Richard Auld Profile
Richard Auld is an experienced senior manager in both large corporates (British Airways, BT) and as a Director and CEO of smaller businesses.
He has a degree in Transport Management and spent 8 years in the airline business before moving into sales roles in Telecomms. Richard also has an MBA from Bath University, ranked as one of the top 10 business schools in the UK and top 20 in Europe.
Achievements
Planning
Richard spent 5 years in British Airways central planning and during this period he increased aircraft utilisation through innovative ideas and wrote the business case for the introduction of small Regional Jets. He has considerable experience in planning a large, complex operation up to 5 years ahead.
Operations Management
As Operations Director at Powerhouse Communications plc, Richard took a demoralised engineering and service team with high staff turnover and within 6 months turned them into a motivated, thinking team delivering a high quality service. This was achieved without increasing overall costs.
Sales Management
Richard has managed Business to Business sales teams in both direct and channel (sell-through) operations. He managed a £40m per annum business selling BT services to and through Internet Service Providers in a rapidly changing environment with the introduction of Broadband. He grew sales above target for 5 consecutive years.
Business Management
As a Board member at Powerhouse Communications plc and CEO at South West Communications Group Ltd. he dealt with business strategy, finance and customer service blending the different functions into cohesive units focussed on delivering profitable, high quality customer service.
Franchise Management
Richard managed a Division of BT responsible for revenues of over £110m per annum through a network of franchisees. The business was declining at a rate of 11% and this was turned round to growth of 1.5% in the space of one year through close management of the franchisees, focussing them on key targets and delivering new products and services.
Role in Buffin Leadership International
Richard brings a wealth of experience in business leadership and managing and coaching teams to improve performance. He can quickly assimilate information about companies, markets and their environments and focus in on the main issues to deliver business improvement. He can work easily at Board level to facilitate strategy development and then cascade learning, development and peak performance training to all levels.
Richard is focussed on delivering change to improve business performance particularly where there are environmental or industry factors impacting on the business. He has considerable experience in the new digital economy, sometimes known as Web 2.0 and strongly believes that companies need to streamline their operations using end-to-end digital automation for cost and customer service benefits.
Toni Auld Profile
Toni Auld is an experienced commercial manager and planner.
Experience and Achievements
Commercial Management
Toni spent 8 years in British Airways Network Development and during this period she wrote many business cases for the operation of new routes and expansion of capacity and frequency on others.
This involved the analysis of route commercial performance, forecasting demand and profitability and negotiating the allocation of resources. Plans were developed up to 5 years in advance and Toni has considerable experience in the central planning of a large, complex operation.
Planning
Toni has undertaken complex rostering and planning duties, maximising resources against contractual, legal and other external constraints. On her own initiative she challenged established working practices and delivered significant improvements to operational efficiency.
Major Account Sales Liaison
Working in the offices of major customers, Toni regularly won business ahead of the competition. She understands how the needs of the customer must be integrated into the operation and how the technical ability of the customer facing staff can be of crucial importance.
Outside Eye
Toni provides Buffin Leadership with an "outside eye" function, looking closely at a business from the customers' viewpoint and highlighting the implications for sales, service and quality and the impact on the company's image.
Recruitment
Toni is responsible for recruitment for Buffin Leadership.
Planning
Toni has undertaken complex rostering and planning duties, maximising resources against contractual, legal and other external constraints. On her own initiative she challenged established working practices and delivered significant improvements to operational efficiency.
Summary
Toni brings experience in commercial management and planning along with the insight to see the implications of behaviour and processes on service. She is particularly focussed on the quality of customer service, simplification of customer interfaces and the removal of jargon from customer facing information.
