Ian Gourlay

Co-founder of Actif4, Consultant and Business Coach

Ian is an expert catalyst for raising leadership impact, strategy delivery and change. Working from the UK and engaged by clients across a dozen countries, Ian has a 24-year track record as a coach, facilitator and consultant in these fields. His engagements are characterised by lasting relationships and helping organisations and their people to succeed in what are often very challenging circumstances.

Prior to his consulting and coaching career, Ian spent 13-years with General Accident, now part of Aviva plc, where he gained rich experience in senior management and hands-on knowledge of change – leading it and dealing with its impact on others – through multiple mergers and acquisitions.

Ian is also Managing Director of specialist consultancy Initiate, which is focused on Leadership, Change and Collaboration. Initiate works across multiple sectors and has wide international experience of operating across continents and cultures.

Ian has an MBA, is a Chartered Insurer and found the spark for much that he has been doing in his career when completing his MA (Hons) in International Relations & History. That spark was in seeing potential in the distinctiveness of individuals and often-competing cultures to do great things when they commit to a shared endeavour.

e: jen.jenkins@actif4.com

Dr Jen Jenkins

Business Psychologist, Consultant and Executive Coach.

Jen specialises in empowering her clients to live a psychologically informed life that enables them to thrive. She supports organisations to be more human, futureproofing themselves in our increasingly uncertain and complex world.

Jen’s work as a consultant has been built by combining her academic background in Psychology with over ten years’ experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries culminating in roles as International Director in the areas of Commercial Operations and Learning & Development.

As a consultant for the last eleven years, Jen has worked with clients in over twenty-five countries and has specialised in sustainable leadership. Partnering with clients to help them strengthen their resilience, employ a growth mindset and create psychologically safe cultures where leaders have the bandwidth to lead and everyone is capable of making their best contribution.

Jen has worked with CEOs and senior leadership teams across a wide variety of sectors including, financial and professional services, pharmaceutical, biotech, oil & gas, food & drink, luxury brands, travel, business consultancies and higher education. Jen has exceptional interpersonal skills and is known for her ability to build strong relationships and bring warmth and humour to her work.

e: andy.shephard@actif4.com

Dr Andy Shephard

Change Leader, Consultant and Coach

Andy is an accomplished and experienced leader, having led teams in start-up companies as well as large multinationals for both local and international roles across a wide range of industries. During his operational leadership career, he discovered a passion for developing others by removing barriers to their success so that they can step into leadership roles with confidence, presence, and influence.

He has experienced the pressures and challenges facing today’s leaders which drives his enthusiasm for leadership development by increasing leadership resilience, self-awareness, desire to effect change, and by working in partnership enable individuals, teams, and organisations to flourish. He understands the importance of innovative and results oriented development to assist today’s leaders to achieve their goals and continue to deliver business outcome.

Andy has lived and worked in five different countries and regularly interacted with people from over forty nationalities, which has allowed him to excel in complex multicultural environments. If you catch Andy outside of work, you will find he is an adventurous traveller, thirty-four countries and counting, as well as being an avid fan of multi-stage, self-sufficiency ultra-marathons.

Andy is extremely enthusiastic about lifelong learning and holds a PhD, MSc, and B.Eng. (Hons) across a range of technology related areas as well as several programme/project management certifications.

About The Actif4 Network

Meet the team and find out a little more about our leadership and change network and how we work together.

Who we are

The Actif4 Network is a team of highly experienced business leaders, coaches and consultants who share a passion for bringing people through the transition into leadership and making lasting change for our clients.

UK based and with extensive global experience we each run other businesses; Initiate, Executive Function and HighQ Coaching – each providing rich and current learning that in turn we feed into Actif4.

What we do

Actif4 offers leadership development to your key players and your high potential managers predicted to be the leaders of the future. We design programmes that deliver:

Individual and organisational growth
Assured and accredited assessment through our Leadership Programme
Enduring high performance and value creation
Real-time development of the succession of your organisation

The demand for effective leadership has never been greater. Becoming a skilled leader is a continuous process of development and experience, coupled with understanding new insight and ideas. Increasing self-awareness helps form better relationships and enables people to not only become more effective at their jobs but also develop into the leader they want to be.

Our programmes are based on leadership, change and practical application, helping deliver a depth of insight with the power to transform individual and organisational effectiveness.

The Team

Ian Gourlay

Co-founder of Actif4, Consultant and Business Coach

Dr Jen Jenkins

Business Psychologist, Consultant and Executive Coach

Dr Andy Shephard

Change Leader, Consultant and Coach

Andy is an accomplished and experienced leader, having led teams in start-up companies as well as large multinationals for both local and international roles across a wide range of industries.