Business

Financial

“Charles recently facilitated an extremely important meeting of approximately 100 leaders from all CGA affiliate organizations across Canada. His facilitation was instrumental in helping to build understanding and alignment. Keeping a group this size, with diverse opinions, engaged and focused on building collaborative potential was not an easy task, but he managed to bring the group along and focus on the decisions of the day. I admired the fact that he quickly grasped the issues the organization was facing and could relate immediately to what was required.”

Anthony Ariganello
CEO, Certified General Accountants of Canada

“We came, we saw, we laughed, we cried but more importantly we walked away far better informed, prepared and equipped to handle the challenges ahead. The process for enaging us—our management team and our board, was well designed and exceeded the expectations of our entire management team. Many thanks for making this process a complete success for us.”

Don Rolfe,
CEO, Credential Group

“Charles Holmes lived up to his advanced billing. He allowed us to set our own objectives and he assisted us in ensuring we had a meaningful progressive dialogue. He made sure we focussed on our issues and that the communication was open and meaningful. He promised us that we would have enjoy ourselves within the scope of the session and he delivered.”

Howard Bogach
Chair, Credential Financial Inc.

“We are thrilled to announce that NSCU has been named one of Canada’s Best Small and Medium Employers, which we have achieved as a result of high employee engagement and progressive people practices. As a key partner of ours, you have played a large role in helping us define our values and build our employee engagement, and earn a place on the Best Employers List. Thank you very much for your contributions to our success!”

Marni Johnson,
VP, Human Resources and Communications
North Shore Credit Union

Consumer Packaged Goods

“Charles is a marvel at making connections. He meets hundreds of talented people in large conferences and yet remembers each of their unique strengths and needs and connects them effortlessly with people whom they need to meet. Charles did a remarkable job of facilitating a motley group of 80 energetic and unruly geniuses that unleashed the power of their ideas. People left feeling heard and knowing they learned a lot from the others. No egos bruised and no ideas left unspoken. Amazing.”

Udiyain Jatar,
VP Marketing, Coca-Cola

“Using CE Holmes Consulting facilitation team for my national Quaker Foods and Snacks sales meeting led to an improved dialogue with the field! With the professionally facilitated cafe style conversations we built connections across the sales, marketing, supply chain and finance functions. Our recap was captured in a rich feedback document and also in beautiful images! I would recommend their team to manage meeting design that, in our case, included, music, visual artist, exceptional meeting facilitation and documentation of the outcomes.”

John Maples,
VP Sales, Quaker Food and Snacks

“Charles Holmes has been helping our Leadership Team through a transformational change project, merging two large and successful companies into one. He ran several sessions with us, helping us set the vision for the “one” company and then define the journey to get there. Needless to say, the individuals involved have different agendas and points of view. Converging and aligning on one roadmap was anything but easy….

But Charles’ contribution as an experienced facilitator was remarkable. His interactive style and probing questions got participants to open up and voice their strong opinions. Then he masterfully facilitated the group and helped us create common ground among the different perspectives. He kept participants focused on the purpose of the session, and had the savvy to read the energy in the room and flex the flow of the agenda to secure full engagement of all participants throughout the sessions.

With his facilitation, two things happened:

1. Discussions that could normally have taken hours, got concluded fast, and
2. Decisions that would normally be left unmade, got made.”

Ece Aksel,
General Manager, PepsiCo Foods, Turkey

“We are going through a significant business integration and culture change journey in Turkey in which Charles is playing a crucial role. He is a great guide and facilitator who brings groups together to ensure open communication, trust and efficiency. He is able to facilitate and lead very hard discussions and brings out the elephant in the room.”

Ozlem Salur,
Senior Talent Director, Eastern and
South East Europe Region, PepsiCo

“Charles is an outstanding coach! He gave immediate, honest feedback to our top team about how we are doing and what to change in our behaviours. In my personal coaching session, he helped me affirm my ‘opportunity’ areas and, more importantly, helped me better understand the impact these have on other people (and, therefore, on my leadership ability). He gave me great guidance and invaluable tips to develop my leadership further.”

Ece Aksel,
General Manager, PepsiCo Foods, Turkey

“Thank you for being the exceptional conductor of the orchestra—as always par excellence—and for helping me create a future we all are going to be proud of.”

Jaya Kumar,
President, Pepsico Global Nutrition Group

“You have, and will continue to have, a great impact on me as a person and as a leader. I am very grateful I have met you and for what I have learned from you. This past global event would not have been as successful without you and what I learned from you!”

Eugene Willemsen,
CEO, South East Europe Division PepsiCo

“Leading with heart and soul, while being grounded in the business realities of the need for speed and impact, is clearly an art that you have mastered! With a differentiated approach, you led us to a breakthrough that was created with you in the room—that continues to last outside of the room. This is the magic of true, effective change.”

