At our Illuminet Town Hall we set out exciting plans to double the size of our company over the next two years. To achieve this, we will be making a number of organisational changes and I am delighted to announce our new Exco which will come into effect from the 1st of November this year.
John Opsblum, Dave Smith, Anna Soo and Kit Neal remain on Exco with John leading Sales and Growth, Dave as CFO, Anna leading our US Business and Global Dynamic Workplace Practice, and Kit growing our development capability and Products as CTO.
To hit such an ambitious target, it is essential that we have a team that can bring expertise and experience and a fresh look at our business and the challenges ahead and with this in mind the following people will be joining Exco;
- Amanda Cooper – Amanda is an experienced senior leader with extensive business knowledge including in Public Sector.
- Darren Trussell – Darren joined us earlier in the year, bringing energy and expertise across a number of areas. Darren’s experience in consulting, RPA / AI and Data are invaluable.
- Deb Edwards – Following a number of years working with Illuminet as a NED, Deb will move to a full-time member of the team.
Who are the newest additions to the Exco?
After being a client of Illuminet for over 12 years, Amanda joined Illuminet in October 2021 following her successful career in forensics and subsequently as CIO at Thames Valley Police and Hampshire Constabulary. Whilst in policing Amanda led delivery in digital policing and organisational transformation, both within her own organisations, and nationally across the Police Service, with her contributions and achievements being recognised in 2014 with an OBE.
Her background, a blend of leadership and executive roles in the Private and Public Sector, makes her an experienced strategic leader with strong commercial acumen. She has an aptitude for analytical thinking – successfully developing, communicating and delivering vision, strategy and change to achieve highly effective service outcomes. Her extensive experience of Organisational Transformation is underpinned by her successful roll-out of new technologies driving change and value, whilst coaching and supporting individuals and teams to buy in and embrace new ways of working. Amanda is passionate and excited to bring her experiences and learning into Illuminet and its clients to support their improvement, innovation, transformation and growth.
Darren joined Illuminet in early 2021. He has extensive global experience over many years in leading organisations across Consulting, Telecoms, Technology, Software and Financial Services, with a focus on Digital Innovation and Transformation using Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in recent years. Subsequently, he built a specialist consultancy focused on RPA / AI.
Darren is accountable strategic client relationships, where he has already built strong trusted client relationships. In parallel he has expanded and taken on the leadership of our RPA / AI and Data Practices, bringing solutions and outcomes to ensure our clients’ needs are exceeded.
Darren has boundless energy and a drive to exceed clients’ expectations.
After working with Illuminet since 2012 (both as a Client and Consultant), Debora joined Illuminet in early 2019 as our NED HR Director and latterly CPO (Chief People Officer). Her main expertise has been in advising clients on Organisation Design and Change Management and delivering major Transformation.
As a seasoned HR and Programme Management professional, Debora has, over a 15-year period, held various senior HR roles within professional services, consulting and more recently in Banking. Since 2008 Debora has been advising clients within the Retail and Private Banking Sectors on organisation design and has led international Change Management programmes where impacted employee groups ranged from 90 to 5,000 employees (UK and Internationally).
Debora has managed internal and external teams; both contractors and consultants to deliver activities for HR, Organisation Design, Change Management and Communications. We recognise that implementing a new operating model affects people, clients and services. At Illuminet as part of our OCM Practice, led by Debora, we have developed a People Change Toolkit to support any business with Organisation Design and People Transformation which will ensure any programme is delivered effectively with minimal impact to your business.
The first task of the new Exco will be to refresh our business growth plans, looking at new markets, growth opportunities and investments we may wish to make to accelerate this. I am looking forward to working with our new team and I am sure you will join me in wishing them every success.
Greg Wood, CEO
