Programme & Application Details
Information including programme overview, venue and more
ILM Certificate
If you are interested in completing the ILM Certificate, please read this section.
Facilitator Profiles
Rachel McGill
Rachel is the founder and Director of Sunray 7, a leadership development consultancy specifically focussing on the concept of ‘Resilience’. Clients 2006 to Present include the following: BT, Unilever, UK Government (MOD), Dytecna, Orange UK, Interserve, Sentebale, Maria Grachvogel fashion House, Barclays Retail, Various Schools and Universities.
After leaving School Rachel joined the Army and for the next 8 years undertook jobs ranging from logistics management of United Nations warehouses in Angola to breaking the world record for the fastest drive around the globe. Her "last post" involved managing a team of 30 people and travelling to some weird and wonderful places procuring equipment and supplies for overseas exercises.
In 2000 and after a break for children (two in two years) Rachel became a Director of a small consultancy. It specialised in ‘Leading Change', helping leaders at different levels within organisations cope with and lead others through uncertainty and change.
Rachel has worked with groups of post-graduate researchers for over 15 years. Her role as tutor and then as Director of Research Council funded development programmes, has meant that she is very experienced in building the confidence and capability of post-graduate researchers, to complete their studies and to differentiate themselves from people of equal academic merit. In short she has helped hundreds of post-graduates become more employable!
Jeremy Mead
Dr Jeremy Mead is founder and Director for Norfolk Light (www.norfolklight.com) a business dedicated to excellence in leadership development coaching. He works with organisations across the globe, designing and implementing innovative leadership programmes and coaching people in senior positions. Prior to setting up Norfolk Light, Jeremy worked for Unilever as Vice President for Leadership Development. This followed a career starting in Research and including many operational and strategic leadership roles within the global business environment.
Jeremy has a PhD in physical chemistry, microemulsions, neutron scattering, light scattering and solar energy conversion. He joined Unilever Research to set up and run a group working in food emulsifiers and was an industrial supervisor for 4 PhD’s.
He started working in the area of postgraduate personal and career development in 1987 and 26 years on is still going strong. He has tutored on and directed over 15 Graduate schools and designed and directed several programmes on developing entrepreneurship for postgraduate students.
Heather Duff
Heather is an experienced career and personal development professional highly committed to developing others and helping them reach their potential within their careers. She has a Postgraduate Diploma in Personnel Management (Distinction) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling (BACP qualified). Heather has a background in training and development within business as well as higher education experience as a Careers Adviser and skills trainer. Heather graduated from St Andrews and undertook a series of HR and training roles within the NHS and the charitable sector. As a Careers Adviser for Edinburgh University she worked as part of a team to embed career development activities within the curriculum as well as providing bespoke careers workshops and one-to-one guidance sessions to undergraduate and postgraduate students. She is currently a freelance consultant providing career coaching and delivering career and development workshops to postgraduate students and researchers.
Annette Mac Artain-Kerr
Annette is a UKCP registered psychotherapist with additional training in CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator). Annette works with PGR students to maximise their personal effectiveness through delivering training on the Postgraduate Researcher Development Programme. She also tutors in systemic therapy to postgraduate students at Queen’s and is particularly interested in applying therapeutic principles into organisational settings. These ideas underpin the 1-1 consultancy service Annette offers to PGR students. Prior to training as a therapist Annette spent a number of years in education, teaching and teacher training across a variety of levels and age groups. She completed an ACCA postgraduate diploma in Accounting & Finance with the dual purpose of enhancing her management skills & developing her business and language training. As a trainer in this context she has worked with executives from Ireland & overseas as well as at undergraduate level. She has extensive management experience in education as well as in the voluntary sector.
Heather McGregor
Heather has a degree in Sociology and a Masters Degree in Human Resource Management. She has worked for several large employers in the Retail and Voluntary Sectors specialising in learning and development and organisational development roles. Heather has been involved in leadership training in Cancer Research UK where she developed programmes at Executive Board level. At Save the Children she developed innovative management and leadership programmes which supported the charity to achieve an award for best charity to work for in 2008. She has been working at Queen’s University for two years and is responsible for the management of the Postgraduate Researcher Development Training Programme. She is currently developing the ILM Certificate in Leadership for postgraduate research students and is focused on supporting such students to acknowledge and achieve their potential.
Aisling Harkin
International and Postgraduate Student Centre Development Officer. BSc., PhD. Aisling currently leads and manages the Centre’s information team, is involved in the facilitation of enhanced student experience projects, administers the postgraduate experience surveys, as well as coordinates and delivers training on the Postgraduate Research Enterprise Excel and Postgraduate Taught Training Programmes.
In her previous role as a NICENT teaching fellow, she developed, embedded and delivered the Enterprise Curriculum model across several disciplinary areas in addition to coordinating and supporting a wide range of social enterprise and entrepreneurship extracurricular initiatives. Her career to date in the higher education sector spans a decade and she has had the opportunity to work on the British Council China/UK entrepreneurship programme, Queen’s-Shenzhen Joint University Foundation in Management Programme, as well as participate on the Babson Symposium for global Entrepreneurship Educators hailing from around the globe. She has previously taught in China, volunteered in Uganda, studied in America and represented Queen’s in Malaysia’s International Teaching and Learning Conference as well as the Irish Network for Teachers and Researchers in Entrepreneurship.
