She has extensive experience of working with leaders across major organisations including Barclays, Marks & Spencer, AstraZeneca, Royal Bank of Scotland, ExxonMobil, Nokia, Finning, Crowne Plaza, Christian Salvesen and Volvo. Her areas of expertise include leadership and team development, performance management and employee engagement, career management and coaching, learning and development strategy, and culture change.
Jane utilises her strong drive and motivation outside of work: she is an athlete at ironman distance, both competing and providing coaching and inspiration to others. She represents Great Britain in the long distance triathlon age group team.
She facilitates The Resilient Leader programme for Oasis: a practical approach to juggling the challenges of leadership and staying in charge.
Here Jane gives us an insight into what drives her and what advice she gives others to develop their leadership potential.
What was your first job?
Lots of summer jobs, working on a farm, in hotels washing up. First ‘real job’ was at Peugeot at the factory near Coventry working in Industrial Relations.
What are you working on at the moment?
Lots of executive coaching, developing material for the Resilient Leader programme, how to manage personal energy in a leadership context and a possible project in the Middle East. Whilst looking to spend more time with my husband!
What makes a great leader?
Know who you are, what you stand for and following your passion.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Many, I like to find the next challenge, e.g. mentally: doing a MBA and holding down a full-time leadership position, physically: working out how to recover from M.E. to be able to compete in endurance sports (ironman triathlon and multiday adventure racing). I like to live life on my ‘learning edge’.
What do you think is the most important requirement for the workplace of tomorrow?
Being able to deal with uncertainty and look for the way forward. Stay focused on what you can do. Be in your ‘personal power’.
What advice do you give to those who want to become more leaderful?
Strive for the above.
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Running, swimming or biking.
What keeps you up at night?
Not much – I am usually tired.
What is your favourite word?
Wine and Chocolate (although not together).
What do you do to relax?
Exercise.
If you could have a super power, what would it be?
Not really thought about this one before… To be calm in any situation… I would be more helpful to others and nicer to know then!
