Clarion Learning - Who we are

Joanna Brill is a Singapore based consultant for Clarion Learning. As a qualified coach and trainer she delivers programs for Clarion Learning clients in Asia. She has a passion for working with people to facilitate positive change and create opportunities for self directed learning. She currently has an extensive client roster covering personal and corporate sectors.

Joanna graduated with an Honours degree in Business Studies from Plymouth University. She then embarked on a 10 year career as a marketing communications professional culminating in a Marketing leadership role with a financial institution in the City of London. After a short career break she moved to Singapore and immediately embarked on her new career in business and executive coaching. She has successfully certified as a coach and is currently focusing on building her capabilities through the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

Joanna challenges clients within a supportive environment and provides a rich source of encouragement and support to grow confidence and performance. Her key area of professional interest is in working with individuals and teams, helping them to meet fast changing industry needs.

Joanna is British and continues to live and work in Singapore with her husband and 2 children. She looks forward to further exploration of Asia and thrives in the great environment Singapore offers.

To speak with Joanna call ++65 9119 4007, or e-mail:
joanna.brill@clarionlearning.com.au

Christine Choy - Senior Consultant

Christine Choy is a senior consultant at Clarion Learning and Director of Choy's Human Resource Consultancy. She was formerly a senior consultant in the Hong Kong Productivity Council. Christine is closely involved in providing HR related consulting services and facilitating management development workshops and seminars. She is an Associate Fellow and Executive Committee member of the Asia Knowledge Management Association and Steering Committee member of Total Quality Forum.
Christine worked for 6 years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited where she held a managerial position in the Human Resources department. Through various positions she took up in the bank, she has developed a depth of experience in a full range of Human Resources activities. Her significant experience in training and development and performance management for executives in the bank helps her to deliver leading edge consultancy projects for her clients.
Christine is very familiar with HR and management practices in Australia and PRC as she has 6 years of local working experience in these countries prior to joining HSBC. She is also knowledgeable about the working mechanism of the public sector as she had held official positions with the Hong Kong SAR Government and the ICAC of Hong Kong. This experience has helped her become an effective project leader for organizational development projects and interventions for government departments.

Christine's main area of professional interest and experience is in designing and implementing learning interventions and psychometric instruments that help international organizations to develop their global competence and support the achievement of strategic goals.

Christine is a Chinese national. She and her family live in Hong Kong. Christine speaks English and Chinese (Putonghua and Cantonese).

To speak with Christine call ++852 9304 6174, or e-mail:
christine.choy@clarionlearning.com.au

Mike Cook, Senior Consultant

Mike Cook took over the position of MD and senior consultant with Clarion Learning in 2006. He develops and delivers programs for Clarion Learning clients in the area of international leadership and team development. Mike facilitates organizational learning interventions and group processes and coaches global executives and expatriates.

Mike left the UK in 1991 with a degree in Law (LLB) from Nottingham University. Mike's career has taken him to France, Australia and he has spent the past ten years living in Germany. Over the past 15 years Mike has had the opportunity to work with people and organizations from across Europe, the United States, South and Latin America, Russia and South-East Asia. He has worked in various training and development roles and led programs on communication skills (sales, negotiation, conflict resolution), intercultural management and communication as well as team and leadership development.

Mike is passionate about his own ongoing personal and professional development. He is certified as an Intercultural Professional through the Intercultural Communication Institute ( www.intercultural.org ) and as a MBTI Practitioner (Step 1 and 2) through OPP. Mike is accredited to administer the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and the Belbin Team Roles instrument. He is currently participating in a training and accreditation program to develop his skills as an executive coach through the International Coach Federation (ICF). Mike's main area of professional interest and experience is in designing and implementing learning interventions that help international organizations to develop their global competence and support the achievement of strategic goals.

Mike is British and married to a German national. He and his wife live in Geelong with their two young daughters. They are looking forward to travelling widely and rediscovering the Australia they left ten years ago while bringing up their family in a truly multi-cultural environment. Mike speaks English and German.

To speak with Mike call +61 3 5222 7083, or e-mail: Mike.Cook@ClarionLearning.com.au

Hamilton J Cruz, Senior Consultant

Hamilton J. Cruz is a corporate consultant and cross-cultural trainer with business experience in range of areas from import/export to HRD. He develops and facilitates business negotiation, presentation, and cross-cultural communication skills training programs in Japan. Hamilton has had the opportunity to hold staff positions as Managing Supervisor and Senior Corporate Consultant. He draws from these experiences to promote intercultural competence through learning and development.

