
Life, making a difference, gardening
What are your outside interests?
Family, gardening
What do you love most about work?
Everything, great values, fantastic people, making a difference to people/organisations
What can your colleagues and clients count on you for?
Delivering what I say I will
What are you accountable for at TI?
Overseeing the operations team to ensure that clients have the best possible experience.
What background and training do you have that is relevant to your work at TI?
CIPD qualified, worked in HR for a blue chip company for 9 years

Dina Dasani

What are you passionate about?
Learning new things and developing myself. I enjoy taking on new challenges and get a real buzz when I can complete them. I am also passionate about my family and ensuring I spend time with them.
What are your outside interests?
Keeping fit, beauty therapy, cooking, reading and travelling. I enjoy visiting new places and learning about their language and culture. I experiment with new recipes and enjoy creating different dishes.
What do you love most about work?
I love the variety provided by my work-there are always new things to learn and develop.I enjoy being part of the team and finding out how the business can make a difference for our customers.
What can your colleagues and clients count on you for?
Being reliable and accurate in my work. I seek to process all the business transactions on a timely basis and provide good information and analysis on the performance of the business
What are you accountable for at TI?
At TI, I have responsibility for all aspects of accounting, including:
Processing of supplier invoices and expenses
Maintaining the cash book
Helping manage the cash flow of the business;
Raising customer invoices and checking that they have  been paid on time; and
Providing reports on the business performance.
What background and training do you have that is relevant to your work at TI?
I am a qualified Accounting Technician and a Member of the Association of Accounting Technicians (MAAT). I graduated in 1983 and have a wide variety of accounting experience at all levels in different companies, both local businesses and International Firms. I also had the opportunity to work overseas in Chile where I learnt Spanish and did voluntary work for local charities.

Stephanie Warnes

Client Liaison Manager

What are you passionate about?
Psychology especially coaching, team work and relationships at work. Also very interested in psychometric testing.
What are your outside interests?
Reading, traveling, live music (and shoes!)
What do you love most about work?
The variety and getting to see/help out in every department of the organisation
What can your colleagues and clients count on you for?
Reliability and sticking to deadlines/promises
What background and training do you have that is relevant to your work at TI?
MSc in Occupational Psychology with Level A and Intermediate B certificates in psychometric testing

Marie Gallagher
Bureau and Sales Administrator

What are you passionate about?
Spending quality time with my friends and family, football and  learning and developing my skills at work.
What are your outside interests?
Outside of work I enjoy listening to music, especially live gigs, and spending time with my friends. I love food and supporting Manchester United.
What do you love most about work?
I love talking to our clients and getting to know them, making sure they’re 100% satisfied.
What can your colleagues and clients count on you for?
I think I’m a really creative person, I love coming up with new solutions and ideas. The team can rely on me for helping them out with whatever they need.
What background and training do you have that is relevant to your work at TI?
I have several years experience in customer service, sales and social media. My varied roles bring flexibility and creativity to TI.