Programme leaders

Dr Amanda

Thornton

Amanda is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist who moved into professional, clinical and system-wide leadership roles during her 30-year NHS service. Working at an NHS Integrated Care System level from 2012 she has held a range of Clinical and Operational Director roles (Director of Clinical Services, Chief Clinical Information Officer, NHS COVID Staff Testing Director), designing, managing and transforming award-winning health and care services. Examples include: New build mental health hospital; Dementia Pathway redesign; Establishment of regional COVID laboratory; System-wide electronic health record readiness.
As a psychologist, Amanda’s leadership style is influenced by her background and deep understanding of human behaviour. Forming positive and productive relationships, Amanda recognises that successful change is more about the people than the plan, and ensures that human factors are respected and coveted in leadership models, service developments, design and change. Amanda strives to stay connected to the way individuals and teams are feeling, creating psychologically safe conversations to harness personal investment.

Zoe

Nicholl

Zoe is an experienced senior organisational development (OD) consultant and practitioner with over 10 years’ experience supporting individuals and teams at all levels. Zoe is renowned for her coaching skills and is qualified in team coaching and coaching supervision. Zoe has an extensive range of experience in both design and delivery of leadership and management programmes, OD models and methodologies and personality profiling. She has recently completed additional training at the leading OD institution, Roffey Park. 

Zoe’s approach is one of collaboration and developing approaches to meet individual needs. She has a reputation for her holistic approach to leadership interventions. 

 She has worked across a range of sectors including the NHS with experience in all sectors: acute trusts, ambulance trusts, mental health trusts and community. She also works in the private and third sectors.  

A selection of programme contributors

Ian Pettigrew

Ian runs Kingfisher Coaching, helping leaders to develop their true strength so they can get the best of themselves and others. He does this through designing and delivering leadership development programmes, coaching, writing, blogging, keynote speaking, and publishing a podcast.

Ian’s areas of deep expertise are strengths-based leadership (he is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach) and personal resilience. He wholeheartedly believes that everyone has talent, and anyone can shine, given the right lighting! He is a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and the Association for Coaching. Prior to founding Kingfisher Coaching in 2009, Ian was Change Director for AstraZeneca R&D Finance, and he has extensive leadership experience in Informatics and change management.

Ian is an OD Associate for the NHS, a member of CIPD Manchester branch committee, co-founder of Connecting HR Manchester, and founder of Connecting HR Africa.

Ian was announced by HR Magazine as one of HR’s most influential thinkers in 2023.

Kathryn

Kathryn Winterburn

Kathryn is an inspiring and accomplished organisation and leadership development consultant. Her work helps people see the context of their systems from different perspectives. She is skilled at challenging norms and behaviours and generating new possibilities for lasting change. She possesses a rare mix of international, public and private sector experience gained over 30 years, including 16 years in complex and fluid NHS environments.
She works with individuals, teams, boards, and other diverse groups, supporting their development and learning with a range of approaches. Kathryn is a strong advocate of experiential learning and reflexive practice. She has designed and delivered a broad range of leadership programmes, including clinical leadership development, board development and aspiring director programmes. She has successfully established communities of practice and learning networks that provide places of learning, inquiry, peer support and reflection. When working one-to-one, her coaching style is challenging but empathetic, working holistically with clients to create ideas and craft new ways of thinking, seeing and being. Using penetrating questions as well as a range of creative methods, working with Kathryn is a rich client-centred and supportive experience.

When working one to one, her coaching style is challenging but empathetic, working holistically with clients to create ideas and craft new ways of thinking, seeing and being.

Natalie McMillan

Natalie is passionate about supporting women in leadership roles. As an HR professional she has worked across a range of sectors, including manufacturing, the NHS and not-for-profit. She has worked at board level as an HR Director and taken roles as Deputy Chief Executive and CEO. Having worked her way up to a Chief Executive in a business with 1,500 people and £70m turnover, she recognises the pitfalls and challenges that often mean women find ourselves having to work that bit harder than our male counterparts.

Nat decided that she would like it all as a working mum and defined what that means for her. After all, success is personal, and it depends on what you want. So, she left her six-figure salary and runs her own business offering HR advice and support. She can work flexibly and is a lot happier. This is Nat’s version of success.

Julie Hickton

Julie is passionate about working with individuals and teams to achieve their potential; you will find her to be calming, challenging, supportive, non-judgmental, creating a safe space for exploration and discussion. Her positive motivational personality is infectious, creating a real sense of purpose, focus and enjoyment for all those who work with her.

Combining her own experiences as a HR Director, NED and Coach, Julie brings with her a wealth of practical understanding and realism to the issues that teams and individuals face. She can see beyond the immediate issues and gets the people she works with to change the aspects that really make a difference to their performance and overall wellbeing.

As an author, Julie has written about resilience and wellbeing in her book “The Tree of Resilience”. She uses the art of storytelling to make connections that inspire others who are experiencing difficulties.

Sonia Mayor

Sonia is known for her compassionate, insightful and thought provoking approach to addressing workplace dilemmas.

Her focus is supporting others to adapt to change, inclusion, and social justice issues. She draws on her experience in workforce reform, community engagement, diversity, and psychotherapy.

She values each person’s inner wisdom and uses mindfulness, movement and reflection to support others’ change efforts.

Her interest is on building team resilience, reducing workforce anxiety, and diffusing conflict.

She is currently a visiting lecturer for the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust facilitating on a compassionate leadership programme for NHS managers.  She also facilitates on an MSc programme on Leadership for Sustainability at Leeds University. She works with a number of organisations to support the implementation of restorative practices.

Liz Simms

Liz is a Transformational Coach and is passionate about supporting professional businesswomen who lack confidence and self-esteem, she challenges limiting beliefs and self-talk and will encourage you to move forwards to a new beginning. Coaching can be daunting if you have never experienced it, Transformational Coaching is a conversation between the coach and their client enabling them to move from where they are now to where they would like to be. Liz’s relaxing manner is calming and enables her clients to freely express themselves in a safe environment.

Liz has over 35 years working in both the NHS and for several NHS Suppliers, so has a good understanding of the barriers that women can face in the NHS and in IT.

Liz enjoys learning and believes you never stop no matter how much you know.  In 2023 Liz was honoured to be nominated twice for the Enterprise Vision Awards, which is the UK’s largest business award dedicated solely to women.

Juliette Kumar

Juliette works with motivated individuals who want to overcome doubt, achieve their ambitions and get the recognition they rightly deserve.  As a coach, Juliette will work with you to dig deep to truly understand what is holding you back from achieving your goals. Together you will navigate the intricacies of your career and build a realistic plan that allows greater clarity, balance and fulfilment. She can help reframe your thinking to move forward and make a positive impact in your chosen field. 

Juliette has over 30 years’ experience working in healthcare. She has been a nurse, a manager, worked in organisational development, quality improvement, and research and innovation, and understands the complexity of the healthcare system and its impact on people and teams.