Vyla Rollins, Testimonials from Past Clients

Client Testimonials
Roger Cato Managing Director, British Airports Authority, London Gatwick Airport	Bob Stringer Partner, Mercer Delta Consulting Group, LLC. Former Faculty Member, Harvard Business School
Valerie Tomlin Head of Organisation Development, R & D, Glaxo Wellcome SmithKline	Bill Shannon Former Managing Director, Whitbread Restaurants Group
David Bradley HR Director, Ernst & Young	Terry Morgan Former Head of Organisation Development, Shell UK, Currently Associate Partner, Dialogos Consulting
Janet Biggs Trading Director, New Look (Retailers)	Chris Johnson Global Practice Leader, Towers Perrin
Rupert Symons Partner, Stanton Marris Consulting.	Tom Clark Head of North American Logistics Organisation, Diageo
Maureen Smith Former Training Manager, Reuters USA, Partner, Mayfair Consulting	Jon Collins, Director, QTC Consulting. Former Project Manager, Performance Management Barclays, London
Alan Cohen Vice-President, Robinson Lerer & Montgomery Strategic Communications LLC	General Manager International Educational publishing company, USA
Greg Worrell President, Scholastic Library Publishing, USA	John Burnard Independent Management Psychologist, London
Joe McCarthy, Former Operations and HR Director for Barclays Premier Banking. UK. Currently Director of Human Resources, Capital One Global Financial Services, USA	Karen Boylston, Senior Manager, Boston Consulting Group, USA
`Barbara Delano Regional VP of HR SSM Health Care St. Louis, USA`	`Senior UK Civil Servant Central Organisational Development Role`
`Rachel Sandby-Thomas Ex-Director of Tax Law HM Revenue & Customs`

Rupert Symons Partner, Stanton Marris Consulting	“When I started consulting back then I thought I knew it all. When I met Vyla, I realised I knew very little... she can establish credibility and authority within minutes of meeting a client for the first time, and goes on to build rapport by exercising some of the best process skills I have ever seen. She uses her experience in a variety of consulting firms and elsewhere to balance this process mastery with solid business knowledge. As a result her consulting work has impact, and her clients actually change things”

Terry Morgan Former Head of Organisation Development Shell UK. Currently Associate Partner, Dialogos Consulting	“Vyla is insightful about 'what's going on here', and is able to articulate her diagnoses in unambiguous terms. She builds robust relationships quickly, and is able to readily gain the attention and confidence of senior managers. She is engaging with clients at all levels, and is appreciated for her directness, and ability to express things in an uncomplicated way. Her respect for, and openness to, different ways of thinking and doing things, her willingness to engage with members of another culture on their terms, and her ability to envisage new possibilities for making a difference, enable her acceptance and achievement of successful outcomes for the client."

Valerie Tomlin Head of Organisation Development, R & D, Glaxo Wellcome SmithKline	“Vyla combines an enthusiastic style with a rigorous and highly professional approach to her work and always "holding your feet to the fire" by challenging you to be accountable for your commitments and achievements. She holds clear boundaries around her expectations which provides challenge, and she was very focussed on helping me to develop my sense of my own unique talents, knowledge and expertise which can be used to good effect when working as a process consultant with leadership/executive teams. Vyla also shares her incisive insights and her theoretical knowledge, and by being a mirror she challenges some of my deeply held assumptions and beliefs and where relevant shares alternative perspectives. She approaches her work offering leading edge perspective versus standard models that are simply implemented regardless of the situation."

David Bradley HR Director, Ernst & Young	"Vyla undertook a significant culture development project whilst I was HR Director for BAA Heathrow. I valued her strategic viewpoint combined with her ability to achieve quick wins in order to progress complex issues. She was highly effective in managing a diverse group with differing needs and was very successful in getting to the heart of the issue whilst managing client expectations and understanding peoples’ thoughts. Her style is one based around outputs, high energy and enthusiasm, challenge. Her client base is broad and she has worked with partnerships as well as blue chips. She has a great ability to assimilate and blend into diverse cultures whilst hitting the ground running and achieving quick wins as well as ensuring a strategic view is taken. Vyla’s challenging but non confrontational style was a key benefit and her ability to 'on line’ coach senior people on a one-to-one basis was of great value. I would highly recommend her for complex and high profile projects.”

General Manager, Educational publishing company	"Our management team was having difficulties working together effectively. Vyla created an excellent interview instrument, conducted thorough and thought provoking interviews with each member of the team and then devised a program which allowed all of us to understand the obstacles we were creating to prevent effective communication. She also prescribed some very helpful going forward strategies to keep communications working. This experience was a real breakthrough for our management team and we have substantially increased productivity.

Alan Cohen Vice-President, Robinson Lerer & Montgomery Strategic Communications LLC	"Vyla, as a seasoned professional, taught me a lot about organizational effectiveness and how it related to training, a new area for me. Professionally, she helped me to navigate both the big issues and the small – in my previous role she coached me as I designed and ran a large strategic meeting, fraught with intricacies as well as sharing her insights, with honesty, and compassion. I learned from Vyla every day. She helped build my confidence, and to become aware of my blind spots. She is a true leader, who is not afraid to speak her mind, take on big challenges, and who delivers results. Her amazing work ethic, intellectual curiosity, and sense of humour are just some of her standout traits.”

