At Always Consult we pride ourselves on delivering the highest quality of service and professionalism to all our clients. That’s why we work with people, such as our senior associates below, who offer experience, skills and knowledge in a wide range of areas and subjects.
Roddy Christie
Managing Director
After a degree in Modern History, Roddy started his working life as an Army Officer. He rose to the rank of Major with his final job being developing the management practices of military headquarters of all sizes who were deploying on operational tours. Since leaving the military Roddy has undertaken a number of roles in the UK and abroad as an Operations Manager in Africa, a Commercial Director with a global team and a Managing Director of an apprenticeship training company. Roddy set up the apprenticeship arm of Always Consult in 2017 with Bill Kawai-Calderhead. As Director of Apprenticeships he was responsible for running that arm of the business and leading the team that developed our level 3, level 5 and level 6 apprenticeship courses. Roddy took over as co-owner and Managing Director of Always Consult in May 2023.
Tony Lloyd
Head of Delivery
Before joining the industry, Tony held senior positions within the footwear / sports fashion retail sector of which he joined straight from leaving school via the Youth Training Scheme (YTS). Tony currently has over 19 years’ experience within the apprenticeship sector after joining as an Assessor to his current role today as Head of Delivery and Performance. Having worked at two of the UK’s largest Apprenticeship training providers managing varied apprenticeship provisions across many different vocational subject areas during this time. Tony believes in always striving to bring out the best in people in order to further enhance their own skills-set and to enhance their own careers and that of others in order to excel at what they do. Tony’s main objective as Head of Delivery is for the whole team to strive for a higher standard of operational delivery across all areas of training delivery and to continue helping people become the best version of themselves.
Nasreen Latif
Head of Quality
An energetic leader, with 20 years’ experience of Operations and Quality management in the Apprenticeship sector. Nasreen has worked in independent training providers and further education colleges and has a passion for promoting and delivering high quality learning and development. She believes in the development of others to maximise opportunities, promised based management and is solution focused on achieving aspirational outcomes.
Nasreen has extensive experience working in all aspects of managing the apprenticeship provision including management of skills coaches, curriculum planning, quality assurance, compliance monitoring and keeping abreast of the funding rules and regulations. She has been involved in various Ofsted inspections, external audits and inspections and possess a clear understanding of each framework. As Head of Quality, Nasreen’s role is to lead on all aspects of quality assurance.
Michael Harper
Head of Technical Services
Michael’s role is to help Always Consult’s back office to run as smoothly as possible, and to ensure that the company uses technology to its best advantage, translating business needs into practical and cost-effective technical solutions. Although he specialises in data analysis, data migration, databases and web application development, he has worked in a wide variety of roles, from teaching English to company directors in Barcelona, to developing a specialist digital CCTV application.
Ian Bedelle
Commercial Director
Ian is Always Consult’s Commercial Director and has over 25 years’ experience within the education sector and workforce development. Ian qualified as a career development specialist after university and has developed the Career Development Professional (CDP) apprenticeship programme at Always Consult.
Ian is responsible for strategically developing the commercial side of the business and overseeing its operational implementation, including supporting a growing team of skilled professionals with assessment, delivery and focused quality processes.
Ian’s mission in the next five years is to raise the profile of the company, through growing its varied education and health specialist programmes of learning across the UK and focused international markets.
Ian is also the Chief Verifier for OCR covering careers guidance qualifications. .
Bill Kawai-Calderhead
Head of Clinical Leadership
Bill originally failed to get into medicine and, instead, became an Army Officer at 18 years old. Some 10 years later he decided that he actually really wanted to be a doctor and retrained. Bill did his Foundation Programme at South Tees NHS Foundation Trust where he completed the PGCert MedEd. With South Tees and Always Consult, Bill produced a specialist clinically-focused Level 3 Standard Apprenticeship, the first of its kind in the UK. Bill has presented his projects nationally and won several prizes including Trainees in the Association for the Study of Medical Education (TASME) Young Educator of The Year Award. Bill is the Head of Clinical Leadership at Always Consult. He is passionate for inclusion of clinical leadership and management within the medical training pathway to ensure doctors are prepared for their roles and strives to ingrain this into the clinical workplace.
In May 2023, Bill took over as co-owner and director of Always Consult with Roddy.
Sheila Henshall
Head Associate
Helen Birchall
Business Manager
Helen is Always Consult’s Business Manager, bringing with her over 25 years of experience in administration, together with sales and marketing. Helen is responsible for overseeing business operations across the company to ensure efficiency, working on both the commercial and apprenticeship wings of Always Consult.
As well as running the administrative and HR side of the business, Helen is a member of the Senior Leadership Team, working with her colleagues to achieve the goals and objectives of Always Consult, and in the process support our customers to reach peak performance.
Claire McKelvie
Client Relationship Manager
Claire is Always Consult’s Client Relationship Manager; Claire has a wealth of experience within the welfare to work and skills sectors both operationally and in client focused posts. Claire has worked for independent training providers for many years in a variety of roles from being an employment advisor, a tutor, a regional operations manager, managing multiple contracts throughout the UK through to heading up Account Management teams. Claire manages our client relationships and ensures that all of our clients’ needs and requirements are looked after as well as supporting the development of programmes with our employers. Claire also manages our on boarding process to make sure that our employers and learners alike have a positive experience with Always Consult.