Meet The Team | Mindfish

We are more colourful than your typical training consultant. In fact we don’t even think of ourselves as consultants. We are relaxed and informal and prefer not to wear suits or ties. If we were a style of music, we’d be jazz………a mix of different styles blended together to create an amazing sound, in tune with one another and the audience, reacting in the moment, changing the mood and pace to create variety and interest, in constant pursuit of a unique and individual sound, re-inventing through experience and curiosity, partly planned and partly spontaneous, it’s sometimes relaxed and sometimes it’s high energy, sometimes a bit of both, it’s tipped towards the emotional rather than the logical and never performed the same way twice

Mel Pyke - Director

Mel has over 20 years experience as a learning and development professional providing one to one coaching to corporate and private clients ranging from C-suite level to the front line, as well as facilitating groups. Holding learning and development roles in the health sector, telecoms and media before setting up as an independent in 2011, and subsequently becoming the founder and Director of MindFish Limited in 2015.

Mel is described as enthusiastic, warm and sociable. Mel is focused on getting to the root of unhelpful thinking patterns that drive behaviour. Mel’s approach is to present clients with simple ideas, pragmatic tasks and challenges that help them achieve their goals. Clients value her ability to achieve great connection and her playful, provocative and practical style.

Working for a Virgin company for the last 7 years of her employed career she continued to work with the Virgin Group as a trusted partner and supplier of learning and development services, working with Virgin Holidays and Virgin Management, the home of the Virgin brand and the Branson family.

Mel lives in Nottingham and is an avid reader of fiction and psychology. She is interested in resilience, well-being and functional medicine. She enjoys a relaxed lifestyle – cooking, meditating, walking and spending time with family and friends.

Qualifications

ILM Level 7 Certificate in Executive Mentoring & Coaching
Certified NLP Practitioner, Timeline & Hypnotherapy
Myers Briggs Type Indicator Step 1 Accredited
Situational Leadership II Accredited
IPPQ Science of Happiness at Work Accredited
TTI Success Insights Practitioner - DISC, Motivators, Emotional Quotient, DNA

Ruth Cass - Facilitator & Coach

Ruth works to improve the effectiveness, skills and motivation of individuals and teams. She has more than 10 years of experience in learning and development working successfully across public and private sectors.

Previous to this she spent 13 years in marketing and management roles. This business insight and broad sector experience enables Ruth to get underneath issues and make a real difference to the skills and abilities of both managers and aspiring managers; giving them and their teams an opportunity to thrive.

Ruth has experience in delivering global leadership and management programmes to large corporate organisations. She is a qualified corporate coach and as well as providing coaching to a wide variety of managers, also provides coaching to individuals in organisations who face neuro-diverse work place issues.

Ruth has worked with clients in HSBC, Lloyds Bank, NHS, BT, Dairy Crest, British Sugar, the Ministry Of Defence, the UK Government and Schlumberger.

Qualifications

Diploma in Corporate & Executive Coaching –The Coaching Academy
Level 5 Certificate in Coaching & Mentoring in Management – ILM
Accredited Belbin Practitioner
DISC - Certificate of Competence
PTTLS L3 (Preparing to Teach in the Life Long Learning sector) - Ascentis
Enhance Performance Strategies for Neuro-Differences in the Workplace - ILM
Member of the Association of Coaching
Member of the Institute of Leadership & Management

Ajay Bundy - Facilitator & Coach

Ajay has more than 20 years experience as a learning and development professional. Ajay has worked alongside directors and senior executives from the law, telecoms, pharmaceutical and fashion sectors, as well as the police and NHS. Her primary focus has been on senior development and strategic collaboration, also working with specific gender challenges and on inclusion.

Ajay is described as outgoing and relational. Driven by a core value to enable individuals and organisations to recognise they have choice, through deepening awareness, developing multiple perspectives and authenticity. Clients value her collaborative style and incisiveness, working alongside her clients to enable them to discover their own possibilities and choices, all the while raising awareness and encouraging them to notice patterns and themes, to explore and experiment.

With a first degree in European languages, Ajay lived and worked for four years in Rome working in international advertising with Newsweek and The Harvard Business Review. On her return to the UK, she spent 13 years in blue chip organisations, working on people development and leadership & management development in the financial and telecoms sectors at Legal & General, The Sumitomo Bank, Vodafone and Lloyds Banking Group, before moving into consultancy.

Qualifications

MSc in People & Organisation Development
MBTI Accredited
16PF5 Psychometric Tools Accreditation
Belbin Team Type Profiling Accreditation
TTI Success Insights Practitioner - DISC
First Degree in European Languages

Mark Dando - Facilitator & Coach

Prior to starting his own business in learning and development, Mark had 9 years experience in various HR and management development roles with Somerfield Stores – this included training design, management development, generalist HR and change management. In his last year with the organisation he became the ‘feedback coach’ to the then CEO.

Forthright and always willing to tackle difficult issues head-on, Mark has the ability to make people think differently and provide them with a high degree of personal challenge. Clients admire both his thinking ability and the way he can turn complex ideas into simple, practical reality. Mark has very high integrity.

He lives in Bristol with his wife and their four children and loves music, sport, games, comics, and cooking. Mark has written four books on management, leadership and well-being. Mark has also published two children’s books. In recent years Mark has become a prolific poet, and regularly performs his poems to live audiences in the Bristol & Bath area.

Qualifications

Nicola Pilgrim - Facilitator & Coach

Nicola has 20 years of experience working as a counsellor, counselling supervisor and facilitator. During this time she founded and ran her own charity whose aim was to give free counselling support to the hardest-to-reach and most disadvantaged members of the Nottingham City community. In her role as CEO she was responsible for growing and promoting services as well as negotiating contracts. During the 10 years it ran, the charity helped almost one thousand people obtain counselling. In the last 2 years, Nicola has successfully transferred her skills into the world of business coaching. She works with clients to encourage the exploration of core values, beliefs and behaviours. Her career is deeply rooted in the person-centred modality of working. She believes that this way of working nurtures personal and professional growth, empowerment and autonomy and is a large factor in clients feeling understood, held and supported. Nicola is described as combining empathy and directness, curiosity and active listening and encourages authenticity and empowerment with her clients. She works with them to reach a stronger self-awareness and a clearer knowledge of their goals, strengths and development areas. This leads her clients to feel enabled and confident in moving forward. Clients value Nicola’s excellent observational skills, her humour, enthusiasm and thoughtfulness.