Becky Frankiewicz,
Director, Innovations
PepsiCo Global Nutrition Group

“Thank you for your hard work, guidance and support as the Global Nutrition Group team worked to establish our first Innovation and Growth Plan for 2012 to 2015. As the team was in the very critical formative phase, having just been established only weeks previously, this first 6 months is critical to the sustainability and business growth of the organization and of course PepsiCo’s future. Your team, under your leadership, has been instrumental in helping the GNG team come together, identify opportunities ,but most of all prioritize and learn to make the trade-offs amongst themselves with a common goal of making everyone successful. It is a pleasure working with you.”

Mehmood Khan,
MD, CEO, Global Nutrition Group
and Chief Scientific Officer, PepsiCo

Healthcare

“In spite of the demands and pressures our Senior Executive Team were facing at the time, you managed to keep us focused and on track for a highly relevant and productive 2 day planning session. Your flexible approach, clear guidance, and respectful style were a good match for our executive team.”

Ida Godreau,
CEO, Vancouver Coastal Health

“The Whistler event was an experience and opportunity to be treasured for a lifetime. In my 10 years in this business, I have never witnessed or experienced anything like It. The feed back from all who attended has been one of unanimous declaration of success. I can’t thank you and your team enough for the “miracles” of Whistler. I was most impressed with your team driven approach and the calm disposition, confidence and poise with which you handled and resolved very difficult issues. I learned a lot.”

Jude Onya,
Director, Systems Biology, Eliy Lilly

Manufacturing

“We engaged with Charles to facilitate a three-day meeting. It is clear that the success of the session was dependent on a facilitator who could read the energy in the room, suggest adjustments to keep engagement and provide facilitation to drive positive results at the end of the session. This meeting represented a defining moment in our company to transform into a global brand led organization—Charles played a key role in this critical first step.”

Laura Zahringer,
Global Marketing Capabilities
Kimberly-Clark

Mountain Equipment Co-op recently embarked on a two-year project to map out a longer term vision of how we could be a force for positive change in the marketplace. The outcome of this project was the clear articulation of three goals that will focus on encouraging Canadians to be more active, conserving wild places, and substantively reducing our overall environmental footprint. The project outcomes were clear and inspiring – thanks largely to the superb guidance and advice provided by Charles and his team.”

Peter Robinson,
CEO, Mountain Equipment Coop

“Charles was instrumental to the success of several ‘new frontier’ initiatives for Mountain Equipment Coop, including the MEC Futures Project and helping to bring clarity and focus to launch a major social marketing campaign with our strategic conservation partner, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. Charles’ contribution has been incredibly helpful to MEC and I believe that his unique ability to draw out possibilities, bring together ideas, and effectively engage others in challenging conversations are cornerstone to making real change happen.”

Esther Speck,
Director, Sustainability & Community,
Mountain Equipment Coop

Real Estate

“At our Annual General Meeting, with over 300 delegates from across the country in attendance, Charles managed to facilitate buy-in for a process we feel will help us work together at all levels to create a better future. Charles’ ability to communicate, to facilitate and to lead discussion under stressful circumstances is quite simply something to be admired. The rigours of the process he and his team used brought out a level of discussion that few in our industry had experienced before. They encouraged us to talk about things we had previously considered untouchable, and all in an atmosphere that fostered respect and trust.”

Pierre Beauchamp,
CEO, The Canadian Real Estate Association

“Charles Holmes has an engaging personality and style that allows everyone to fully participate in meaningful discussions without judgment. My personal experience has been that I take away a deeper understanding of the issues from his facilitated sessions. An added benefit is that his communication style and strategies equally apply to daily family issues and business dealings.”

Tim Down,
Chair, Commercial Council
BC Real Estate Association

“The sheer size of the group at close to 60 was daunting, aside from the very disparate approaches, stakeholder interests and politics in the room. Charles was masterful in finding—in only one day—a way to bring out the threads that all could agree on and move forward with in a spirit of support and cooperation.”

Deb Nelson,
Strategic Projects Consultant
BC Real Estate Association

Resource Industries

“Charles Holmes has throughout my various private sector and governmental incarnations helped to faciltate several consultations on business, aboriginal and sustainable development issues where clarity of purpose and common ground was anything but a given. Charles’ contribution and incisiveness as an experienced faciltator enabled very different participants to progress together to untangle what at first sight appeared irreconcileable.”

Dan Gagnier
Chair, International Institute for Sustainable Development
and VP, Alcan

“Our group is made up of people with very strong views and you were able to successfully manage and engage them throughout the two days. The processes and audio visual aids you used moved our work along well and ensured the discussions remained focused on achieving our desired results. You did an exceptional job of pulling together input from the group and synthesizing it into a format we could immediately use. By the end of the session we had good buy-in from everyone, enabling us to move forward and implement the action plan we had created together as a team.”

