Key Personnel

Scott Watson (Founder and Managing Director)

Following a 12-year career with a leading UK high street bank, Scott left the comfort of the corporate world in 1998 to join a mid-size management consultancy. He soon became frustrated with the ‘one size fits all‘ approach to management training and leadership development, where fee income was perceived to be far more important than helping the trusting client achieve something wonderful!

Scott founded Summit in 1999 and remains Managing Director to this day. His passion is researching leadership development and management development systems and creating meaningful and worthwhile learning solutions that can work effectively in the real world of business.

His extensive research in the areas of leadership, motivation, influence, persuasion and productivity led to Summit attracting many multi-national and owner-managed companies as clients across a diverse range of industry sectors. And all of this has been achieved without Summit employing a sales force. Over 70% of Summit projects are attracted via personal recommendation from satisfied clients.

Scott’s Emotional Intelligence is measured as within the top 5% of the UK adult population, he is an Accredited EQ-i 2.0 Facilitator, Certified Micro Expressions Trainer and remains committed to providing trusting clients with a complete, bespoke training system that can genuinely develop highly effective leaders, managers and front-line employees within the corporate arena. He also is a favourite guest commentator for broadcast and print media in the UK, having contributed to over 350 broadcast interviews.

Win Every Time – Essential lessons for existing and emerging leaders

Scott wrote his first book, ‘Win Every Time – Essential lessons for existing and emerging leaders’ in 2007. From the moment it was published, the book has received an overwhelmingly positive response from leading academic figures and corporate leaders alike. Readers were surprised by the simplicity of its structure, the brilliance of its insights, and most importantly, the phenomenal results it empowered them to achieve. Many corporate executives have commented that this book is a must-read for aspiring leaders and managers.

Visit the Amazon.co.uk site to read book reviews of Scott’s book.

Leading a diverse range of training and development projects across the UK, Europe and the Arabian Gulf region, Scott’s approach to training and coaching is deeply personal, thought provoking, lots of fun and absolutely practical. His unique approach to helping people learn quickly allows clients to benefit from total immersion in their learning experience. He has developed an international reputation as a leadership development consultant and executive coach and has a keen interest in applying the concepts of emotional intelligence within the corporate arena.

Dirk Bansch (Director of Learning and Development)

Since joining Summit in 2002, Dirk has consistently exceeded client expectations with the quality of his training and coaching interventions. With over 12 years hands-on experience in helping organisations maximise their people performance and has led projects throughout the UK and Europe.

Dirk Bansch is a Certified Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming, accredited by NLP’s co-developer, Richard Bandler and has presented his ideas and strategies at national conference level. He combines NLP with Emotional Intelligence in order to  not only show the “why”, but also the “how” of making massive changes in many areas of people’s professional and personal lives.

Dirk’s facilitation style is relaxed, focused and fun though he does have a reputation for encouraging participants to go beyond their own perceived limitations in a challenging yet supportive manner.

Dirk has a special interest in developing and applying advanced communication patterns to transform people performance and he leads our ‘breakthrough coaching days’ with clients such as TNT, Volvo, DHL, the NHS , Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force, and many councils and charities amongst others.

His efforts have produced dramatic and rapid results for clients, helping managers, customer service and sales staff break old habits, improve self-confidence, maximise their personal impact and deal with sensitive relationship matters in a more productive manner.

Dirk is a visiting lecturer at the ESCEM Business School at the University of Poitiers.

Gary Hosey (Head of Facilitation)

Gary is one of the UK’s leading authorities on emotional intelligence.

He is accredited in several scientifically-validated emotional intelligence assessment tools and has delivered over 1,000 1-2-1 coaching sessions with senior & high-potential managers.

Gary is a passionate outdoor team development programme leader and has multi-sector experience in the UK and overseas.

As an expert in utilising the EQ-360 and EQi development tools, he is highly sought after to facilitate how delegates can

• Understand clearly what is successful about how they operate in personal and professional environments
• Develop specific models and actions to support and enhance lower scores
• Gain a heightened maturity in developing stakeholder and customer relationships
• Understand more about their effective leadership styles and how to become more flexible with different people and groups

Gary is highly proficient in applying these tools in guiding companies in areas like

• Recruitment and Star Profiling
• Coaching; Strategic and Behavioural
• Team Building and Development
• Succession Planning
• Personal Development
• Training; An Introduction to EI
• Conflict Resolution

Melanie Greenwood (Head of ILM Accreditation)

Melanie is a chartered marketer and has had ‘hands on’ senior management experience in a variety of service organisations throughout her career. She works in partnership with Summit to accredit leadership, management and team development training courses which enable individuals to reinforce their management experience with nationally recognised qualifications accredited by the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM).

Her ability to quickly get to grips with client’s training & development needs has attracted clients from a diverse range of industry sectors and Melanie supports SME’s and multi-nationals throughout the UK. Melanie is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, and an accredited practitioner of the TMSDI Margerison McCann Team Management Profile.