About us
Board members
The ABP Board is composed of experienced psychology professionals.
Steve Whiddett
(Chair)
In 2002 Steve left Pearn Kandola to start WHE (UK) Ltd., a consultancy practice which integrates experience with research and takes a holistic view of individual, group and organisational performance. It aims to ensure that interventions achieve long lasting systemic changes that address the causes and not just the symptoms of performance challenges.
Steve is a regular contributor to journals and conferences on the use of psychology to enhance individual and organisational performance.
Steve’s other interests include: real ale, walking and mountain biking (in real mountains), music, films, wood carving, guitar, renovating his house, conversation, wine and cooking. Steve is a qualified martial arts coach and teaches Tai Chi Chuan and Hsing I Chuan (two of the Chinese internal martial arts).
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Dr. Carol Cole
(Vice Chair and Acting Leader of the Governance Group)
Carol has run her own successful practice in Organisation Development for over 20 years, applying psychological principles to enhance capability and effectiveness in organisations, teams and individuals. A clinical psychologist with a doctorate in behaviour change, she began her career in the NHS helping establish the NHS’ own internal change management consultancy before joining Shell as an organisation consultant. She now coaches, lectures and consults on organisation design, strategy, change management and leadership. She has worked in the UK, Europe, North America and the Middle East with clients from across the private and public sectors, and has been a Visiting Fellow at both Oxford University and The Kings Fund. Carol has written or co-authored several publications in her field, including ‘A Manual of Organisational Development: the Psychology of Change’ (1997) and ‘The OD Toolkit’ (2008). She is a Senior Associate of the National School of Government, a Non-Executive Director of Hounslow and Richmond Community Health, and a Trustee of Deafness Research UK.
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Mark O’Sullivan
(Treasurer and Acting Leader of the Finance and Administration Group)
Mark O’Sullivan, having a first degree in classics, has a background as a generalist civil servant – in his case, in a wide range of posts in the Department of the Environment and the Scottish Office; but, having also taken the Birkbeck MSc with distinction in 1992, he is now in private practice as a business psychologist, leading a consultancy firm, Resource Synergies Ltd, which is based in Bath and in south-west Scotland.
He has been ABP Treasurer since 2005. In that capacity he has been primarily interested in improving the administrative and organisational infrastructure of the Association: he introduced devolved budgeting and improved financial reporting and other procedures, as well as the handling of investments, and also promoted revised Articles of Association and Regulations. More recently he has been involved on the DoH proposals for statutory regulation of business psychologists.
He is author of A Review of the Scottish Examination Board, co-author of Retaining School Leaders: a guide to keeping talented leaders engaged, and editor of The Environmental Consequences of the Wreck of the Braer.
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Debbie Hance
(Company Secretary and Acting Leader of the External Engagement Group)
Debbie is a practising business psychologist with 13 years’ international consulting experience. A Chartered Occupational Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the Division of Occupational Psychology, she has worked in both the private and public arenas, across a range of sectors including financial services, central government, professional services and transport and logistics. Currently Debbie runs her own small consultancy, pH7 Consulting, based in Essex, but previously headed up the assessment and development centre practice at Willis, one of the largest insurance broker and risk management consultancies. Recently, her work has primarily focused on talent management; designing and delivering assessment, development, succession planning and performance management programmes.
Debbie’s particular interests are around the alignment of psychology with HR, business strategy and decision-making processes and the promotion of business psychology as a profession. This has led to her becoming interested in playing a more active role in the ABP and she will be chairing the Marketing and Communications Committee as well as acting as Company Secretary for the ABP (whatever that means!).
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Rebecca Stevens
(Co-Dean ABP Conference May 2011 and Acting Leader of the Conference Working Group)
Rebecca is a Business Psychologist (Chartered with the BPS Division of Occupational Psychology and Occupational Psychologist with the HPC). She currently works for TMP as a Senior Consultant on the Assessment Services team designing and developing a wide range of recruitment solutions for both public and private sector clients. Based in Manchester, Rebecca is a volunteer on the Northern ABP committee and is helping drive the growth of the ABP in the North.
Prior to private sector consultancy, Rebecca worked for DWP as an internal consultant psychologist providing services to the HR Policy teams. Rebecca’s background before becoming a psychologist was within Thomson Marconi Sonar where Rebecca worked as a project and bid manager, with military and defence customers.
Outside of the working day, Rebecca’s hobbies tend to be organising fun things, from a local book club to parties in a castle in Cumbria. And if there’s any energy left, Rebecca can be found either on the golf course or pounding the streets of Stockport running.
