The Assembly

Lavinia Mehedintu didn't set out to work in Learning & Development. Moving from commercial marketing into HR and later L&D, she quickly realised that the industry was trapped in a cycle of order-taking, rushing to produce courses without uncovering the true root of performance issues. Her drive to find answers led to a series of LinkedIn posts that grew into Offbeat, a global L&D commu...

When Paul Headland moved from client services into Learning & Development at PPLPRS (the joint venture collecting music licensing fees for creators), he recognised that effective training required far more than static e-learning modules or script reading. Navigating sensitive, legally required customer conversations meant empowering new joiners to lead with authenticity, personal confidence, a...

How to Create Measurable L&D Impact at Scale with Gavin McQuillan When Gavin McQuillan took charge of Learning & Development across a major British banking group, he faced the massive challenge of supporting over 60,000 colleagues in a highly complex financial environment. Moving away from a fragmented, federated model, he led a major structural transformation to create a unified, commerci...

When Jodie Pritchard joined Barnardo's, she took on the challenge of leading learning for a massive workforce of over 25,000 colleagues and volunteers across the UK. Moving from hospitality management into the third sector, she brought a deep focus on human-centred training, responsible resource management, and aligning everyday learning with overarching organisational values. Brigid McCormack sit...

When Gemma Glover joined LearnAmp, it was a 37-person employee experience platform. Following its acquisition by Cezanne HR, she transitioned into Head of L&D within a combined business of over 215 people across multiple global offices. Almost overnight, the tight-knit atmosphere of a small startup dissolved into a complex company filled with new management layers and separate team cultures. B...

At Merlin Entertainments, local L&D teams handled everything from seasonal onboarding and safety training to leadership development. Urgent work came first, so longer-term priorities were often pushed aside. Merlin responded by creating global specialist teams to give those priorities more focus. But how could those teams stay connected to what each attraction needed? For L&D leaders suppo...

When Gina joined Flat Iron three years ago, it had nine restaurants and around 540 employees. It now has 23 locations and more than 1,300 people. The informal ways of working that worked for a small company no longer fit. Managers needed clearer processes, more support and the confidence to handle tough conversations early. Adam Lacey talks with Gina Knight, who leads all things people at Flat Iro...

Most organisations know what their employees have done at work. They know far less about what those same people learn through hobbies, volunteering and life outside the job. Useful skills can stay hidden until someone thinks to ask. That gap is the subject of Adjacent Learning, a book about recognising the knowledge and skills people gain outside an organisation and bring back into work. Adam Lace...

You have a disability inclusion policy. The hard part is making a disabled colleague actually feel the difference. That part costs nothing, and most of it sits with your line managers. Esi Hardy has spent almost ten years turning disability inclusion policies into practice. Her company, Celebrating Disability, trains line managers to spot the barriers a disabled colleague faces and fix them. At Ho...

Most L&D teams know the frustration: you run the workshop, people enjoy it, the feedback is positive… and then everyone goes back to work and nothing really changes. Kira Squire is taking a different approach. When LastPass identified continuous feedback as a significant organisational challenge, she didn't just build a training programme. She designed an ongoing system around it, combining pr...

Most L&D is built for a captive audience: employees who have to attend whether the training is any good or not. Emma Ackers builds for the opposite, an audience that can walk away. Her learners are external insurance brokers, free to ignore her work entirely, and that one difference sharpens how she designs it. Adam Lacey sits down with Emma Ackers, Learning and Development Manager at Aviva an...

If the value conversation happens at the end of your projects, the only question left is how to justify what you have already built. Adam sits down with Tom McDowall, who through Evolve LD helps organisations upskill their L&D, training and HR teams in practical ways of working, to unpack a distinction that changes how a function operates: the difference between proving you were valuable after...

If your learning programmes are built on instinct and inherited habits, the science of how the brain actually learns changes what good design looks like. Brigid McCormack sits down with Tessa Forshaw, a cognitive scientist who studies how we work, learn and create, to unpack what neuroscience reveals about how adults really learn, and the myths still shaping L&D. A cognitive scientist, award-w...

