Case Studies
Take a look at some of the projects I've worked on over the years.
Starboard Hotels – development & facilitation of a future leaders programme
"SHAPE has given me more confidence with my role as a leader, how I manage others and my overall role and responsibilities. Sarah was an absolute pleasure to work with and a real inspiration in her role, to our team, and a mentor to me personally. She was consistently thorough, engaging and professional, and I look forward to working alongside her again in the future."
NEIL BARLOW, Deputy General Manager, Ibis Styles Gatwick
"SHAPE has been a fantastic development opportunity for me. It brought together the best elements from my previous career development and transformed them into practical, real-world learning experiences. Along the way, I’ve also made lifelong friends, Sarah included."
CHRIS MANUCAL, Cluster Revenue Manager, Starboard Hotels
"SHAPE was such a personal and meaningful journey for me, and I’m so grateful to Sarah for the impact she’s had. Her support and encouragement made a huge difference to both my confidence and my career direction, it was a real turning point in my career, like all the lights suddenly switched on and everything started to make sense. Sarah created such a supportive and genuine environment, which made it easy to grow and really believe in myself."
MELISSA CLARK, Deputy General Manager, Ibis Styles Barnsley
"SHAPE was a very useful and practical development programme, and it gave me more confidence in dealing with people and handling different situations at work. It also gave me an insight into my own management style such as my strengths, self-awareness and what I need to work on. Thank you Sarah, it was amazing 14 months of learning, self-development, networking and building meaningful connections."
AIGA OZOLA, Guest Services Manager, Holiday Inn Express Tamworth
The Starboard Hotels Accelerator ProgrammE (SHAPE) is a bespoke leadership development programme, designed by Sarah in partnership with the Starboard SLT, to help high-performing managers unlock their potential and prepare for senior leadership roles.
Cohort 3 launched in January 2025, bringing together aspiring leaders from across the business, all eager to learn, develop, and challenge themselves throughout the 12-month journey.
The programme combined personal growth, leadership development, and operational excellence through a series of interactive workshops covering strategic thinking, financial acumen, people leadership, commercial awareness, and guest experience. Learning was highly practical, with participants encouraged to collaborate, share experiences, and apply new skills in real-world situations.
A key element of the programme was the “SHAPE the Waste” project, which focused on reducing food waste across the business. Teams analysed current practices, identified opportunities for improvement, and presented their recommendations and results to the SLT as part of their final assessment.
SHAPE also encouraged participants to give back to their local communities through the “SHAPE Gives Back” initiative. Activities included supporting food banks, volunteering at a children’s hospice, helping at a community warm hub, and even delivering a magic show at a nursing home, thanks to one participant’s membership of the Magic Circle!
After a year of hard work, the cohort celebrated their graduation with a memorable trip to the Royal Albert Hall to see Cirque du Soleil, an experience enjoyed by everyone.
The impact of SHAPE has been significant, with participants telling us about their increased confidence, stronger leadership skills, and greater clarity around their career aspirations. For Starboard Hotels, the programme has strengthened succession planning, improved retention of high-potential talent, and helped build a more connected leadership community.
Turnkey IPS – development of their people strategy
Turnkey IPS, based in East Kilbride, is a market-leading insolvency software and business software company. With c.60 employees in 2021 the group was on a trajectory of growth and development. From its origins as a family business in the 1980s, it now operates 3 teams in the UK as well as a small team in Australia. I was asked by Deborah Baxter, COO, to lead a project to develop their people strategy, which was rather compliance-focussed and ad-hoc until that time.
With the planned growth of the business, there was a clear need to review the HR processes and systems within the business and develop a strategy which will lead and support their forecasted growth. Through consultation and collaboration with the COO, CEO and other members of the senior team we identified and defined the focus areas would include everything from the company vision and values, to recruitment, performance management, reward and talent development. Inevitably this was going to be an in-depth and long-term project, which I scoped out and planned, along with the COO, and was delivered over a 2 year period.
Key successes of the project included development and launch of new company values, introduction of a new reward mechanism, including a bonus & incentive scheme, development and launch of a tailored performance management strategy and process, along with training for all line managers. Underpinning the people strategy was a focus on individual and team development, and I delivered a series of Insights Discovery workshops for all colleagues across the business, which included face-to-face workshops, virtual sessions with smaller teams, and also 1:1 coaching, meaning every colleagues across Turnkey had their own Insights Profile.
“Sarah’s knowledge, expertise and approachable style worked really well with Turnkey, coupled with great enthusiasm and fun. I would highly recommend Sarah as an HR/People Business Partner, she offers a wealth of experience and is a pleasure to work with.”
Deborah Baxter, Chief Operating Officer, Turnkey IPS
Leyland SDM – development and launch of their purpose, vision and values
Leyland SDM is a high street decorator and DIY retailer with 33 stores across London, and employing over 700 people
In 2019 I was asked by Cliff Rendell, HR Director, to review their organisational culture and values. Prior LSDM being acquired by the Grafton Group Plc, it was managed in a very different way, and it became clear following the acquisition that the culture and values were not aligned to the way they wanted to do business going forward.
I was asked to lead the project to develop a new set of values which reflected more closely the business as it was today and which would set them up for greater growth and success in the future. I started by engaging with key stakeholders including the CEO, Commercial Director, Finance Director and Regional Managers, and this was followed by establishing a number of focus groups to engage and involve colleagues from all areas and levels within the business – it was important to both me and LSDM that this was not a “top-down” initiative, but fully inclusive, and mostly driven by the colleagues themselves.
With the outputs from the focus groups reviewed and collated, I created a working party with colleagues from across the business, and working together we refined and developed the purpose, vision and values, before presenting to, and getting approval from, the Executive Team. Working collaboratively we created icons for each value, a consistently branded look & feel, as well as a communication and launch plan. The project itself took around 5 months, and we launched the values across the business in February 2020, with visits to every store, the values jigsaw challenge which was a fun way to bring them to life, and of course, values branded teabags & biscuits!
Almost 4 years on, it is a delight to see and hear these values still being as fundamental to LSDM today as they were when we launched them, and it was a fabulous project to work on.
“Sarah worked tirelessly on this project, collaborating at all levels, pushing it forward with energy and drive, and demonstrated a positive attitude throughout which led to it being very well received across the business.”
Cliff Rendell, HR Director, Leyland SDM