Bill Shannon Former Managing Director, Whitbread Restaurants Group	"When you are putting together what you hope will be a high performance team to address a very clear burning platform (when nobody truly knows each other) the choice of consultants in terms of any cultural change programme is absolutely critical. Vyla was one of two people we worked with back in 2000/01 in order to honestly face up to what we had to do and most importantly how we would all have to change our behaviours and leadership impacts. She especially worked hard to get to know us as individuals and to ensure that at all times we felt confident in giving of our best and putting across our inner selves. At times her personal demonstration of what great leadership looked like what was pretty inspiring. Looking back, the whole enabling leadership workshop was the foundation stone on which our current business is built and more importantly is still providing the ammunition and ability to change our business ever faster for the better."

Bob Stringer Partner, Mercer Delta Consulting Group, LLC. Former Faculty Member, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration	"Vyla is a great partner to work with in client situations that require hands-on small group facilitation. She knows what she's doing, and has the maturity and presence to "connect" with a wide range of executives."

Chris Johnson Global Practice Leader, Towers Perrin	"Vyla is a talent who brings a different and often unexpected perspective to sensitive client situations that enables both client and colleague to breakthrough apparently unresolvable problems. She helps people to define and take on their challenges, often involving navigation of the edge of their comfort zones. I think of her as an emotional guide who is also grounded in organizational reality."

Janet Biggs Trading Director, New Look (Retailers)	"The coaching program I underwent with Vyla was not only of great value for the duration but has continued to enable me to perform more successfully in my role. We worked closely to define objectives for the program and successfully tracked progress, including feedback from those around me. Vyla’s depth of knowledge and experience made it easy to trust and respect her inputs and challenges. Coaching has definitely helped me develop and be more successful at undertaking new challenges such as being promoted to Trading Director from Merchandising Director and taking responsibility for a new area (Marketing) this year."

Maureen Smith Managing Director, Mayfair Consulting and former Training Manager, Reuters, USA	"Working with Vyla is a dynamic experience. Vyla brings a passion and intensity to her work which inspires those who work with her; she has a talent for quickly getting to the heart of an issue and offering her own unique perspective. I find her enthusiasm and energy revitalizing, resulting in best practice solutions for her clients."

Jon Collins Director, QTC Consulting and Former Project Manager, Performance Management, Barclays Bank	"Working with Vyla proved to be a valuable lesson in honesty, Integrity and objectivity, especially when things didn't go quite to plan. A true partnership at work! She brought a degree of realism to our project which is not often seen in the world of consultancy. The traits I valued then, as I do today, are her loyalty, honesty, and integrity. Working with her was a complete pleasure."

Tom Clark Head of North American Logistics Organisation, Diageo	"A great two days. We couldn't have gotten nearly as far as we did without Vyla…"

Roger Cato Managing Director, British Airports Authority, London Gatwick Airport	“She helped our team focus on the issues of the day. She provided the lubrication for our thought processes and her understanding what makes people tick is scary. We made more progress than we could possibly have anticipated and above all it was fun."

John Burnard Independent Management Psychologist	"Vyla engages wholeheartedly with people and their issues. Her thinking is never merely dry or dispassionate, so that despite her robust professionalism she is trustworthy and generous. This approach makes it easy for others to feel safe with her and to feel well-supported should they need to challenge their own assumptions. She has a lot of varied experience to draw upon - cultural, educational, professional and psychological - so that she cannot be type-cast.”

Greg Worrell President, Scholastic Library Publishing, USA	"Vyla has been an invaluable resource for me in defining best practices for organizational effectiveness. She is a strategic thinker who goes beyond theory to help with execution."

Joe McCarthy Former Operations and HR Director for Barclays Premier Banking. UK. Currently Director of Human Resources, Capital One Global Financial Services, USA	"Vyla is an organizational alchemist! Her consulting interventions enable her clients to connect the dots between organizational and business issues. Leveraging her background, she is an adept change manager who rapidly moves her clients through their personal change curves. The result is a team prepared and emboldened to drive significant organizational change. As a coach, she transforms an executive's intentions into tangible and actionable deliverables"

Karen Boylston Senior Manager, Boston Consulting Group, USA	"Vyla offers clients a unique value proposition experience in helping clients address both the business and people issues their organizations face during change. Her approach combines systematic strategy alignment & execution processes supported by expertise in coaching senior leaders for rapid behaviour change."

`Barbara Delano Regional VP of HR SSM Health Care St. Louis, USA`	"`Vyla's insight, guidance and direction was very helpful with my Senior Team. She worked with the team to develop structure for the meetings and consensus building techniques. She also was very effective with executive coaching."`

`Senior UK Civil Servant Central Organisational Development Role`	"Vyla is a joy to work with. Her passion and commitment to helping you and your organisation shines through. She always seeks to understand, never judges and offers the most fantastic insights into what you are doing personally and how that might impact on the work you are doing. I have learnt so much from working with her, that's not always been comfortable, but you know sshe will always help you through that learning process. I'm not there yet but she's certainly helped me on my journey of becoming a more effective leader which can only be good for me, my team and my organisation! Thank you Vyla!"

`Rachel Sandby-Thomas Ex-Director of Tax Law HM Revenue & Customs`	"I have worked with Vyla in two capacities: one in putting together an intervention for the SCS reporting to me in a past position and in a coaching capacity. Vyla impressed me in all aspects of putting together the workshop: her interpersonal skills are strong and her senses acute. She quickly picked up on issues and tensions coming from the top team and skilfully wove her way around them to get us all to where we needed to be. The design of the day was subtle and effective and it achieved its aims.The impact from the day has endured. She is also an energiser and I was surprised and delighted by the enthusiasm she managed to muster from the SCS cadre. I have also been coached in a personal capacity. She is everything I could wish for in a coach: challenging while supportive, straight talking and perceptive, warm and good fun. I feel as if I have already learnt a lot from her in a safe and supported learning environment"