Director

• Honours Degree in Food Science and Post Graduate Diploma in Food Marketing
• 25 years experience in a range of Sales and Commercial roles in FMCG Blue Chip companies as well as 17 years experience as a Partner in FXL
• Works both nationally and internationally involved in developing and delivering “Change management” type programmes for clients in Ireland UK, Asia, Africa, Europe, USA, and the Middle East including Unilever, Lantmannen Unibake, Greene King and Imperial Tobacco
• Bringing a focused approach to embedding capability and cultural change to organisations and individuals is at the heart of this work within the our client base

Facilitator

• Honours graduate in Agricultural Chemistry from The Queens University of Belfast
• 30 years industry experience in sales and marketing and leadership roles; experience gained in a variety of roles from Territory Sales Representative and Field Sales Manager through to Sales and Marketing Director, and since September 2000 as Managing Director of Facilitating Excellence (Ireland) Ltd.
• Leadership approach is about Empowering Individuals; Helping People and Businesses fulfil their potential. This approach is evident in all of the client work FXL perform.
• The industry experience gained as employee, director and now performance facilitator has been augmented through significant personal development work in the areas of coaching, business strategy and culture development and transforming performance.
• Advanced Diploma in Personal Leadership and Executive Coaching and practitioner of 3 Principles Coaching

Facilitator

• MSc in Food Agric Business Development (published in leading journal), BSc Retail Distribution Management, Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing (CIM), Postgraduate Certificate in Coaching (Henley Business School).
• 20 years successfully operating at senior leadership level in Ireland’s largest food and ingredients company, Kerry Group. Led a cross geography commercial team of 175 personnel across 11 locations, managed Ireland’s largest food brand, led a cross function team in embedding SAP, played a lead role in 2 business integrations, led 2 major business transformation projects. Recognised within Kerry for ability to build high performing teams.
• Through Executive Coaching and Leadership Development work, passionate about helping leaders develop an authentic ‘way of being’ that inspires others to follow. As a Lumina Learning Practitioner involved in global projects helping individuals and teams transform and develop new critical success behaviours.
• Completing a MSc in Coaching and Behavioural Change at Henley Business School in May 2018. Co-writing conference paper and speaking on conflict resolution at the European Personal Construct Psychology conference in the summer of 2018.

Procurement & Buying Consultant

• Rob is our retail guru! His roles have included store management to merchandising, senior buying to customer insight, Executive to the Tesco Commercial Director and a senior HR director reporting directly to Tesco’s Chief People Officer. Rob worked for international companies such as Marks & Spencer, Whitbread, Sainsbury’s, Nielsen and Tesco. More recently Rob has also been working with global companies such as Balfour Beatty, Barclays and Deutsche Bank.
• As a senior HR Director, Rob established and led the Tesco Global Commercial Learning Academy, Tesco Global Leadership Academy, as well as the Barclays Compliance University and Deutsche Bank Compliance and Regulatory Education Academy. He was instrumental in re-writing and launching the Tesco Values and global staff competencies, as well as the Global Commercial Competency framework for all levels of employees from entry level to director level. He is an avid supporter of diversity; instrumental in the launch of Out at Tesco, Women in Construction, School Leaver and Apprenticeship programmes and the 5% Club.
• In 2011 and 2012, Rob was awarded the Tesco CEO Global Award twice for his commitment to people development and learning – where he created the Tesco Global Director Fast Track Programme, Tesco Non-Executive Director Programme, Tesco Leaders of the Future; as well as bringing learning into the 21st century through learning apps, online learning, Out at Tesco and OurTesco.com.
• Rob has presented extensively both at internal and external retailer conferences including Nielsen, IGD, Retail Week, Training Journal and Richmond Events Conference on subjects such as Emerging Talent, Engaging Learning, Coaching, Category Management, Ranging and Retailer Strategy Updates.

Operations Manager

• Graduated with an honours Degree in Travel & Tourism Management.
• Worked in Phoenix Arizona before returning to Belfast to begin work for Santander.
• Moved onto an office role working for a leading Northern Ireland youth charity, Challenge for Youth. Responsible for all administration and finance including payment role, consolidation of invoicing and other key tasks.
• Mairead joined FXL in 2014 as Account Executive, responsible for supporting the Facilitation team from an operational perspective.
• From 2016 became Office Manager and now deals with all Administration and financial aspects for FXL, both locally and supporting its international business.
• Responsible for the operation and financial management of key clients to ensure the smooth organisation of both the internal office but also the operational interaction with our client base.

Retail consultant

• Declan has over 25 years experience in the grocery retail industry both as a retailer and a sales manager. He began his retail career with Dunnes Stores where he gained invaluable experience of both grocery retail management and the Northern Ireland grocery retail market.
• Following his time with Dunnes Stores Declan entered the FMCG market as Sales & Marketing Manager with the Bite Group based in County Fermanagh.  This business supplied a range of fresh convenience products to a broad range of grocery retail customers, the travel industry and international coffee chains including customers such as Dunnes Stores, Henderson’s Group, Musgraves, Jet 2, Irish Rail, Compass Catering and Starbucks. This role involved key account management, managing a field sales team and developing sales & marketing strategies aimed at developing new business for the company.
• In 2009 Declan purchased a SuperValu business based in Derry city.  For the past 12 years he has been managing and developing this business in a challenging grocery retail environment which has seen the double digit growth of discount retailers and multiple chain responses to sales and market share losses. In 2020 he purchased a Mace Forecourt business in Sion Mills, Co.Tyrone and has gained added experience in fuel retailing, off license and high convenience retailing. Declan has also completed a Master of Business Administration degree at the University of Ulster.