I’ve had some incredible experiences as a trainer and coach!

A starlight trip into the Yemeni desert by jeep

A stay at a spare palace with gold plated escalators in Brunei

A riverboat trip through the Ukrainian countryside and exploring the glorious gold domed churches of Kyiv

Visits to the underground water cistern and covered bazaar of Istanbul

Delivering workshops in the former German railway headquarters in Cologne in a room called Zeppelin

Eating flaming fruit in a restaurant in a ruined hotel in Gabon

A trainee in Jersey explaining the reason he was late back from lunch – he’d taken off his watch to wade out to check his lobster pots and had lost track of the time

Looking forward to the next adventure

Philippa Hammond

I used to be a member of a full-time training unit, with L&D manager and admin team.

Since then I’ve worked a variety of contracts with organisations that no longer maintain an L&D unit.

Instead, they engage associates, contractors or outside events to deliver their training needs.

I don’t own a car any more but I’ll rent a small or larger car or a van depending on what’s needed when, and return it to the rental company. It feels like organisations are more likely to ‘rent and return’ a trainer for particular jobs now.

The huge change is that now there’s a wealth of online DIY learning opportunities – videos, podcasts instruction manuals and ebooks, webinars etc.

And subject matter experts (who, if they’re lucky, will get a train the trainer course) may be tasked with passing on their knowledge to their peers.

So are corporate trainers obsolete – or the concept of the trainer as full-time employee?

Will we all eventually be freelancers?

Philippa Hammond

Are you getting critical feedback about your public speaking? It can really tank your confidence!

I had my own crack-and-break moment in front of an audience way back when – and I use my bad experience and my solutions  now to help my clients feel, look and sound better when they stand up to speak.

Three quick tips to help you make a great impression:

🌟If you’re planning a PowerPoint, remove as much text as possible and replace with pictures. We respond to images plus the spoken word, and that combination will help your message land well.

🌟Consider your posture, hands, feet, eye contact, smiles … how you choose to look to the audience will help them feel comfortable with you.

🌟Slow down. We all speed up when we’re nervous, which makes it harder for audiences to follow along. A slower more measured pace helps them understand and trust you.

✋What’s your biggest worry around public speaking?

🤗I’m here.

Philippa x
Confident Public Speaking skills for leadership, management and business

How did you come to do the thing you love to do now? I’m on an interesting journey and I bet you are, too.

The first half of my Civil Service life, I was an immigration officer, working shifts on the control at Gatwick.

I most enjoyed passport forgery detection – and one day, a colleague invited me to assist him in a presentation to new trainees, showing examples and chatting about forgery and counterfeiting. This led to travelling abroad to train airline staff. And I was hooked.

In parallel, my partner and I were also involved in the Brighton and Edinburgh theatre scene, creating and performing shows.

Then the big leap – I joined the newly expanding training unit at Gatwick in response to a huge recruitment drive.

One Certificate in L&D Practice later, I was now a full time L&D officer, learning my trade with daily practice.

Down in Brighton, we were now involved in film making, too.

And when the offer of an attractive redundancy package was made – I took it.

Now? Everything combines. 

I blend my acting, voice and screen experience with my corporate training, coaching and leadership skills to train Confident Public Speaking, Train the Trainer, Leadership and Employability skills for business.

What’s your story?

Philippa x