Who we are
All Riverbank partners share a talent for working with individuals and teams at the personal, professional and organisational level with equal fluidity.
Each is uniquely experienced in the creative sector.
Meet the team
John Whittington
Founder, coach and managing partner
John works with founders and leaders of creative businesses in times of transition and growth to clarify and resolve personal, professional and organisational development challenges through individual mentoring, coaching and consulting. His work is informed by a career as a leader in the design, identity and brand expression business and his training as a professional development and systemic coach.
After a career in theatre management and production John moved on to work as a creative producer at Imagination, traveling the world directing brand communications initiatives. After leading some of the industry’s landmark creative expression projects he set up his own integrated design and creative communications agency, One World Communications, in 1993.
Seven years later, having taken the company to the limits of his understanding of business, of leadership and of organisational dynamics, he decided to stop and go exploring. Over the next five years he immersed himself in the world of personal and business psychology, in the skills and behaviours of leadership, and the invisible dynamics that drive organisational culture. As part of that journey he qualified as a coach, a psychometric practitioner and relational systems consultant. In 2005 he brought that and his experience and passion for the creative industry together to create The Riverbank Partnership.
John specialises in working with founders and leaders of owner managed creative businesses at the point where the individual, the role and the organisation meet, building maximum personal and professional effectiveness and clarity of purpose.
John also coaches Executive MBA students on their ‘personal awreness and journey into leadership’ programme at The London Business School.
In January 2008 he was invited to became an inaugural member of the Design Business Association Experts Register. http://www.dbaexpertsregister.org.uk/
Loretta Roy
Founder and Coach
Loretta is an enthusiastic professional development & leadership coach with a breadth of experience in the design, events and creative services sector. Her passion for working with people to empower them to be themselves at work - to be their best in role - and supporting them as they align their values with their work and life, underpins her personable approach.
A qualified MBTI psychometric practitioner and certified Positive Impact coach, with an emphasis on in-company professional development, her breadth of experience in the creative business combines with a range of coaching skills and techniques to ensure a bespoke service for all clients. She applies her skills and experience with individuals and small teams in a variety of creative business contexts.
Loretta also has a training in systemic constellations and uses the principles and practice of Bert Hellinger’s systemic thinking to support the development of organisational health.
Loretta established The Riverbank Partnership with John Whittington in 2005 in order to help build and sustain professional development and organisational vitality in the design and creative business sector.
Sue Abbotson
Riverbank Partnership Coach
Sue is an experienced coach and change catalyst integrating professional and personal development in a creative environment. One of the UK’s first Gestalt in Organisation consultants and a pioneer in systemic approaches to leadership coaching, her work focuses on transformation and the creation of the optimum conditions for insight at an individual and business level. A former academic, Sue was a lecturer in the Management of Innovation at the University of Bath and Visiting Lecturer in Learning and Culture Change on the Reading University MBA. Her doctoral research was in the management of the creative process within radio and stage drama and she recently conducted a research project into leadership development for the BBC: ‘Joined up Learning for the Leaders of Tomorrow’.
With over twenty years in the field of professional development and change, Sue specialises in organisational transformation and leadership development coaching. Working in groups and one to one sessions, she works to bring hidden issues into awareness, and find new resolutions within the system. Through this approach the hidden assets that support the organisations purpose are more clearly revealed and new possibilities opened up.
Sue’s focus as a coach is to help clients to lessen the impact of the unspoken issues or blind spots that block effective change, and to release new possibilities within their organisations, strengthening a culture for performance and creativity.
Doris Sew Hoy
Riverbank Partnership Coach
Doris is an experienced professional developmental coach who works with individuals to develop their fullest potential, enhancing their leadership, communications and influencing style. She has worked as a coach since 2000 and as a regular associate of The Riverbank Partnership since 2006.
Prior to training as a coach, she worked as a member of faculty for Ashridge Management College specialising in developing market focused organisations with particular interests in communications and cross-cultural marketing. She remains an associate of Ashridge, working on several leadership development programmes.
Doris was born and bought up in New Zealand and educated there and in the USA and UK. She has wide international experience spanning several industries in the UK, New Zealand, Europe, USA and South-East Asia. She graduated from Otago University with a B.Comm (Hons) in Economics and was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship in 1983 when she came to the UK to study for an MBA at Durham University Business School. With further studies, she gained an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from Birkbeck College, University of London.
Qualified to use a range of affirming personality type tools including MBTI, Firo-B, CPI and a range of 360 feedback instruments, Doris is also a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council.
Alongside her work with The Riverbank Partnership and Ashridge she also coaches women entrepreneurs in new business start-ups and is an accredited coach with the Centre of Excellence in Leadership. Doris lives in Surrey with her husband and two young daughters.
Rob Mottram
Riverbank Partnership Coach
Rob is an experienced coach working with managers and leaders to explore and develop their personal leadership style, working with them to help them bring their best self to the role and organisation.
His career spans 20 years with multinational organisations, including roles in Marketing, Customer Services, Training and Professional Development. He combines this business management experience with over ten years in training, coaching, and personal development to help people in organisations set and achieve their goals.
Rob is a Certified NLP Coach and NLP Trainer, and an accredited facilitator for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Herrmann Brain Dominance Indicator and the Leadership Development Framework. He is a regular conference presenter on Coaching, Personal Effectiveness and Life Management.
Rob’s coaching is characterised by warmth, humour, challenge, compassion, inspiration and support.
Summary
We work alongside creative businesses to support the growth of leadership clarity, organisational health and productivity in the senior team and beyond, working at the point where individual and organisation, personal and professional, life and leadership meet.
Our work brings us into contact with many issues faced by leaders in the creative industry:
Loyalty and retention issues; issue & crisis resolution; organisational flow; clarifying personal/business direction; leadership team clarity; authentic leadership; building organisational culture; managing partnerships; enhancing emotional intelligence; resolving founder syndrome; facilitating transition; succession; resolving team and interpersonal dynamics; behavioural change; delegation; peak performance; effective communications and influencing styles; resolving the impact of old patterns on leadership style; hierarchy and role in creative businesses; working with challenging people; having difficult conversations; coaching others; personality type and leadership; clarifying purpose; leadership team structure and hierarchy; joining and leaving, building enduring creative business vitality.
‘One must step back. Instead of going with the flow, one must climb onto the banks and look at the river until you understand its course, recognise its potential and decide what has to be done.’
Bert Hellinger
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For further information and enquiries please contact John Whittington, Managing Partner, The Riverbank Partnership
john@theriverbankpartnership.com