Chris specializes both in the facilitation of organizational change processes, and in educational design to speed up both individual and group learning. He has trained participants from client companies in interpersonal communication, sales, time management, customer encounters, supervisory skills, market research skills, complaint handling, systems thinking, accelerated learning, emotional intelligence and team building, as well as technical subjects including statistics, qualitative research techniques and quantitative research techniques. He has also designed and run programmes to accelerate the acquisition of Mandarin by Western Adult learners.
All of the programmes designed and run by Chris make use of approaches to accelerate the acquisition of information and the development of the individual. In order to do this he works extensively with thinking processes, learning strategy, group dynamics and belief systems. When supporting people to learn, he focuses very much on creating situations that lead individuals easily and naturally to access their own learning potentials.
Chris has worked with groups ranging in size from 10 to 250 people. He is able to design and facilitate effective group learning processes that suit the needs of any group of any size.
His professional qualifications include a first class honours degree in psychology from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, a certificate in Adult Education from the University of Hong Kong, a practitioner and a meta-master qualification in NLP - (neurolinguistic programming) and a certificate in Suggestive Accelerative Learning Techniques from Iowa State University.
Chris also specializes in communication and business, having nearly 20 years of experience in this field. In the early 1980’s he traveled to China to study inter-cultural communication and language. He then moved to Hong Kong where he worked for a number of years with one of the world’s largest public relations consultancies.
Besides providing support to organizations Chris has a private practice through which he provides coaching and counseling on an individual basis to people looking for breakthroughs in their work and personal lives. This work involves helping people identify and resolve internal barriers to excellence.
From 1990 till the end of 1994 Chris was managing director of Permaculture Asia Ltd., a Hong Kong based consultancy specializing in environmental education and corporate environmental management. The company’s focus was on the individual and organizational changes needed to put in place effective environmental initiatives. Permaculture Asia clients included Omni Hotels, Inchcape Pacific, Esprit de Corp., Inchcape Gilman Office Machines, Mad Dogs bars and restaurants, The Mandarin Oriental, Cathay Pacific Airways, the United States-Asia Environmental Partnership and the First Lady of the Philippines.
In mid-1989 Chris was the Coordinator Hong Kong and China for ICEWALK, an expedition to the North Pole designed to raise awareness in critical environmental problems. In early 1990 he represented Hong Kong on an elephant back environmental expedition to India.
Chris first came to Asia in 1981 on a New Zealand government scholarship. He is fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese, and has translated a book of Chinese folktales.
