Ginette Kilroy

Ginette, tell us how you first enrolled on the Executive Management Programme (EMP), and why?

‘CTIL has been a member of the Henley Partnership for some time. We’ve sent lots of people from our talent pool on the Developing Management Practice (DMP) programme, but our senior leaders wanted something more challenging and I was nominated to test the EMP programme!’

So what were your expectations, and how did the programme differ in reality?

‘It was fantastic, amazing. I expected it to be a good exercise in developing my own capability, but I wasn’t prepared for how intense it was, or how practical and relevant it would be to me and my specific needs. I hadn’t realised that in order to develop into a general, holistic leader, I would need to let go of much of my functional leadership thinking. It was truly transformational.

‘The second week of the programme was especially powerful; we worked as a group, delivering a real-life consultancy service to a local charity. Working alongside other strong, like-minded people was so inspiring, and applying our learning in a real situation gave it all a very clear sense of purpose.

‘For some of the participants, the experience made them realise that they felt more comfortable at a more functional level, but it was a game-changer for me, and I proved to myself that I could step up.’

What was the impact at CTIL?

‘I immediately changed the way I operated, armed with a collection of strategic tools that I could employ on a day-to-day basis. With this new-found knowledge of commercial strategies, and understanding how I could influence the whole business, I’ve been working to pull the team together to work in a more collaborative way. And as a result, everything around me changed.

‘We ran a talent selection process internally and selected four potential senior leaders to do the EMP programme; they all benefitted enormously from it, and two in particular developed massively.

‘The result is that we are now much more focused, and our branding and retention is much more cohesive. The days of working in silos have long gone. There’s definitely more innovation, and our performance management process has improved dramatically in line with the strategic workforce plan we’ve developed.

'The feedback from the team reinforces this. They really value not being micromanaged, and now have time and space to grow. The whole language they use has changed. We’re already looking to send further groups onto both the DMP and EMP programmes as part of our succession planning.'

So what advice would you give to anyone considering EMP for themselves or their team?

‘If you want your managers to grow and develop into effective leaders, EMP is very powerful. It will test whether you’re ready to step up, so be prepared to be vulnerable! And what I learned in 2 weeks from this programme would have taken me 4 to 5 years to learn otherwise.’

Find out more about the Executive Management Programme

Explore our range of Executive Education programmes