A collaborative consultancy
Jen Smith
Founder & Head Interesting person
Music graduate (trumpet & piano before you ask), Coach, Mentor, student, British Wheelchair Basketball Table Offical, Mum, appreciator of great cake, lacking kneecaps, also answers to ‘Brown Owl’, ‘Table’ and ‘the Netwalk lady’
Associate Directors & Very Interesting People
Dr Iain Price
Neuroscientist, executive coach, presenter, wearer of waistcoats
Dr Iain Price is a neuroscientist, executive coach, and all-round people person. He’s fascinated by how people think and how people apply their thinking – and how we can bring that thinking to work to make our businesses better.
Iain’s worked in all sorts of sectors, presented for the BBC and has delivered training and coaching (plus a whole load of other learning) to corporates, individuals and young people.
He’s also rather fond of scuba diving, climbing, cake, his 3 young adults (most of the time) and is exactly the same age as Jen.
Liz Walker
Executive coach, faciliatator, lawyer. millener, wearer of neckers
Liz Walker is a lawyer turned executive coach – and also runs two more small businesses in her ‘spare’ time. She loves facilitating conversations, coaching and helping people get through what’s getting in their way.
Liz had a long corporate career mixing law, leadership and change management before establishing her coaching practice.
She’s a Freeman of the City of London (need to get some sheep over Tower Bridge? – she’s your lady), Trustee & committee member for the Scout Association and takes other people’s children abroad for fun.
Associate Interesting People (in no particular order!)
Diane Secker
HR specialist
Diane is an HR Consultant and has a particular interest in neurodiversity, accessibility and inclusive recruitment & retention.
Based in St Albans, she regularly Netwalks with Jen and is a volunteer at her old school – leading their career development programme
Cathy Hart
vocal, performance & confidence coach
Cathy helps people use their voices to really tell their story. She leads several choirs and is a vocal health first aider.
She also brings lived experience of chronic illness, neurodiversity, overcoming adversity and the love of a good sing!
Andy Barden
linkedin coach & social media guru
When not consuming Hobnobs at an alarming rate, or carrying home his latest Lego purchase, Andy trains and ghost-writes for people on LinkedIn. He’ll also copywrite for everything else – as long as you want it true to you and not full of generic fluff.
He’s neurodiverse and dad to 2 boys with their own complex needs. And a puppy. And a clothing business which Jen is hugely proud to support.
Andy Gray
graphic recorder, illustrator & memory whiz
Andy has the most amazing ability to listen to, summarise and draw what’s being said at lightning speed – whether that’s at a conference, in a meeting or on a podcast.
He illustrates in a variety of styles and brings pens, paper and loads of energy wherever he goes.
Deb Knight
creative & design specialist
Deb is Jen’s go-to creative designery person. She can unravel thoughts, ideas and the vaguest of creative briefs and turn them into designs that make you wonder how she extrapolated that from your ramblings.
She’s married to Graham (see below) and they live down the road from Iain.
Lou Plunkett
accessibility queen
Lou and Jen work together on The Lilac Review with Small Business Britain.
Lou is visually impaired and helps organisations make a real impact on social media in a truly accessible way. She’s also able to assist Jen with accessibility audits.
Rarely to be found without Michael, her cane, Lou and Jen share a love of saying things how they are and bright pink tops.
Graham Biggs
websites, digital & business strategist
First and foremost, Graham is tall. Proper tall.
He’s taken on much of the website work that Jen was doing in her DigitalJen era – and is now our go-to for website development.
Married to Deb (see above), he’s not just a brilliant digital and business strategist, he’s also a County Councillor, Basketball coach (if he and Jen get talking on basketball, grab a brew and come back in a bit – they’ll still be talking) and two years ago, hand reared a sparrow.
Laura Pointer
project management, process, procedure & data analyst
Jen’s known Laura for longer than either of them care to admit. Suffice to say Jen was Laura’s Guide leader and between them, over the years, they’ve set fire to all sorts.
Laura trained as a musician then headed for a career in teaching before turning to all things data and project management. Her biggest brag is saving a company £2million in 10 minutes by wrangling the data in a new way.
Another neurospicy individual, she’s also a coach, dog rescuer & trainer, singer and coffee snob.
Kerry-Sue Peplow
Jen’s VA – miracle worker, chocolate brownie appreciator
Kerry-Sue is Jen’s VA and all round miracle worker. She helps Jen manage her diary, workload, keeps her accountable and is our central point of contact the entire team.
Formally box office manager of the RSC, she created the relaxed performance experience for Matilda the Musical and through lived experience, knows all too well the battles neurodiverse and disabled entrepreneurs face with ‘the system’.
She’s assisted by Rosie, the West Highland Terrier whose responsibilities include protecting Kerry-Sue from ‘threats’ (magpies and the postman) and keeping calls to what she believes to be the correct length.