Home | Shipway Consulting

People solutions for organisations today!

Based in the West Midlands, Shipway Consulting Ltd provides people solutions for your organisation, place or system you work within. Supporting all sizes and types with a wide range of services, from advice and support to project management and contract consultancy, I provide professional and bespoke services tailored to suit your needs.

Strategic Organisational Development

Supporting you to develop a strong, purposeful and aligned overall strategic direction and approach.

Leadership, Learning and Coaching

Supporting you to develop self-aware, authentic, dynamic, resilient and collaborative leaders.

People Management

Helping you to develop a high performance culture with clear, practical and effective guidance, frameworks and support.

Behaviour Profiling

Supporting you to improve productivity, teamwork and communication across your workforce with credible, cost-effective and easy to use tools.

Effective Governance

Focusing beyond compliance to develop strong learning and improvement to build better future Boards.

Strategic Organisational Development

Helping you develop a strong, purposeful and aligned overall organisational strategic approach.

Leadership, Learning and Coaching

Supporting you to unleash the potential of your people by developing self-aware, dynamic, resilient and collaborative leaders across all levels of your organisation.

People Management

Helping you to develop a high performance culture through effective management and clear people frameworks with practical guidance and solutions.

Behaviour Profiling

Supporting you to improve productivity, teamwork and communication across your workforce through credible, cost effective, easy to use and results driven tools.

Effective Governance

Building better boards using evaluation tools which look beyond compliance and support learning and improvement at the highest levels of your organisation.

Why choose Shipway Consulting?

My success is based on understanding local, being independent and sharing expertise...

Local

Understanding the value of place means I know (or get to know very quickly!) your audience, customer and employee base and give you bespoke support relevant to your local needs.

Independent

I don't offer corporate off-the-shelf one-size-fits-all manuals but practical no-nonsense solutions which fit with your needs and approach. I've spent time understanding what works and what doesn't and have learnt the best solutions to apply.

Expert

As a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD with a wealth of experience across leadership, organisational development, learning, coaching and HR I can deliver you one-stop shop advice, guidance, tools and solutions.

Testimonials

See what my clients say

Oakley House Children’s Home

Neil Mason, Director

Our established business needed some direction and vision so Alison devised and delivered, amongst other activities, a key workshop for our team. We spent two days creating our core values and strategic intent based on our ways of working and team dynamics; the sessions were interactive and creative but most importantly relevant to our unique business needs. It has helped us immensely understand what is important to us and how we can achieve it.

Bright Matter Resourcing Ltd

Marie Faulkner, Founder and Director

I have been an associate of Ali's for many years and have really valued her advice, support and expertise as a business owner myself and as an expert working in the learning sector. As a genuine learning leader she embodies the values and behaviours sought after by many organisations I support and really understands, in practical terms, the true value that strong cultures and learning approaches can bring.

Ikea UK Ltd

Linton Scarborough, Deputy CFO

Ali simply excels at coaching, where her probing and insight, delivered in an inspiring and empathetic way, has enabled me and many others to better achieve our Company mission and ‘deliver far more of our human potential.

SRC Accountancy Services Ltd

Simon Cook, Managing Director

Alison works with a number of our clients who are really happy with the services she provides. She is always flexible to the needs of a small business and has provided invaluable professional and knowledgeable advice. She always delivers in excess of expectations, without any fuss and unfailingly with a smile. I could not recommend her highly enough!

Techys 2 u

Tim Bailey, Director

As a small business we needed external support to help us manage a difficult and sensitive employee relations issue. I wouldn't hesitate in recommending Alison's highly easy to follow advice and guidance.

Active Black Country

Ian Carey, Director

Alison has supported Active Black Country and myself at a time of significant change for the partnership and sports sector, driving, creating and leading change which has seen a revision to the partnership’s strategic direction, organisational structure and ways of working. Ali’s approach has been instrumental in developing the revised focus of the business vision; her ability to understand and make connections across a breadth of strategic drivers has contributed considerably. She has very(...)

Shooting Stars Nurseries

Natalie McNamara, Area Manager

Hi Alison. I just wanted to say how valuable the recent performance management training was for the Shooting Stars management team. The information provided was extremely useful and prompted lots of thought into how we currently manage staff performance and how our investigation and disciplinary procedures can be strengthened. The content and delivery of the day was fantastic and certainly exceeded my expectations. The training was full of practical tips and the interactive approach was exc(...)

Halesowen College Entreprises Ltd

Les Williams, NHS Director and Chair of Governors

As an Executive Director of HCE Ltd Alison bought exceptional organisational development and strategic business planning skills. Following her role on the Trustee Board, where she added considerable value to the College, she took on this key accountability bringing a very clear sense of business and through her well developed ability to work as a critical friend, she skill-fully combined challenge and support to achieve progression. Along with being personable and able to commnicate well he(...)

