Jon is the director and principal consultant at Ascent.

His background involves a 25 year business career and over 30 years practice as a facilitator of leadership development. Before you do the maths, there was a considerable overlap.

He joined Procter & Gamble straight from university and worked on the industrial cleaning side before leaving for a long career in publishing.  He took with him a superb grounding in how businesses work and how commerce is done. In the publishing world, Jon specialised in export sales and ran an overseas division whilst still in his twenties.

In 1988 he was sent by his MD in the consumer magazine industry to the Leadership in Management programme at the Leadership Trust to finish his preparation for a promotion that would otherwise have resulted in his ‘being eaten alive’.  As luck would have it, he did not get devoured by his new direct reports – although they were pretty fierce – and was selected to return as a visiting ‘tutor’. His invitation from the Trust’s founder David Gilbert-Smith is framed in his office.

In 2002 Jon enrolled on a year long coaching programme under Adrian Gilpin at The Institute of Human Development and launched Ascent after qualifying. He has been dedicated full-time to the ‘difficult and mysterious’ work of individual, team and organisation-wide leadership development ever since.  He further qualified as a coaching supervisor under Professor Peter Hawkins in 2009.

The Leadership Trust continued to play a large part in his life and he served as a course director, coaching supervisor and, latterly, the Head of Training & Development.

Now, in collaboration with many colleagues, he is focused on taking the philosophies and practices of the Trust to their limits of effectiveness to meet head on the gathering storm confronting organisational leadership.

Jon has worked across all sectors and in many countries.  Highlights include coaching at The Financial Conduct Authority, Lloyds Development Capital, The Charity Commission, The HIV / AIDS Alliance and LCH Clearnet.  A selection of his leadership development work includes programmes with The European Central Bank, Caesar’s Entertainment, Charles Tyrwhitt, Gulf Petrochemicals Industries (Bahrain), Secure Meters (India), Kosovo Special Court (The Hague), Government of Gibraltar and The Health & Safety’s Nuclear Directorate.

Jon is a recent, proud and awe-struck grandfather. Outside his family, his most powerful passions are for photography and Liverpool FC.