Meet the team
The Mind Gym is the sum of all its fascinating parts.
As well as the dedicated teams in both London and New York, we have a wealth of experts who bring everything to life. From our network of coaches who deliver our services, the academics who keep the psychology rigorous, to the leaders driving it all – meet the team.
Leadership team
The leadership team is responsible for ensuring that The Mind Gym delivers on its mission:
To help people use their minds more effectively so that they get more out of life and give more to others.
And its three core values:
- Clients are delighted.
- The integrity of our service is beyond question.
- Every interaction is stimulating.
Octavius Black
CEO
Octavius co-founded The Mind Gym in 2001. He also leads The Mind Gym’s CSR programme, ‘Parent Gym’, which provides free parenting courses to parents and children in deprived parts of London and Ireland. Octavius co-authored the three Mind Gym books.
Sebastian Bailey
President, The Mind Gym Inc
Sebastian is President of The Mind Gym Inc., having co-founded The Mind Gym in 2001. He is the co-author of numerous articles and has written three books, including the international best seller ‘The Mind Gym: Wake your mind up’.
Spencer Forrest
Head of Client Team
Spencer Forrest joined The Mind Gym in 2010 as the Head of the Client and Client Service Team. He is responsible for the teams managing client relationships, serving and delighting clients, quality of delivery and improvement, and commercial efforts of
the firm.
Liz Lacovara Saunders
Head of Solutions
Liz joined The Mind Gym in 2011 as Head of Solutions, the team that develops our pioneering products and services as well as the case studies that prove the unequivocal demonstrable business value of The Mind Gym’s offering.
David Roberts
Non-executive Chairman
David is a non-executive director and chairman of the board risk committee at Lloyds Banking Group Plc and is chairman of The Mind Gym Ltd. He is also an Advisor to the NSPCC & a member of the Strategy Board of Henley Business School.
Academic board
Keeping the content up to date, rigorous and useful is The Mind Gym’s lifeblood.
The Academic Board was created to guide The Mind Gym’s in-house psychologists. These critical friends challenge and inform The Mind Gym’s thinking on topics varying from personality profiles to measuring impact.
The role of the board is to:
- Advise on the overall integrity of what The Mind Gym offers.
- Highlight new thinking and fresh approaches that The Mind Gym should consider.
- Adjudicate the annual prize for original psychological research.
Professor Guy Claxton
Professor of Learning Sciences at The University of Winchester
Professor Janet Reibstein
Professor in the School of Psychology University of Exeter
Professor Michael West
Professor of Organisational Psychology, Lancaster University Management School
Professor Cary Cooper
Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University
Coaches network
The Mind Gym workouts are run by qualified Coaches with a wide range of experience and interests ranging from conflict resolution in Sierra Leone to writing feature films.
All our solutions and services are delivered by our global network of qualified coaches. Wherever your business, whatever your need, we’ll provide a coach to suit your company’s style.
Here’s a selection of coaches from the global network. Contact us to find out more.
Anisha Kaul
Anisha works as an executive coach and learning and development consultant. She has worked with organisations in the finance, retail and public sectors including Shell and The Singapore Ministry of Defense.
Jessica Chivers
Jessica has a first class psychology degree from Stirling University and previously worked for Waterstones and Whitbread in people and culture development.
Karen Sigalas
Karen comes from a 7 year background in Management Consultancy in Change Management. She recently set up her own practice as a professional coach, working with investment bankers.
Simon Rollings
Prior to joining The Mind Gym, Simon worked in corporate procurement in senior purchasing positions. Since qualifying as a coach, Simon has undertaken more than 1,000 workouts for a diverse range of clients including the BBC, GSK, M&S, Microsoft, Nike and RBS.
Chirag Jain (CJ)
As a management consultant, Chirag has worked in the IT, Leisure, Telecoms, Wealth Management and Financial Services sectors. He also has experience working with Coca-Cola and Unilever.
Noel Woodgate
Noel worked at Xerox for over 18 years. He qualified to work as a Coach with the Mind Gym in 2005 and has delighted participants at BT, Curry's and Whitbread.
Stephanie Hopper
Stephanie has over 14 years experience working with Thomson Reuters. She has worked extensively in both the financial services and media industries.
Tracy Gunn
Tracy has been a Mind Gym coach since 2005, working with clients such as Accenture, BP, BAA, GSK, Nike and Sainsburys; in locations from Gatwick to Tokyo. She now runs Internal Academies for clients and helps to train new Coaches in the network.
Caroline Laycock
Formerly a consultant with Accenture, Caroline has been a coach since 2010 serving a wide portfolio of clients from Harrods to Home Retail, British Gas to BC Partners. Caroline is also a Parent Gym coach and runs the induction training programme for volunteer coaches.
Helen Hambleton
Helen is an organisation development and HR professional, having spent 12 years in the Pharmaceuticals and Charity sectors. She is an accredited executive coach and spends her time between consulting, coaching and training. She has delighted participants at O2, BUPA and Thames Water.
Giorgio Carnesecchi
Giorgio has been an international trainer, coach and consultant since 1995. A very versatile trainer, he has delivered many different programmes that range from sales skills to creativity, team building to public speaking and many others. He has a scientific and technical background. Giorgio is trilingual and delivers in English, French and Italian.
Grant Bosnic
Grant is an executive coach, facilitator and leadership enabler based in Japan. With a background in philosophy, psychology and communication, he has worked with organisations throughout Asia in the finance, pharmaceutical and retail sectors including Barclays Capital and Abbott.