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Peter Burton
(Acting Leader of the Events Working Group)
Peter has worked as a consultant, mainly on people issues, since 1994 when he completed the Birkbeck Organisational Behaviour masters. He has subsequently taken a PG Certificate in Coaching and Performance Management, and a PG Diploma in coaching psychology. His current interest is how to achieve high levels of employee engagement in organisations, and passionate boards of directors.
Before becoming a consultant, Peter spent 25 years as an entrepreneur during which he was a founder of two companies, both of which he took public. He has also served as a non-executive director in a number of public and private companies, and has written several papers on corporate governance. He has served as an elected member of a local authority and as a university governor. He sees himself as a generalist on the ABP Board.
His professional memberships include the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants, the Association for Coaching, the European Coaching and Mentoring Council, and the Richmond Group. He is the owner of a consultancy, Statec Coaching and Consulting, based in St Albans.
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Dr Richard Plenty
Richard started his career as a physicist before realising that neither laboratory work nor theoretical physics were for him and what he really wanted to do was psychology. After a year spent in France teaching English and learning French, he managed to get into the masters course in experimental psychology at Sussex University before starting work with British Steel Corporation’s human factors group, where he worked from 1974-79 on job design and also completed a part time PhD on the effects of physically demanding work done in extreme conditions.
When British Steel’s group closed down in 1979 Richard joined the engineering consultancy WS Atkins to help set up a human resources development group. He worked as a human factors consultant for the power generation industry looking at the strategy for design and safe operations of nuclear power stations ( in particular Sizewell ‘B’) and as a result of this work became a Fellow of the Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors.
He then joined Shell International where he worked for 20 years from 1983 to 2003 in a variety of strategic organisation development and senior HR leadership roles in Europe, North America and Asia. He formed This Is in 2004 with Terri Morrissey as an organisation and leadership development consultancy aiming to create better organisations. His main work interests are organisation and leadership development, cultural and behavioural change, and business and executive coaching see www.linkedin.com/in/richardplenty
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Trisha Cochrane
(Acting Leader of the Membership Working Group)
Trisha is an occupational psychologist and has been a member of the ABP Management Board since 2009. She is passionate about the ABP conference and nothing, so far, has kept her away from it since 2003 because of the networking, intellectual stimulation, and great socialising.
She works as a freelance associate, mostly in assessment and development, and is registered to use a wide range of psychometric tools.
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Stephen Carter
Steve is an international management and organisation development consultant known for his provocative thinking and approach grounded in the realities of business life. Steve is CEO of Apter Development LLP, and his special area of expertise is the development of senior managers, directors and teams through a variety of approaches. He works with the top teams in organisations helping them to refine and implement strategy. Steve also makes key contributions in the areas of leadership development and performance management. Most recently he has been developing approaches to help managers and organisations better understand the nature of risk and effective responses to it.
Prior to founding Apter International, Steve was a Director of TDA Consulting, responsible for all aspects of management development. He also held the post of Head of Management Development at the Chartered Management Institute, responsible for all aspects of accredited and senior executive programmes as well as acting as an internal management development consultant on a variety of Institute activities. He represented the Institute at European level with the European Forum for Management Development.
Steve is well known for his innovative approaches and he has written four books, numerous articles and spoken at international conferences. Steve has as MSc in Occupational Psychology from the University of London and is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Steve is also a member of the Association of Psychological Science, the Society of Authors, British Psychological Society and Performing Right Society.
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Dr Stephen Benton
(Acting Leader of the Education and Research Group)
Professor Steve Benton graduated in psychology from Brunel University and joined the Acoustics Research Group at Chelsea College, University of London, on a SERC scholarship to conduct PhD research into Low Frequency Noise effects with Prof. Geoff Leventhall. He then went to University College London as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow within the Dept. of Psychology studying visual psychophysics with Prof. Michael Morgan.
Steve has spent several years researching and lecturing in cognitive psychology and various aspects of human factors, as applied to the improvement of individuals’ quality of life and performance. In recent years he has combined these elements to develop an interest in the application of psychological analyses to behavioural issues within organisations, both domestic and international. This work provided the platform for his creation, in 1997, of the first Business Psychology Postgraduate programme. As a visiting Professor to the Institute of Applied Psychology, University of Indonesia (1994-5) he conducted, with Indonesian colleagues, research into Indonesian negotiation and decision-making practices, which led to a three year British Council funded study and development programme between the universities. Stephen was awarded the title of Professor of Business Psychology, in 2009, the first in the UK. He is also the founding director of the Business Psychology Centre, which has a successful track record of Knowledge Transfer contracts and consultancy.
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Christine Miller
Profile coming soon
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