Joe Mac Aree (Business Owner)
PhD, Chartered FCIPD, Reg Psychol. Ps.S.I., FMAC

Joe Mac Aree has 30 years’ experience in Leadership Development, Assessment, Coaching, Selection and Succession Planning across Europe, USA and Asia. He helps senior leaders and their teams identify their strategic goals and equip them with the skills necessary to lead and drive behavioural change at all levels in their organisations. He holds a Doctorate in psychology from Trinity College Dublin and additional postgraduate qualifications in Statistics and Human Resources. He is a member of the Institute of Personnel Development, a registered psychologist with the Psychological Society of Ireland and a registered coach with the Association for Coaching.

A short sample of Joe’s recent development and coaching assignments include working with Microsoft, Screen Leaders Europe, PWC, Bank of Ireland Group, Total, Daiken, Addleshaw Goddard, M & S, Kerry Group, Mercer, Central Bank of Ireland, BG Exploration, GSK, Herbert Smith Freehills and Enterprise Ireland’s International Selling Programme

Clíona Diggins
BA, MSc, CPsychol, Reg Psychol. Ps.S.I., FMAC

For the past sixteen years Clíona has designed and implemented talent management initiatives across Europe, the USA, Asia and Australia. As a chartered business psychologist, working in the area of leadership assessment and development for organisations globally, Clíona has gained vast experience of working with individuals from all professional backgrounds and has an in-depth understanding of everyday leadership challenges. Her drive is helping people to take on new challenges through widening self-understanding and focusing on clear goals. She is a member of the Institute of Personnel Development, a registered psychologist with the Psychological Society of Ireland and an accredited coach with the Association for Coaching.

A short sample of Clíona’s development and coaching assignments include working with Kerry Ingredients and Flavours EMEA, Microsoft (Western Europe), Screen Leaders Europe, Petronas, BG Group, Marks and Spencer Europe, Certus, PWC and Paddy Power PLC

Neil O’Brien
BA, DBS MBS, Cert Occ Psych, Reg Psychol. Ps.S.I. Dip. CBT

As a Registered Occupational Psychologist, Neil has been involved in the area of assessment and people development for over 14 years. He specialises in the identification of high potential individuals, designing and delivering of leadership development initiatives and coaching in many major public and private sector organizations in Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe. Outside of the world of business, Neil is also an IRFU certified strength and conditioning coach and has been instrumental in the development of high performing rugby teams. Neil’s range of experience means that his coaching skills can be applied in a variety of settings including career coaching, business coaching life coaching and sports coaching.

A short sample of Neil’s recent development and coaching assignments include working with PwC, Bank of Ireland, BG Exploration, Council of Europe, Bord na Mona (Energy company - Ireland), Petronas, Kerry Group, Aer Lingus, AXA and BLP Law.

Machteld van den Heuvel
PhD Psychologist, Assistant Professor Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Amsterdam

Machteld has over 10 years’ experience as a consultant, trainer and coach working with a range of clients in both the private and public sectors across Europe She is currently working as an Assistant Professor in Work & Organizational Psychology at the University of Amsterdam. In addition, she continues to work in practice as a trainer and coach focusing on the development of teams and individuals. Her interest is in the development and application of interventions to build work engagement, health & well-being and adaptive performance. She runs MBTI qualification course programmes in the Netherlands and other European countries. She is a member of the European Association of Work & Organisational Psychologists (EAWOP) and has published her work in a number of journals while also working as a reviewer for various international journals.