If your L&D team keeps landing the last seat at the table, the way in is to get close to the commercial reality of the business. Brigid McCormack sits down with Lori Anne Powell, leadership development consultant and co-founder of LVL London, to unpack how L&D earns influence the way any function does: with credibility, trust and results the business can see. Lori began her career at Harro...

If your leaders keep asking for the perfect words before every difficult conversation, what they are missing is not a better script. It is confidence in their own judgment. Brigid McCormack sits down with Amy Smith, Inclusion Campaign Manager at Business in the Community, to unpack person-centred leadership: the idea that fairness does not necessarily mean sameness, that leaders shape people's exp...

You can buy great content, roll it out properly, and still watch most of your people never touch it. Michelle Hazelton explains why, and the reason is simpler than motivation. Adam sits down with Michelle Hazelton, former MD of Anders Pink (acquired by Go1) and now content lead at Access Learning, part of the Access Group, to unpack the shift reshaping learning technology: from learning as a place...

If your L&D work feels invisible to business leadership, the problem might be where you're starting from. Brigid sits down with Anne-Marie Burbidge, founder of Spark L&D Consultancy and fractional Head of L&D, to unpack the mindset shift that changes everything: stop leading with what L&D can offer, and start from what the business actually needs.  With 20+ years across HR and L&am...

Your senior leaders get coaching. Your early careers get apprenticeships. But the managers actually running your organisation day-to-day? They're on their own. John Gregg has spent over 20 years in L&D and OD across commercial, regulated and nonprofit sectors - most recently as Head of Learning and OD at Alzheimer's Research UK.  With a small team and a tight budget, he built a management deve...

You've run the awareness session. The feedback was strong. People were nodding. And then... nothing changed. If that sounds familiar, it's not because your programme was wrong. It's because awareness alone doesn't change behaviour. Conditions do. Brigid sits down with Shannon Rivers, organisational development strategist, consultant and Director of Social Enterprise, Social Responsibility and Chan...

Adam sits down with Simon Gibson, the Talent Director at Center Parcs and former Group Head of L&D at M&S, to get brutally honest about what's holding L&D back and what high-performing teams do differently. With a career spanning banking, retail, nuclear decommissioning and hospitality, Simon has a rare cross-industry perspective: if you don't understand how your business makes money,...

Most people don't fail because they're incapable. They fail because the support disappears too early. Brigid sits down with  Stephanie Alayyoubi-Trattles, founder of Kyoshi Consulting, to explore what it actually takes to build learning that drives measurable change. Stephanie has spent over a decade leading learning strategy and design across EdTech unicorn Multiverse, London Business School, and...

Adam sits down with Farley Thomas, CEO of Manageable, the global manager development platform he co-founded in 2020, to explore why manager development so often falls short and what it takes to build something that sticks. After a decade in investment banking at HSBC, Farley trained as a coach and spent years advising CEOs before spotting that managers were one of the most underserved populations...

Brigid sits down with Toluwa Hughes, behavioural scientist, two-times TEDx speaker, and founder of Zoah Consultancy, to explore why the manager layer is so often the most overlooked group in any organisation and what L&D can do about it right now. Toluwa has coached over 4,000 leaders across the UN in East Africa, tech scale-ups, and global enterprises including HSBC, Dell, and Alzheimer's Soc...

In this episode, Adam sits down with Liggy Webb to explore how L&D leaders can equip their people with the human skills that matter most - cutting through noise, thinking clearly, and performing in a complex environment. Liggy, a behavioural skills specialist and author, shares practical ways to develop an “inquiring mind” - from building self-awareness and asking better questions, to strength...

In this episode, Brigid sits down with Jade Rogers to unpack how learning and development leaders can build influence, demonstrate impact, and secure a more strategic role within their organisations. Jade, an L&D professional in a tech consultancy, describes her role as “the bridge between potential and performance” - but like many in the field, she’s had to navigate the challenge of making th...