Hamilton is a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent who became interested in intercultural relations when he first moved to Asia. While working in Thailand, he witnessed a series of communicative misunderstandings which had an adverse effect and interfered with daily operations and client satisfaction. In 1993, Hamilton moved to Japan and observed similar communication based occurrences relating to HRD. He began his investigations of intercultural communication to assist corporate alliances and inter-organizational rapport.

Hamilton has a Master's in Economics and Policy Analysis (2007) to enhance his capability to analyse structural paradigms. He also has an Intercultural Foundations Certificate from the Intercultural Institute in Portland, Oregon (2003). Yamanouchi Pharmaceuticals, IBM Japan, NTT, Microsoft Japan and Dentsu are some of the companies for which Hamilton has conducted cross-cultural training and facilitated international management development programs.

Hamilton Cruz has been affiliated with SIETAR, Japan (Society of Intercultural Education and Research) for a number of years. He was appointed SIETAR Japan Newsletter Director and Steering Committee member from 1999 to 2004. Hamilton is married to a Japanese national and has two children. Hamilton is proficient in Japanese, and has an understanding of Thai and Spanish. He currently divides his time between the United States and Japan.

To speak with Hamilton call ++1 505 202 0193 or e-mail: hamiltonjcruz@clarionlearning.com.au

Cameron Houston , Senior Consultant

Cameron Houston is a Melbourne based organisational development consultant specialising in executive effectiveness. Across Asia-Pacific, he consults to individuals and teams to improve their performance in the areas of leadership, teamwork, communication and career management and he provides executive coaching for senior business leaders.

Cameron's experience working with organisations ranging from SMEs to multi-national corporations spans more than two decades. He has senior and general management experience with two of Australia's best-known companies, has held both line management and strategic roles and participated in the design and implementation of significant organisational and cultural change.

Cameron holds a Bachelor of Commerce, a Master of Business Administration, as well as being a certified master practitioner and trainer in Neuro Linguistic Programming. He is qualified to administer the MBTI, Genos EI, LSI, Leaderskill 360, and HBDI.

As an educator Cameron has taught Leadership and Change Management to Executive MBA students for over 6 years at the Australian Graduate School of Management. Today he is a Program Director in Executive Education at Melbourne Business School.

Cameron's approach to facilitation draws on contemporary and leading edge theory but remains firmly grounded by his real-world commercial experience. His style is to bring energy and enthusiasm along with proven frameworks and disciplined processes to the teams and individuals with whom he works so that they can successfully draw on their own skills, experiences and creativity to create lasting personal development and performance improvement.

To speak with Cameron call +61 3 5222 7083 or email: cameron.houston@clarionlearning.com.au

James Leong Chan Foo, Senior Consultant

James Leong is senior consultant at Clarion Learning and founder and master trainer of Visions.One Consulting Pte Ltd. He brings to his clients and participants more than 18 years of financial, management and training experience. Prior to becoming a professional training consultant, he managed the finance, administration and human resources functions in Asia Pacific for a US Fortune 500 company as regional financial controller. James received his chartered accounting training with KPMG in Singapore and Australia and practised as a certified financial planner with a Manulife Financial. As a chartered accountant, James achieved distinction for achieving the top 5% of results in his professional accounting examinations in Australia.

James is an adjunct professor with National University of Singapore and teaches at the Faculty of Law. He designs and delivers customised training programs for international clients, government ministries and statutory boards. He has facilitated workshops for international participants including senior management from China, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Dubai, Egypt, South Africa, Europe, UK and USA. His extensive experience in serving diverse clients from both the private and public sectors enable him to clearly understand organisational issues and participants' learning needs in an international and multi-cultural context.

James creates seminars on financial analysis, money management and other management programs including teambuilding, communication and presentation skills. His forte is in making complicated concepts simple, interesting and intuitive for learners. As a result, participants consistently rate his seminars fun, dynamic, learner-centred and highly effective. He is an accredited MBTI Administrator and a certified Master Practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

James is Singaporean and lives with his family in Singapore. He is passionate about public speaking and has competed successfully in numerous speech competitions. In the Year 2000, James emerged as Toastmasters International Pan South East Asian Humorous Speech Contest Champion. James speaks English, Mandarin and Cantonese.

