Workforce: Mentoring and skills development
"Cultivate a culture of growth and expertise within your organisation, offering mentorship and skill development opportunities that empower your team for long-term success."
Consultants often talk about “skills transfer” as being an essential part of any successful consultancy engagement. In other words, ensuring that the client is equipped for long-term success and is empowered to make the most of an investment in technology. The need for external expertise then becomes more of an occasional requirement when there is a significant change on the horizon or when specialist skills or knowledge, or even additional short-term capacity, are needed.
Why Adapta
We regularly work alongside our clients to help them develop their own skills while also guiding them through new territory. We place considerable emphasis on tailoring our approach to the specific needs of the individuals or teams concerned, to ensure that they obtain from the mentoring and coaching sessions everything that they really need to be more effective in their role or with the specific challenge they’re facing. Over time, we find that the mentoring relationship becomes more akin to a ‘safe space’ for sharing ideas and working on challenges or initiatives together. We are able to bring experience of what has worked well in other organisations and talk those through as part of the mentoring or coaching relationship. Ultimately, we’re there to support in this context – but by bringing empathy, thoughtful insight, and deep experience of what works well in other organisations, we find that we quickly become a trusted friend as much as someone who is there to provide guidance and support.
Clients
We have helped many charities, membership organisations and other non-profit organisations with their Mentoring and skills development projects. Below are examples of just a few of the organisations we have worked with.
What our clients say
Ian Chivers
Former Director of Finance & Operations, GOSHCC
"Thanks for all your invaluable help and guidance. We wouldn't be here without you. And don't think that you are escaping, we look forward to your ongoing support."
Nigel Rowe
Chief of Staff, Gurkha Welfare Trust
"The all-staff training session offered excellent value for money. Key staff have been able to engage Adapta on a range of matters since and have always found the consultants offered sound practical advice without bias."
Our experts
Mark Dendy
Senior Consultant
07714 896011
Email
Mark specialises in guiding organisations as they successfully implement digital change. With many years supporting third sector and commercial organisations in using technology to improve...
Iain
Associate Principal Consultant
Iain specialises in information systems solutions for charities and other not-for-profit organisations. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the industry, having started in a software house, before training as a consultant with KPMG and then holding senior management...
Philip
Associate Principal Consultant
Philip is a senior IT professional, experienced in leadership positions such as IT Director / Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO). He has a particular focus on technology strategy, architecture and consultancy. Adapta clients have included...
Mark Dendy
Senior Consultant
Mark specialises in guiding organisations as they successfully implement digital change. With many years supporting third sector and commercial organisations in using technology to improve their offerings to customers, members and donors, Mark is particularly experienced in the replacement of legacy systems and helping organisations navigate what can be a time of great upheaval. Having performed various roles across operations, sales and HR, Mark brings a balanced and sympathetic approach to projects which can look daunting to clients whose teams may never had been through a large-scale change. Whether it be CRM/membership/donor systems or finance and HR, much of the success is down to careful planning and understanding what lies ahead. As such, one of Mark’s strengths is demystifying the project and keeping relationships within the client organisation and with suppliers positive. Mark’s third sector experience includes projects with the ABI, RICS, various Royal Colleges and Societies plus some organisations using technology to underpin a move to a more commercial focus. His experience of working with banks and car manufacturers means that he is particularly able to bring commercial experience into his work with not-for-profit organisations. You may recognise Mark as a former presenter and sponsor at the popular Memcom conferences. Mark has a keen interest in rugby and golf. He was formerly a rugby referee and now, in his spare time, often spends his afternoons contemplating which tree might be concealing his golf ball.
Iain
Associate Principal Consultant
Iain specialises in information systems solutions for charities and other not-for-profit organisations. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the industry, having started in a software house, before training as a consultant with KPMG and then holding senior management positions both in charities, such as The Children's Society and The Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust, and in the commercial sector, where he was International Group IT Director for the Random House book publishing group. Iain was formerly a partner with Sayer Vincent for over 10 years, where he led the information systems consultancy team which later became Adapta. Iain draws on his deep and wide-ranging personal experience of the sector to guide charities to develop their own achievable strategies for information systems and technology. His technical background means that he is able to combine a full appreciation of the technical and commercial issues with an understanding of the culture and context in which charities try to operate. Iain has helped The King’s Fund, Girlguiding UK, Overseas Development Institute, Macmillan Cancer Support, Oxfam UK, Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s charity, UNICEF UK, National Autistic Society, Alzheimer’s Society, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Shelter and many other organisations. Iain specialises in helping senior management teams understand and work through complex organisation-wide issues and also coaches and mentors a range of IT professionals working in charities. Iain is a senior figure in the sector and is regularly asked to share his expectations, hopes and fears for the sector at key charity events and sits on a number of specialist committees.
Philip
Associate Principal Consultant
Philip is a senior IT professional, experienced in leadership positions such as IT Director / Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Technology Officer (CTO). He has a particular focus on technology strategy, architecture and consultancy. Adapta clients have included Asthma UK, Cranstoun, Earthwatch, Enham Trust, the Labour Party, Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation, Lymphoma Action, the Mental Health Foundation, NSPCC, PCS Union, Pony Club UK, SignHealth, the Royal Society, the Trussell Trust and the Woodland Trust. Commercial experience included senior management roles at Sopra Steria and its public-private joint venture Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL), 2012-2016. Before that (2003-2012), Philip provided IT leadership as a senior civil servant in the Ministry of Justice (CTO) and the National Offender Management Service (CIO). Earlier, as Technical Director, Philip led the European professional services team for Software.com (later known as Openwave), specialising in email software, following a similar role with HP Consulting. He has travelled widely and worked overseas in the Americas, Europe and Asia, including having lived for three years in India as a British Council officer. Philip has significant experience at board level in both commercial and voluntary organisations, as non-executive director, charity trustee and chairman. Philip was previously Chair of Trustees at Eduserv, a not-for-profit IT services business. Philip has held numerous voluntary roles within the Church of England and the United Reformed Church, from local to national levels. He has advised both the Alzheimers' Society and the Church of England on IT strategy, information security, programme delivery and organisational design, on a voluntary basis. He has also been a school governor in both the UK and in India, and served as the chair of trustees for Hands of Compassion, supporting primary education in Zambia. Philip read Natural Sciences and Mathematics (MA MMath) at the University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIoD FBCS MIET).
Emma Revie
Chief Executive, Trussell Trust
“To achieve the level of change we saw in 6 months without the support of Adapta would have been impossible. Shortly after completing the project the pandemic hit. Without the work completed by Adapta, our organisation would not have been able to weather the pandemic and keep working.”