Allow us to introduce ourselves
- or rather, each other!
Although a huge part of our ethos focuses on celebrating our own successes and being proud of our achievements, we know this can be tricky - and we are also focused on women supporting each other and building each other up.
So, we decided that rather than talking about ourselves, we would take the opportunity to introduce each other and talk about each other’s strengths, skills and achievements - so you can hear first-hand what we are both like to work with, in case you are thinking about joining us, coming along to one of our events or signing up for training, coaching or mentoring with us.
Helen Sandford-Taylor
Helen runs her own consultancy, helping organisations and businesses develop strategies to differentiate themselves and grow successfully. As an Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) level 7 qualified leadership coach, and Fellow of the ILM, she works with senior executives using positive psychology and strength based coaching to help them become inspirational leaders. She develops and delivers training on a range of topics for the businesses she works with and she is also an experienced mentor through her experience as a people manager and through volunteering with Chwarae Teg .
Helen had a corporate career of more than twenty years, including time spent as a senior management consultant in London where she primarily worked with investment banks. Latterly she worked in Head of Strategy and Planning roles in financial services and most recently the public sector.
Helen is fantastically supportive and encouraging of those around her and as committed to other people’s development as she is her own. She is also great fun to work with and never fails to make me laugh when we are working together. Her greatest strength is her ability to see the big picture and link things together to find a way through a challenging situation. She has a great knack of bringing a different perspective to things and helping people to see things in more positive ways.
When Helen first sounded me out about starting a network together, I jumped at the chance to work with her again.
Helen’s ability to balance work and personal life has always inspired me and I’ve also learned a lot about strategic thinking through working alongside her.
Family is really important to Helen and she is a brilliant and very fun Mum to her three children. They love adventuring outdoors and enjoy camping and travelling abroad, including skiing. Helen is also a keen golfer.
Hannah Poulton
Hannah is a portfolio marketing director, working with ambitious small and medium-sized businesses to help them achieve growth through a strategic approach to marketing. She regularly delivers training to people within the businesses she works with and is a coach, mentor and trusted advisor to several business owners. She is a Non-Executive Director for the Welsh Cycling Union and sits as a lay member on the professional conduct committee for the British Chiropractic Council. She volunteers as a magistrate and as a lay member for NHS Blood and Transplant.
Hannah has corporate experience of more than 20 years, mostly in financial services marketing roles, where she led large and small teams and always enjoyed developing and mentoring people.
Hannah is great to work with, extremely diligent and also exceptionally loyal to her colleagues and staff. Most importantly she has a fantastic sense of humour and even when having some of the toughest days at the office she could always be relied upon to make me smile. Whilst we work well together, I also consider Hannah to be a great friend. She is always fantastic company.
When I first had the idea of setting up a network I knew I wouldn’t do it alone and so Hannah was the obvious choice. I’m so glad she wanted to work on it together as she immediately started to make it happen. That’s what she is like, she just makes things happen and she makes it look easy at the same time. She has a great understanding of people and that is what makes her so brilliant at communicating.
In her spare time Hannah loves to get out in nature with her number one best furry friend, her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Stanley. She is also a very keen runner and has been working hard at improving her personal bests over different distances. Pre-pandemic, Hannah was an avid traveller for both summer destinations and her skiing trips.