To speak with James call ++65 9673 3693 or e-mail: james.leong@clarionlearning.com.au

Dr Man Lee Paul, Senior Consultant

Dr. Man Lee is a senior consultant at Clarion Learning and Emeritus Consultant at Choy's Human Resource Consultancy. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has a B.A in Government and Public Administration from Nanyang University in Singapore, an M.A. in Political Science from University of Connecticut in the USA and a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Honolulu University in the USA.

Paul has been working almost 30 over years in multinational corporations and traditional overseas Chinese businesses as CEO and other senior positions and began his career with tough and generalist training in the Singapore Government as AO. Dr Man Lee has acquired tremendous practical experience in the fields of Marketing and Sales and Strategic Management. He has also worked with reputable consulting firms such as McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group in various consulting projects as a local partner or conducted independent research and mentoring projects.

Six years in Audi AG, the international automobile giant, as in-house International Training Consultant for dealership strategic development projects and creative marketing management training for dealership general managers and sales managers all over China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South East Asian markets has given him vast experience in helping clients to develop creative marketing schemes and build up strong entrepreneurship. This experience has enabled him to translate western value systems to the eastern culture and vice versa. Paul not only delivers excellent training and development interventions but provides consulting and personal mentoring services to his clients. His training style is very impressive and has named by his other professional counterparts as "entertaining with hands on practical knowledge".

In recent years, Dr Man Lee has focused on training and development for the automotive and financial services industry for companies such as Audi, Daimler, General Motors, Prudential, Nan San Life and many others in marketing management, corporate culture studies, and strategic management. Paul has also taught EMBA courses at Tsinghua University, Fudan University and Tongji University.

His most recent focus is his teaching and training based on Sun Tzu's the Art of War and he has developed a number of practical and effective training modules in communication and persuasion, selling strategy, selling skills, strategic life management, business strategy and operations.

Dr Man Lee, a Chinese Canadian, has recently moved back to Hong Kong after living in Canada. As a Cantonese who has lived and worked in Hong Kong and China for many years, he speaks fluent Cantonese and Mandarin and perfectly understands the people and life in Hong Kong and China.

To speak with Paul call ++852 6580 6746 or e-mail: drlm97@clarionlearning.com.au

Kerryn Velleman, Senior Consultant

Kerryn Velleman is a Melbourne based organisational psychologist providing targeted performance consulting, executive coaching and leadership development solutions to organisations.

With over seventeen years experience in facilitating the development of individuals, teams and organisations, Kerryn has worked across the telecommunications, financial services, retail, manufacturing, health, biomedical research, hospitality and professional services sectors with companies ranging from local businesses to global corporations. Kerryn has established a track record in coaching executive, senior and front-line managers in Australia and the Asia Pacific region and in delivering leadership development and team interventions to support change management initiatives. Her work has been firmly anchored in both psychological research and practice together with her commercial experience in project management, instructional design, consulting and line management.

Kerryn has developed coaching and mentoring programs to develop high potential leaders and has designed performance management and development planning systems to facilitate the implementation of culture change programs for organisations undergoing transformations.

Working for one of Australia's largest insurance companies, Kerryn project-managed a leading-edge recruitment, selection and mentoring strategy that attracted and retained high quality recruits to the financial services industry. As Learning and Development Manager for a global financial services group, Kerryn formulated and implemented the people and leadership development strategy to achieve challenging performance targets within the organisation's four-year transformation program. Kerryn has facilitated assessment centres to generate an executive talent pool for one of Australia's largest retailing groups and has designed and facilitated public leadership forums across Australia for women leaders working in blue chip organizations, the public service and community groups.

Kerryn holds an Honours degree in Psychology and an Honorary Fellowship at Melbourne University's School of Behavioural Sciences and is registered as a psychologist. She is accredited to administer the MBTI (steps I and II), the Lifestyles and Group Styles Inventories (LSI and GSI), the Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and the Neethling Brain Instruments (NBI). She has completed levels 1 and 2 of the executive coaching program through the Australian Institute of Executive Coaching.

Kerryn's approach is dynamic, challenging and pragmatic, ensuring that every interaction with her clients is goal-directed and solution-focused. Her strengths in managing complex projects, facilitating group dynamics, and coaching demanding executives have enabled her to build a highly credible reputation for delivering sustainable behaviour changes and performance results.

To speak with Kerryn call ++61 401 716346 or email: kerryn.velleman@clarionlearning.com.au