A short sample of Machteld’s recent development and coaching assignments include working with Icare, A+O Fonds Rijk, RTL, Maersk, Diakonessenhuis, ABN AMRO, Rijnstate Ziekenhuis, Shell, VoestAlpine, TU Delft, ARPA, Politie Brabant-Noord, Movares and AveryDennison

Susan Duggan
BA Psych. Soc., MSc Dev. Psych., BL

Susan has over 20 years’ experience in the area of organisational development, personal development and career management for organizations’ and individuals in Ireland and Internationally. She has vast experience of working with at all levels, from graduates to executive level. Through her work she has assisted organisations’ develop initiatives for managing cultural change and leadership effectiveness. She has designed and facilitated on leadership development programmes, delivered outplacement programmes, conducted managerial and executive assessments, designed 360 feedback processes and provided one-to-one and team coaching at middle to senior management. She is a founder member and Director of the Stress Management Institute of Ireland.

A sample of Susan’s work includes Aer Lingus, Bord Gais, Datalex, ESB International, EPA, Enterprise Ireland, Glanbia, Bank of Ireland, Motorola, National Disability Authority, Nestle (Ireland & Europe), Niscayah and Platinum Software Inc (Ireland, UK, USA, Aus)

Linda Bullen
BSc (Hons), MSc, CPsychol, AFBPsS

Linda is a chartered occupational psychologist with over 15 years experience in organisational development, behavioural change, talent management and coaching. Her experience includes leading OD and talent management initiatives in oil, financial, media, and software development industries along with Olympic level sport and not-for-profit sectors. Linda’s career began as an OD practitioner within PWC where she worked within the UK firm, later moving to provide OD consulting services across EMEA for Chevron. She has worked independently for 10 years based in the UK and Germany
Linda’s OD experience has included leading an organisational review of Better Work, a global project between the UN and World Bank; and working with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors to re-design board selection processes around the world. to ensure they were culturally appropriate whilst also promoting RICS strategy of decentralisation and inclusion.
Linda has had personal experience of leading the re-structure of a team whilst managing the HR team of a software developer in Germany. She created and implemented a new HR strategy and structure and re-designed key processes for the organisation such as expat recruitment to ensure the rapid expansion of the company. She also led the implementation of leadership development and talent management in the organisation, along with establishing an executive recruitment process.
In Talent Management Linda has facilitated an award-nominated behavioral change programme throughout the southern African offices of an international charity as well as leading several leadership development programmes in the UK and across Europe. She has coached the senior partners of a Danish strategy consultancy to help them lead change throughout their business and has worked with a ‘disruptive’ financial service provider to design and implement leadership development processes for middle and first-line management, along with directly facilitating the executive team to help them lead change in a rapidly expanding business.

Linda is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and an affiliate of the Special Coaching Group. She has certificates in Gestalt based organisational change, career coaching and psychometric testing and is a trained mediator.

Kathy Morris
FCIPD, FLPI

Kathy is an award winning organisational development specialist and coach with almost 20 years' international experience in fast-moving, sales-led enterprise organisations. An expert facilitator and innovative designer, Kathy has held a number of senior global L&D roles in international organisations including Thomson Reuters Science, Hays Recruitment plc and RSA Group.

Since 2008, Kathy has been consulting with organisations at Board and middle management level on cross cultural initiatives, specifically in the design and implementation of large scale, high-level leadership development programmes and executive coaching for individuals and teams.

A winner of three awards from The Learning & Performance Institute, Kathy is a regular conference speaker and chair and contributes regularly to the Learning Technologies and Learning Skills magazines. She attended Henley Business School in 2012, where she gained Distinction in coaching practice.

Padraig Neary
MSc Organisational Psychology

Padraig is a Business Psychologist with ten years experience of working both as a consultant and as a HR professional in a global professional service firm. A psychology graduate of Queens University, Belfast, he holds an MSc in Organisational Psychology from the Institute of Work Psychology at the University of Sheffield and is a member of the British Psychological Society.

After completing his studies Padraig worked as a consultant Occupational Psychologist in the design and delivery of a wide range for programmes for public and private sector clients including the BBC, PwC, AXA, Eversheds and the Senior Civil Service. He has extensive experience of assessment and coaching of staff on talent management programmes, the design and delivery of graduate development programmes, diversity audits and the delivery of diversity and inclusion training. Following a career break, Padraig joined Ernst & Young as Assistant Director Global People Team where he was employed in a strategic and organisational development role working across cultures and implementing global initiatives on talent acquisition, identification and retention.

