Alium Associates
Alium's expert business psychologists
The business psychologists provided by Alium have all held senior management positions in industry and commerce - offering an ideal mix of business experience and professional rigour.
At Alium we are committed to ensuring that executive assessment is a valuable asset to our clients, and that it genuinely helps with their selection and development decisions. Our business psychologists have a wealth of experience in working with and coaching CEOs, directors and senior executives in a range of organisations, and will provide objective and independent judgements.
Doug Prior, B.Tech (Hons), Dip Psych, CPsychol, AFBPsS
Doug has considerable experience in organisational development, executive coaching, management audits and the assessment and development of senior executives. In addition to his psychology qualifications, Doug has completed extended business management programmes at Manchester Business School and IMI (now IMD) in Geneva, Switzerland.
After an early career in management consultancy, Doug spent a period in general personnel management as HR Director at Forward Trust Group Ltd. Subsequently, he was Head of Group Management Development at Midland Bank Group (now part of HSBC) and then Managing Director of Midland Career Services Limited. He was a Director of MSL Group Limited and Managing Director of MSL Human Resource Consulting Limited.
As a business psychologist, he has worked at individual, team and corporate level with global and national clients in finance and banking, IT, professional services, retail, manufacturing, hi-tech engineering, chemicals, trading and energy. He has also worked in the public sector with clients such as the Cabinet Office, Inland Revenue (now Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs), British Tourist Authority, English Tourist Council, and Cambridge County Council.
James Mackay, MSc (Econ), PhD, CPsychol
James evaluates candidates for senior roles, coaches senior executives and teams from a variety of organisations in the public and private sectors, and has helped Boards and executive teams from many sectors to improve their decision-making, communications and their capacity for effective and creative collaboration. He co-designed and co-directs the Tavistock Institute course in Executive Coaching. He operates in the UK and internationally, with clients in France and Italy.
Although as a chartered psychologist he has a natural focus on the individual, he works with clients to identify the best strategies for interacting with and influencing colleagues, the work group, and the organisational culture. Constant themes are leadership, strategic career development, personal 're-branding', and the alignment of individual, role and corporate objectives. He has a particular interest in 'the art of the possible': how a client can successfully challenge, and make progress within, the parameters of the organisational culture.
After an HR and industrial relations role at Hoover and Alcan Foils, James became a consultant advising on a range of HR issues. He worked as a search consultant in the USA and continued in search as a Director of two London-based consultancies. In the latter, he also operated as a business psychologist.
He is a Visiting Tutor on the Tavistock/University of East London doctoral programme on Consulting and the Organisation, and has written on management and psychological issues for The Times, The Daily Telegraph, and Human Resources. He has a doctorate in leadership and organisational culture from University of London.
Anne C. Gray, BA (Hons), MBA, CPsychol, AFBPsS, FRSA, FRSM
Anne is a business psychologist with extensive national and international experience in consulting on organisational change. Her skills in assessing executives at Board and senior level are enhanced by her understanding of the strategic and political challenges that businesses face.
Prior to establishing The Gray Partnership in 1991, she worked for a firm of business psychologists, Kiddy and Partners, for three years. She was at the heart of the organisational change process in British Airways, with particular responsibility for Performance Management, one of the three linchpins of the change strategy.
As part of her continuous professional development, Anne has completed the Tavistock Institute's Qualification in Advanced Organisational Consulting. Anne is a founder member of the Association of Business Psychologists, was Dean of Conference 2002, and is a recent past Chair.
She is also an experienced executive coach, having worked with clients in the financial services sector, IT and retail sectors. Her clients are typically senior executives with a history of success and achievement, who are faced with the need to adapt to a changed set of organisational expectations.
Bob Edenborough, BSc, PhD, CPsychol, AFBPsS
Bob is a chartered psychologist who has spent most of his career in the assessment and development of senior staff in both the private and public sectors.
He currently concentrates on the areas of shortlist assessment in connection with recruitment, using a variety of psychometric instruments as well as situational judgement tests. He has designed many of the latter himself and has also developed scoreable structured interviews on the basis of detailed research. Additionally he works in the fields of senior management coaching, auditing recruitment and selection methods and assessing board effectiveness.
He has held managing directorships within the Gallup group of companies and for several years was Director of Management Review and Assessment at KPMG. A regular speaker at conferences and professional gatherings, he has also written three books on assessment methods.
Roderic Macmillan, B.Tech (Hons), CPsychol, AFBPsS, FIBC, CMC
Roderic Macmillan is a chartered psychologist now specialising in the assessment, development and coaching of key executives and managers. His main clients are international groups in western Europe and he also has experience in Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf.
He started his career in a 'Future Office' project before joining a major British consultancy, rising to Senior Consultant and Partner, and contributed to or directed assignments involving a range of Behavioural Science interventions. He worked with clients in the public, manufacturing and service sectors in Britain and western Europe.
He then joined ITT Europe in Brussels to lead and develop the Executive Assessment Programme. He supervised consultants in Europe, Asia and Australasia assessing some 400 executives a year, and managed the use of assessments in HR decisions. He then became project manager for a programme assisting executives to refocus their careers during the closure of ITTE headquarters before returning to Britain as an independent consultant.
Frances Clark, BA (Hons), MPhil, PhD, CPsychol, AFBPsS, FCIPD
Frances has a background of conducting reviews of organisational performance, culture, and service quality and advising on strategic issues in the management of people and change. She facilitates leadership, team and organisational development in the private and public sector and has consulted at board and senior executive level, managed teams and worked on multidisciplinary projects.