Jim Utley,
VP Human Resources
Teck Cominco Ltd.

“Your influence is far reaching! I think your negotiations course was really about effective communication—if that is achieved, negotiation often falls out as the natural consequence. I find I think about the ‘take homes’ from those few days more in everyday life than I do at work, and am glad to have the lessons with me.”

Michael Gunning,
Ph.D., Exploration Geologist
Teck Cominco Ltd.

Sustainability

“We came away from our work with Charles with ideas, practical tools and lessons, and a renewed sense of purpose and respect for our colleagues. Charles exceeded our expecations.”

Karis Hebert,
Manager of Sustainability
City of Vancouver

“I have little doubt that every minute of my time with CE Homes Consulting was valuable; I only wonder how I managed to muddle my way through negotiations in the past. Charles’ training will help you bring a sense of focus, confidence and effectiveness to even the most difficult of negotiations. I learned skills that will help me for the rest of my career.”

Luke Acker,
Associate, Finance
Pacific Carbon Trust

“Central to NOS’s role is sustaining energy and maintaining momentum while learning in the face of crisis how to support systemic change. Charles led a reflection with us and shared his experience on generative dialogue and multi-stakeholder facilitation. He clarified the importance of purpose-driven teams and offered us some key insights into how this matches some needed aspects of planning and structure in our organization. Truly inspiring and enlightening, this session with Charles was of great value to us!”

Liliana Gutiérrez Mariscal,
Program Coordinator, NOS Noroeste Sustentable, A.C.

Technology

“Overall I found Charles’ training positive in a rather radical way. Part of the training stressed really listening to people and understanding the content of what they say to the point the reasons and feelings behind what they are saying are grasped. It uncovered for me the degree each individual may have unexpressed ideas that can make a difference for PMC. A dynamic often found in large organizations is individuals don’t feel their ideas are listened to and valued, and managers feel there are too many views to consider from individuals who aren’t sufficiently ‘in the know’ on the reasons behind actions a company takes. The listening technique, seemingly obvious but elusive in practice, lets individuals express themselves without the walls of preconception, judgment and assumptions arising prematurely to color the conversation. In a word it’s ’empathy’, but a rigorous kind of empathy that doesn’t coddle and agree any more than it presumes and cuts short.”

Jeff Kirsten,
Leader, Applications Engineering, PMC-Sierra

“I have had the privilege of seeing Charles work with both private and public sector organizations to assist them in achieving clarity on the definition of their goals and a shared understanding of how they might achieve them. In accomplishing this he makes sure that everyone is heard, and, more importantly, understood so that their point of view is taken into account in shaping the final consensus. Of necessity, during the course of such activities, differing and conflicting points of view arise and must be worked through in a productive way so that necessary compromises are achieved, understood and finally agreed upon. Charles is very effective in enabling all of these things to happen.”

Dennis Connor,
Board Chair and Founder,
QuestAir

Utilities

“On behalf of the Executive Team at BC Hydro; we want to thank you for your role in making this year’s Annual Board Retreat a success “one of the best retreats” quoted from one of our board members. I truly believe that your planning skills in providing the clarity of our desired outcomes; approach in working collaboratively with all the presenters and your facilitation skills to create the right questions for stimulating the right level of dialogue contributed significantly to our success.”

Bob Elton,
CEO, BC Hydro

“Charles Holmes and Gary Ralston did a tremendous job of teasing out the thoughts and ideas of some very disparate parties as to their views of future priorities, synthesizing that data into a very concise, well thought through document, and facilitating a discussion and debate which resulted in a ‘Vision Document’ that will be adopted by the Board of Directors. Their focus, insight, and constructive questioning was invaluable to our process and I couldn’t be happier with the result.”

Julie Dill,
Chairperson,
Canadian Gas Association

“Charles helped our team, a group with diverse opinions and perspectives, stay focused and on track in our initial strategy development session. As a result, we not only defined our core focus, but also achieved a unanimous understanding of our core focus and actions that will be required to achieve our key goals. As an executive new to the company and this team, I found Charles’ assistance of great value in helping me better understand my management team and how to move forward in coalescing them into a true team.”

Doug Stout,
VP, Operations BC Gas

“There is no doubt that your group enabled HITAC (Heavy Industry Training Advisory Committee) to achieve superior results in a short period of time. Your ability to recognize potential barriers and your flexibility to change course midstream to avoid them was critical to our success. You definitely met and often exceeded the expectations of all participants in this process. I really enjoyed working with you and look forward to a continued future working relationship.”

K.T. Farrow,
Senior Manager, Duke Energy