Daniel Frankl

Daniel Frankl was a Vice President in Account Services at Ogilvy & Mather / Scali McCabe Sloves in New York when he literally burned his suit over 20 years ago. He is now a Lecturer in Marketing & Management at the Rotterdam Business School and has over 15 years experience in executive talent development for global organizations.

Grainne Delaney

Barry Barnes
Professional Actor and Corporate Role Player

Barry is a professional actor of twenty years standing. He also works as a roleplayer on training programmes in companies in all sectors of business. He works with Corporate Roleplayers Ireland, JMA Consulting business psychologists and others in business training. Barry is also a fluent Irish speaker.

He has worked on a huge variety of training initiatives including Leadership Development, Competency Based Interview Training, Customer Service, Negotiation Skills, Managing Underperformance, Performance Review training, Coaching, Mentoring and on Assessment / Development Centres.

He has worked with leading organisations such as eircom, Microsoft (Ireland and Europe), AIB, Dublin Solicitors And Barristers Assoc., Bank of Ireland, Pfizer, HSE, KPMG, The Dáil Libraries, Diageo, Arvato, and Ulster Bank.

Stewart Beamont
BA, M. Ed.

Member of Association of Business Psychologists
British Psychological Society, registered Level A and B

Career history

Director/ Stewart Beamont Associates/ 2005 to date

• Talent Strategy and implementation/ Professional Services firms
• Global learning programme design and review
• Top team development/ public sector
• Partner development/ Law, Consulting and Private Equity firms
• Design and delivery of Global Facilitator Development programme
• Design and delivery of Consulting skills programme/ Professional Services firms
• Leadership development programmes/ Professional Services firms, academic sector
• Teambuilding programmes/ technology, public, professional services and pharma sectors
• Design and delivery of Development and Assessment Centres/ retail, telecoms and financial sectors
• Psychological assessments for development and selection


Since July 2005, Stewart has worked successfully on consulting projects with

• Deloitte Global Learning
• Deloitte Global Audit Learning team
• Deloitte in Sweden, the Middle East, Malta, Denmark, Portugal, Greece, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, and Central Europe
• ISEGI/ University of Lisbon Business School
• American University in Beirut
• Implement Consulting Group
• Nordic Capital
• Pearn Kandola
• BT
• BG group
• Wyeth
• Sophos
• CallConnection
• AXA
• NFUM
• Nationwide
• Microsoft
• Bank of Ireland
• Council of Europe
• B&Q
• Halifax/ Bank of Scotland
• Lewis Silkin
• Jagex
• Hanover Housing Association
• Waterford Institute of Technology
• UK Nursing and Midwifery Council
• UK Tenant Services Authority/ Housing Corporation
• SolutionsPT
• Wipro
• A range of UK public sector organizations: Blackpool Council, Brentwood Council, Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service, North Tyneside Council, Waverley District Council, Devon County Council, Norwich City Council, Haringey Council

Frans Post
MSc Org Psychology

After his master in Organisational Psychology at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, Frans has worked 25 years in a variety of local and international HR roles in known organisations like Dow Chemical, Unilever and Microsoft. After a few operational roles with Dow Chemical, his area of expertise and experience focused on organisational effectiveness and talent management. His broad experience includes organisation business redesign projects, change management and delivering team building and facilitation training. In Unilever he was the owner of the global performance management process and helped the organisation to move away from forced distribution to a more development oriented approach. Before he transitioned to Microsoft he was also engaged in an outsourcing project for HR, covering recruitment and performance management. During his time with Microsoft he was the Western European Organisation and Talent Director. He worked as a personal coach for executives and key leadership talent. On an organisational level Frans coordinated succession planning and high potentials development activity across 12 countries in Western Europe.