Ann Akers

Focus

Ann has over 20 years experience of working at Board and Executive level. Her interest is in “success through inspirational and effective leadership”

Ann works as a Leadership Development Facilitator with top teams on strategy development and consults on leadership, performance management, team dynamics and organisational change programmes. In addition, she will help to embed coaching techniques within the organisation she is working with.

A qualified and experienced coach, she brings commercial reality into coaching sessions when required. Her recent coaching assignments have been at CEO, Director and Senior Management level within Financial Services, Publishing, Technology, Construction and the Public Sector. Her core values are integrity, passion, courage, innovation and confidentiality.

Background

Most of Ann’s career has been in Financial Services and she worked for Zurich Financial services until 2003. She became a member of the UK Executive and Board in 1992 with responsibility for HR, Corporate Marketing, Communications, Legal, Corporate Planning and Data Management. During this period she managed the HR aspects of a major acquisition, designed and implemented an integrated HR strategy which included executive and senior management leadership programmes, graduate schemes, performance management and a succession planning strategy.

In 1995, she became Managing Director of the Zurich UK Personal Insurance Business. Ann worked with her executive team to reverse the trend of shrinking premium whilst maintaining profitability. In 1998, they won Personal Lines Insurer of the Year.

In 1998, Ann was appointed Managing Director of Zurich’s Strategic Partnerships business. She led and conducted a review of two loss making businesses, integrating them, retaining key clients, returning to profitability and ultimately improving employee satisfaction by 33%.

Ann left Zurich in 2003 and joined Cofunds as a board member with responsibility for business development. During her time at Cofunds, Ann led and implemented a strategic review of distribution taking a segmented approach to the market resulting in a new client facing structure and culture.

Ann’s last role before moving full time into coaching and leadership consultancy was managing a large transformation programme for a large Financial Services company. This included leadership development, coaching programmes, technical and management development, culture change programmes and retention and succession planning strategies.

Expertise

Ann is an experienced Leadership Development Facilitator, an accredited Executive Coach with The Leadership Trust and is also a tutor on their leadership programmes. She has a diploma in Coaching and is currently studying for a Masters in Coaching and Mentoring. She is a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council and abides by their code of ethics. She is also co-author of The Challenge & Insight Portfolio.

And Finally…

Ann AkersIn her spare time Ann enjoys live music and theatre. She is also a keen skier and golfer. Ann raced in the 2003 Fastnet.

She is married with one son and lives in the New Forest

Contact Ann