Who we are

For better or worse, these are the guys you will be dealing with if you ask us to work with you.

Roy Childs, Managing Director of Team Focus, is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and, like many other senior staff members, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. He has been working in organisations at senior levels for more than 20 years and the main thrust of his work involves developing capability and building relationships – usually in a leadership context. Roy has helped select board members for blue chip companies and works both as a coach and facilitator. He combines a developmental approach with the rigour of strong numerate and psychometric approaches to understanding people.

His reputation in this area means that he was asked to serve as a member of the British Psychological Society’s Standing Committee on Test Standards as well as serving on the committee for the BPS's Division of Occupational Psychology and as a Level B verifier.

John Gosling is a chartered occupational psychologist, a qualified clinical psychologist and a former associate fellow of the British Psychological Society. He has more than 30 years experience in the field of applied psychology. For much of this time, John was at the University of Hertfordshire where he became Head of Occupational Psychology.

Since 1996, John's work has been devoted largely to software development in the field of automated assessment and, via his consultancy firm, Real Need Software, he is now responsible for all software and IT development at Team Focus. He also contributes to psychometric test development and data analysis, particularly in relation to Team Focus's Profiling for Success online assessment system.

Rosemary Facer is a Chartered Educational Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the BPS. Working as an Educational Psychologist for the past 24 years brings a richness and depth of experience to her field of work. She has worked for a number of Local Education Authorities in their Schools Psychological Services and has also worked closely with colleagues in the Child and Family Guidance Clinics.

She has experience in the educational assessment of children from pre-school to late adolescence as well as the adult population who also seek advice on issues related to learning and adjustment. Prior to becoming an Educational Psychologist Ro worked as a teacher in a wide variety of settings including special needs children, difficult to manage children, and mainstream secondary education.

Rosemary now works across both the educational and occupational divisions of Team Focus. Her educational role involves working with children with learning difficulties, behavioural difficulties as well as those with high ability and considerable learning potential where she offers services from tailor made assessments of individual children or adults, management and educational advice to parents and in-service courses to school staff. The setting for assessments is flexible. Her occupational role involves bringing her wide experience of tests, feedback and counselling to Team Focus training courses and consultancy.

Mark Parkinson is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the BPS. He has extensive experience in consulting with blue chip companies at all levels. His particular expertise is in the use of psychometric assessments linked to career development; as well as competency profiling, test design & development and implementation. Mark has also been involved with integrating competency based interviewing with other psychological measures in assessment centres, and as part of recruitment programmes.

In addition, he has considerable experience in delivering training programmes with psychological or psychometric content - in particular to careers advisors and HR & training practitioners. He also develops on-line training materials and is involved with ‘blended learning’ projects for a number of UK universities.

Mark joined Team Focus in 2003 to work on a major project for aircrew selection and training. He is also involved in the in-depth assessment of ‘high-fliers’ for selection and career development, and contributes to the development of the Team Focus’ Profiling for Success product range.

Gillian Cross has a broad range of experience within the training arena in sales, marketing and course logistics. She joined Team Focus in 2002 and is now Client Development & Support Advisor, involved with advising clients by telephone and in person and supporting their needs. Gillian is the primary contact for all course and product enquiries. .

Elvira Botta joined Team Focus in April 2006 as Book-Keeper/Administrator. She is the initial point of contact for all orders of test materials and also deals with customer queries and support. After completing a degree in English Linguistics and English and American Literature in her native Switzerland, Elvira moved to England in 1989. She then worked as a German conversation teacher and freelance translator for several years until she qualified as a book-keeper in 1997.

Linda Paxton Linda Paxton joined Team Focus in March of 2007 as Support Co-ordinator. She has an extensive background in course procedures and support roles and has brought that valuable knowledge with her to enable us to continuously raise the standard of materials and support. Linda is the primary contact for all matters relating to attendance on our training courses.

Klaus Dietze Klaus Dietze studied Psychology at FU West-Berlin and at UCSD San Diego between 1969 and 1974. He then worked as Marketing Manager for a North-American publishing company. After that he was European Representative for an English publishing company before he became Communications Manager for an international Steel Company. In 1982 he became self-employed as a consultant and has been one of the Team Focus partners since its founding.

As a consultant Klaus specialises in two areas:

1. Assessment, Selection and Training in association with Team Focus
   
   
2. Well Being, Workplace Health Promotion, Substance Abuse and Employee Assistance Programmes through his own company CONCARE CONSULTING based in Schwelm, Germany.

In April 2002 Klaus was approached to become Managing Director for the largest supplier in Europe of doors and other equipment to the motorhome and caravan industry. This is a manufacturing company based in Iserlohn, Germany and it was facing financial difficulties. Between 2002 and 2005 Klaus managed to turn the company around which allowed him to appoint a new MD whilst retaining a part-time role in guiding the company’s strategic direction. This means that, since 2006, he has resumed his consultancy work with Team Focus.

Tricia Owen is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and has been working as a psychologist in a variety of different roles for 30 years. Tricia joined Team Focus in 1989 and is delighted to work with clients to help them achieve their business objectives in the wise use of ability and personality assessments. She is also involved in Team Focus’ consultancy work which includes designing high level assessments, job analysis and organisational development.

Globally she has worked in the USA, Far East and city of London bringing a competency-based approach to the recruitment and management talent. Her early background was as a manager with British Airways and Logica.

Janet Newman is an Occupational Psychologist who is involved in Assessment, Training and Development. She tutors on psychometric training courses, works at in-depth Assessments, contributes to Assessment & Development Centres as an observer/assessor or manager and also writes exercises and simulations. She is also involved in facilitation, feedback and counselling.

Debra Hall

All of us have the opportunity to meet some very special people in our lives. One of these for me has been Debra Hall – and when I say special, I mean really special. I first met Debra when she joined us at Team Focus in 1999. Nearly 10 years later not only has she been an exceptional employee (and who latterly became a director as well) – but she became a good, good friend and was the rock I could always count on for advice and support. In fact, Debra was one of those people who support others. She was the archetypal mother. She put other people and good relationships at the centre of her world.

Debra lost her life in a fire at her home on Sunday 28th September 2008. I cannot begin to say what a loss she will be to us at Team Focus but even more importantly, what a loss she will be to her family. Just like with us, she was the centerpiece of her immediate and extended family. I always looked at how she had such a good relationship with her husband and children – it was a model for us all of love, care and humour. Through my tears I can still see her bright eyes and smile and have no way to understand why she has been taken from us. We here at Team Focus are distraught and want to extend our thoughts to keep her memory alive. She was one of those good people who shines beyond herself and I cannot begin to think how much her family and we all will miss her.