The Historical Organisation Teaching Modern Business its New Tricks

Led by the ‘CEO of the Year, 2021’ for Horsham in the United Kingdom – Robert Coles – Roffey Park Institute benefits from his huge width and breadth of experience, as well as his ability to create a plan, fine-tune it with the input of the community, and commit fully to it. Having been the CEO that is pulling the Institute through the tumult of Covid-19, he has proven his diligence and professional acumen in meeting the challenges presented to him, and is excited to welcome more clients in through the Institute’s doors in the future to continue providing expert business education.

Roffey Park Institute, a UK based organisation that provides a blend of digital and face-to-face learning underpinned by 75 years of research and practice, provides business education for individuals, teams, and whole enterprises, allowing them to cultivate the best workplace possible for its staff. From leadership development to management development, organisational development and HR, executive team coaching, change and resilience, and organisational learning, Roffey Park Institute is well-versed in continuing to serve its clients during an international crisis. After all, during its founding, the world was handling the tail end of World War 2. Fundamentally, this saw its first few years being focused on working with veterans and the wounded who returned home and had to assimilate themselves once again in the civilian working world.

Therefore, it became an expert in how to help these people manage PTSD and stress, enabling managing and returning armed service personnel to lead successful, active working lives that are emboldened by the constant support of Roffey Park Institute and its outstanding staff. This empathy, sensitivity, and client-first mentality that was developed in these initial years has remained a core of the business, and in the 80s, it used this beating heart to fuel its transition into a company that helps leaders, managers, and the teams of organisations to find better ways of working together in a changing corporate world.

It accomplishes this through its suite of executive education service including short courses, tailored programmes, and post-graduate mid-career qualifications. Moreover, being an educational charity, it is one of the last WW2 workplace rehabilitation schools that still remain truly independent, working with clients from the UK, Europe, and Asia, as well as all over the wider Pacific region. With offices in Ireland and Singapore, it takes pride in being able to respond to client questions, queries, or comments quickly and effectively, inviting them to come and enjoy its training and education services in person at its beautiful campus nestled in the heart of the picturesque country of Sussex.

With clients across a myriad of sectors and scales, its efforts have aided individual students, corporations, mid-size organisations, charities, and social organisations. Attracting students from all over the world to its varied and incredibly well-designed curriculum, Roffey Park Institute is often a client’s stepping-stone towards reaching their next big milestone, educating and developing 98% of the leaders that business school doesn’t cater to. Internally, it has been able to develop itself as an organisation with the help of its loyal clients and dedicated staff alike; each of them have responded well to the adaptations put in place to handle Covid-19, coming out the other side with emboldened collaboration skills, curiosity, and flexibility. Therefore, despite the higher education sector being one of the worst hit by the pandemic, it was able to pull through by pivoting to an online service during lockdown.

Dedicated to continuing to lean into this digital revolution and embrace the world’s movement towards increased remote operation, it is led by exemplary CEO Dr Robert Coles and the love of teamwork that he has fostered throughout his ‘portfolio career’. In the past, Coles has worked in theatre, retail, insurance, consulting, audit, accounting, exec education, and OD, and led organisations big and small in order to curate his depth and breadth of knowledge in organisational health. He seeks to encourage a client’s commitment to their own personal professional growth and to the growth of their companies, working with pride to keep Roffey Park Institute’s illustrious past as part of the core of the modern institute. In essence, ‘the world needs an independent voice,’ Coles told us, ‘a personable, sustainable approach to executive education. We want to be that choice.’

For business enquiries, contact Janice McBrown from Roffey Park Institute on their website – roffeypark.ac.uk