our team
Our team have many years of experience working within Music, Media, Creative Industries, Retail, Education, Commercial and Financial Services and we have come together to establish what we affectionately call our Dream Team. Together we provide all of the specialist knowledge and expertise you need as work places evolve and transform.
Michelle Emmerson
Michelle is an highly experienced Global CHRO, having held Board level positions at EMI Music, BBC Worldwide and ASOS. Since establishing Blue Monday Michelle has worked as part-time CEO at Walpole the British Luxury Alliance and MD at The Pipeline, a leading diversity and inclusion consultancy. More recently, Michelle has worked as a strategic advisor with Private Equity and Venture Capital Funds to establish People functions, complete due diligence work pre-acquisitions and supporting leadership teams through significant change and crisis management. At BMA Search she is a trusted partner to many of our clients. Michelle is an ILM level 7 Coach, Hogan practitioner and Mentor. She is also currently a Non-Executive Director at LIPA and is Deputy Chair at SupaPass.
Paul Knight
Paul has over 25 years experience working in people functions across various sectors including, outsourcing, technology, fashion retail and media. The last 15 years he has been operating as an HRD/CPO primarily focused in the media industry working for the BBC, Guardian Media and DAZN (a disruptive sports streaming organisation). His most recent experience was working at DAZN which grew from 800 to 3,300 in 5 years. He is a pragmatic business focused senior people leader able to adapt solutions to fit the organisations culture and needs.
Phoebe Richards
Phoebe is the Business Manager at Blue Monday and since joining us in 2018 manages all aspects of People and Talent including company policies, employee relations and recruitment. Assisting Michelle on business transformation projects has given her a strong insight into talent management and resourcing. Phoebe has previously worked in SME's in the private and interior industries. Phoebe helps to create, navigate and implement projects for all Blue Monday clients effectively, bringing materials and plans to life.
Jay Veron
Jay has been working within the HR field for more than 10 years. Jay has experience in areas such as employee welfare, recruitment and resourcing, talent management, employee relations and training. Jay has worked previously for Specsavers and the British Institute of Modern Music as a valued member of the People Team. At Blue Monday Jay brings his experience from a range of industries including education, health, creative arts, government and retail. Jay is a practicing meditation teacher and is passionate about wellbeing, regularly leading meditation and mindfulness in the workplace and for Blue Monday clients.
Gina McDonald
Gina is a highly experienced senior HR Executive with a career that spans senior in house roles at Diageo, British Aerospace and EMI Music and both in house and advisory roles in the operations teams of major PE houses, Terra Firma Capital Partners, Oaktree Capital Partners and Cerberus Capital Management. Having managed and advised global HR functions, Gina brings her significant experience in due diligence, mergers and acquisitions, change management, executive recruitment & remuneration and organisational design to Blue Monday.
David McClements
David is one of the UK’s leading Personal and Organisational Development Coaches who has trained numerous organisations across the world. David’s clients include Twitter, British Airways, Accenture, BBC Worldwide, New York Times, Buzzfeed and Quartz.com. From helping business teams to function more effectively or inspiring managers and sales forces to be even more impactful, David is renowned for his engaging, direct and heart-warming style and brings experience in developing key management skills throughout organisations looking to better equip and develop their teams.
Shadnoush McClements
Shadnoush offers professional immigration services at Blue Monday to overcome borders, expand opportunity, and to connect the world by practicing compassionate, visionary, and rigorous immigration law in service of the betterment of humanity. She has individually experienced the difficult process of immigration and this drives her to assist others who are preparing or are in the process of immigration. Shadnoush can give clear, honest and sound advice to clients based on their circumstances, whether you want to come to the UK to visit, work, study or even to make the UK your permanent home.
Steve Lungley
Steve is an Organisational Development and Transformation specialist and Leadership coach who architects and delivers transformational change for blue-chip private sector, public sector and not for profit clients. His expertise covers the complete spectrum of Organisational Development and Transformation, from short diagnostic analyses through to complex change delivery programmes. Steve has successfully implemented new systems, business process improvement and organisational restructuring in many organisations and continues to consult with Blue Monday clients on projects.
Gayle Cauwood
Gayle has a wealth of HR experience spanning 25 years, working within the Aviation industry, Music industry and NGO’s. Operating at senior level, Gayle has managed all HR functions, both operationally and strategically as well as building HR functions from the ground up. Gayle is highly skilled in Talent Acquisition delivering focused solutions for clients up to Senior Executive and C suite level. Focused and passionate about her roles, Gayle will add leadership and direction with bags of enthusiasm to any challenges that come her way.
Ward Atkinson
Ward is a business psychologist and Principal Practitioner with the Association of Business Psychologists. He has extensive experience in the field of learning and development, supporting organisations and enabling individuals to maximise their potential. With over 20 years psychology/psychometrics experience, Ward can provide supportive yet challenging facilitation, for either teams or individuals facing the challenge of change. He has access to a number of psychometric instruments such as the JTI, SDI, OPQ, Wave, Belbin, and 16PF.
Emma Bodiam
Emma Bodiam NEBDip PGCert MSc MIIRSMEmma is a health and safety professional with over 24 years’ experience working in a range of sectors. This varied career and range of experience from work with operational teams through to executives and board members allows Emma to offer flexible and client led support on health and safety management including auditing, training, project support and general consultancy.
Liz Newman
Liz has over 25 years of senior HR executive experience, including HRD roles with BAESYSTEMS, UBM Plc, Cubic Corp, and HCL Tech together with consultancy roles with Marco Pierre White Hotel & Restaurant Group, Eurostar, Cerberus Capital Management and Stratospheric Platforms, a ground breaking technology start-up within aerospace and telecoms sectors. Having built and lead HR functions in greenfield, SME and international corporate environments, Liz brings significant experience in change management, due diligence organisation design, executive recruitment, reward & development, policy & process implementation, employee relations and engagement to Blue Monday.
David Bowsher
David is a commercially strategic and operational senior HR professional with proven success of leading, developing and delivering successful business focused solutions across the media, not-for-profit and telco industries. He has strong communication and influencing skills and builds excellent relationships at all levels. David’s experience is across HR Strategy, Business Partnering, Talent Management, Coaching, Cultural Change, Diversity & Inclusion, Employee Engagement, Performance and Change Management.
what's important to us
We believe that:
- People are your biggest asset and biggest cost, so managing People and HR effectively should always be a business priority.
- We are all human; our wellbeing is key to our success and we are all different. Time spent effectively building relationships and managing people as individuals will result in a happier and more productive team.
- Organisations need to be inclusive; only when people truly feel that they belong, can they achieve their full potential.
- Diverse teams are more successful; they are more profitable, more creative and better understand their consumers.