The Fruitful Toolbox

Heidi Blakeway, Director

Alison supported me introducing L&D professionals to Everything DiSC® profiling tools; she is a real expert in developing high performing teams through understanding yourself and others. As a personal mentor and coach I couldn't recommend her enough!

Halesowen College

Les Williams, NHS Director and Chair of Governors

Alison was recruited to provide a personnel and organisational development perspective to the governing body of Halesowen College, as well as bringing skills in strategic business planning. Along with being personable and able to commnicate well her ideas and experience, Alison brought considerable added value to the College. This was most evident in debates about strategic positioning, with Alison offering advice to ensure that the strategic priorities were progressed through effective bus(...)

Happy Giraffe

Heidi Cooper, Director

After ten years in business, we were looking to undertake a radical internal restructure – moving to a customer centric approach. Alison worked with us to identify the best method for understanding our staff and ensure that the new teams moved quickly from forming to performing. Using Belbin, Ali designed a bespoke workshop using engaging and interactive exercises – just right for our team. She ensured that the senior management team understood fully how the profiles could add value to our (...)

Energise Me

Julie Aimes, CEO, Energise Me

"It is very evident that you really understand the purpose and role of Active Partnerships and your background, skills and experience really added value to our process. You are very credible which meant I could have confidence in you and what you bring when we have valued internal and external colleagues in the conversations – thank you !"

Beacon

Arwyn Jones, Chief Executive

Ali introduced our new Executive Leadership team to the Everything DiSC tool and helped us explore our personalities, team behaviours and ways of working. Ali was engaging, knowledgeable and passionate and designed interactive sessions engaging all of us, inspiring confidence in her abilities, and creating a relaxed atmosphere which helped us get the most out of our time together.

Dudley MBC

Jacqueline Branch, HR&OD Director

"Alison supported us to co-design our People Strategy for our entire workforce. She provided much needed resource, experience and expertise us helping us to focus on what matters most to us and how we want to drive organisational and cultural change across the whole Council". I would highly recommend her and hope to work together again in the future".

Severn Academies Education Trust

“Ali has a different approach to governance which is really helping to shift our thinking around compliance and Board ways of working. As well as understanding the principles of key codes of governance and how to apply them, she is helping us transition to being a more effective strategic team who are better connected, informed and purpose driven.

County Durham Sport

Dr Maxine Rhodes, Managing Director

Coming to a new organisation, I wanted to find someone who would help me develop learning as a core part of our new culture. I needed someone who ‘got it’ and I found that person when I saw Ali speak at a National Conference. I thought I would enjoy working with her and I wasn’t wrong.

Ali’s approach is very people focused and she gets the business of partnership. She has helped us shaped what our approach might look like, has given us guidance and support and encouraged us to trial and (...)

Ruth George HR Consulting

Ruth George, Director Ruth George HR Consulting

I have connected with Ali since we worked together at NEXT Ltd over 20 years ago. During that time she developed a reputation as a well respected and liked practitioner. She had a broad knowledge across all of HR but was especially skilled at building relationships at senior levels with a highly professional and straightforward approach. Since then we have maintained a genuinely valued relationship as she continues to provide insightful and thought-provoking advice and coaching to my busi(...)

Live Action Leisure

Linton Scarborough, Chairman

I have known, worked with and been supported by Ali for over 15 years. She is a consummate professional equipped with the skills, abilities and expertise necessary to add value to all sizes of organisations. She excels at coaching, where her probing and insight, delivered in an inspiring and empathetic way has enabled me and many others to deliver far more of our potential. Her understanding of leadership in the world of physical activity has been so influential in my thinking and actions a(...)

British Triathlon

Michelle Hayden, Head of Coaching

“The mentoring relationship Ali and I have developed over the last year could not have been more impactful! Her style and approach has enabled me to look at things in a different way, reflect and help build my confidence about my skills and future. She asked poignant questions, listened, supported and has drawn things out of me I hadn’t previously considered… I’ve now taken on a new role within a new organisation and have credited Ali with a large part of my desire and ability to have done (...)

Think 4 Wellbeing

Jo Metcalfe, Founder and Director

Ali and I connected working with Quest carrying out improvement assessments across the Active Partnership network. Since then we have continued to support each other and work together sharing similar values, principles and like minds in improving the health and wellbeing of our nation. She is highly collaborative and always challenges my thinking, providing insightful perspectives as well as innovative ideas. As a result we have built an Associate partnership way of working together and (...)

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My Clients

See what some of the organisations I've worked with say