As a chartered psychologist, she is highly qualified to use a variety of techniques for the assessment of individuals and groups. An accredited coach, she undertakes performance and transition coaching for international board level and senior executives from a wide range of functions and countries and for civil servants up to permanent secretary. She is experienced in a variety of project management, consulting, teaching and research roles, having worked for multinational organisations.
Rosalyn McCarthy, BA, MSc, PhD, CPsychol
Ros McCarthy has over 20 years experience of applying her knowledge as a business psychologist to help maximise the value of an organisation's investment in their human capital. She specialises in helping companies to manage their talent through executive/leadership selection and development. In particular, she coaches executives to develop the skills they need to deliver on their strategic objectives and plans. She also helps individuals deal with the challenges and pressures of rapid change in their organisations through the delivery of leadership and teambuilding workshops.
As a consultant, Ros has worked across a range of private and public sector organisations gaining a breadth of experience which informs her work. Prior to moving into consultancy in 1992, she headed the Business Psychology Group at British Telecom where she was involved in the selection and development of people at all levels within the business.
Ros completed her undergraduate education at the University of Kent. Her postgraduate education was at the University of Hertfordshire, where she was awarded her Master's degree and PhD in Occupational Psychology. She is a member of the Association of Business Psychologists and the Special Group in Coaching Psychology.
Pauline Grant, MA MSc CPsychol
Pauline's career as Business Psychologist spans 18 years in consultancy, at Ashridge, YSC Ltd and more recently in a freelance capacity. Her main focus is increasing leadership effectiveness by working with individual executives and teams to help them understand themselves and their interactions better. She has worked with clients at senior level in many sectors including construction, financial services, telecoms and retail. Her expertise in coaching and facilitation provides a foundation for her work with clients, including where the requirement is primarily assessment. Thus candidates get added value by experiencing a developmental conversation. Pauline's main motivation has always been to impart skills rather than creating dependence. With a professional background in Educational Psychology, she chose to work at the systems level using a consultancy approach that was groundbreaking at the time.
Pauline has substantial international experience, particularly in Africa, having undertaken assignments for Cadbury Schweppes, Diageo and Barclays Bank in the realms of coaching, leadership development and individual assessment of senior executives. In addition to being a Chartered member of the British Psychological Society, Pauline is a founding Principal Member (and was the first Vice Chair) of the Association of Business Psychologists, and has contributed to several of their conferences. She is author of 'Careering Upwards' and editor of 'Business Psychology in Practice'; she is a visiting lecturer on the London Metropolitan University's MSc in Business Psychology and contributes on an Associate basis to Henley Business School.
Janis Short, BSc (Hons), MSc, C Psychol (Occ)
Janis Short has over sixteen years experience as a business psychologist, ensuring that organisations have in place the talent and the skills that will enable them to achieve their strategic objectives. She has specialised in the design and implementation of bespoke assessment and development centres, in competency profiling, and in the in-depth assessment of candidates on a one-to-one basis. She is also an experienced trainer and executive coach, working in partnership with her clients to improve work performance, communication and personal skills.
As a consultant, Janis has worked with a wide range of client organisations in the public and private sectors, working with people at all levels of an organisation. Before returning to University to study Psychology, she spent more than 15 years in Structural Engineering.
Janis completed her BSc at the University of London, where she achieved a first class degree and won an ESRC competition award to fund her MSc in Occupational Psychology at University of Hertfordshire. A full member of the Division of Occupational Psychology within the BPS, she is also a founder member of the Association of Business Psychologists and a Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. She is qualified to use a wide range of psychometric tools, including Wave, OPQ, FIRO-B, MBTI, NEO, CPP and the Hogan suite.
Carole Whittle, BSc (Hon), MSc, CPsychol, FCIPD
Carole is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist & trained coach with extensive experience in organisational development and change management. She is experienced in large scale change interventions, mergers & acquisitions, team development, executive assessment, selection and talent management. Since starting her own consulting firm in 1999 she has specialised in senior and Board level assessment and development across FTSE 250 companies and the public sector. She has also worked with family owned firms to help individuals and teams manage the transitions they face.
Carole has extensive experience in the private equity sector having worked with a number of well known venture capitalists. She has conducted managerial due diligence as part of MBOs in FMCG, media, hi tech, leisure health & fitness - most recent in the couture/luxury accessories market.
Prior to1999 Carole managed the assessment and development function at British Airways where she had corporate responsibility for assessment, talent management, succession planning (top 250) and selection methods. The team provided company-wide and tailored solutions in a fast moving commercial business and played a central part in British Airways' 'Putting People First' organisational change strategy.
Stephen Blackbourne, BA, MSc
Stephen has worked as a Business Psychologist for 20 years. His career began at British Airways as Psychologist, Pilot Recruitment; later responsibilities included Selection Methods, Senior Management assessment and Executive Education, often working with top business schools on personalised development initiatives. In the last 12 years he has operated as an independent consultant working with large multi-nationals and senior executives across North America, Europe, Africa and Asia on a variety of talent management initiatives. Most recently, he worked as an associate assessor for a leading search consultancy.
He has many years experience of assessing in public and private sector organisations, specifically the financial services, retail, airline, manufacturing, construction and utilities sectors. He has also delivered a range of leadership development projects and undertaken many coaching assignments. He is a member of the Association of Business Psychologists, the IOD and the American Psychological Association.
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