David Harman

David Harman has over twenty years of leadership, sales, operational and training management experience and is Chief Executive Officer of learning and development business Broadskill.

He started his career in the British Army where he spent five years based in the Far East serving with the Gurkhas. During this time, he ran outdoor-based management and leadership programmes and was also responsible for the recruitment of soldiers in Nepal.

In 1988, David moved into the conference, training and leisure industry. As Regional Director for Style Conferences Ltd, he was responsible for a multi-million pound conference development in Berkshire. He ran a number of internal management and leadership programmes and helped the company through extensive growth and change prior to its acquisition in 1996.

Since 1997, David has worked in people development consultancies and has led a number of leadership, management and sales programmes for clients within the private and public sectors.

More recently, leadership projects have included the IT, finance, insurance, retail, pharmaceutical, leisure and manufacturing sectors, working with diverse organisations such as: The Royal Bank of Scotland, Skandia, ACE European Group, CACI and Air Products.

David also implements motivational team building activities and is a regular speaker at conferences on ‘Peak Performance' and ‘Leading Change'.

Starter for Five

What's been your business high? Two spring to mind: 1. Speaking in Florida to an audience of over 400 from 25+ different cultures for a global software company and being told that it was the highlight of their 5 day World Summit Conference and 2. Leading the team that won a 5 year £3M per annum contract to run a Corporate Training Centre for a global document organisation.

What's been your business low? Business Low - I worked for a small business and helped it to grow from £5M turnover to £50M in 7 years. The business was then sold to a PLC and the whole culture and senior management changed. The whole change in vision and values had a major impact on the business and many quality people then left and the business had a number of years of difficult trading.

What is your best business advice one-liner? Remember that every time you recruit a new pair of hands into your team, you get a brain for free, use it wisely! 

Who is your business idol? Richard Branson for his entrepreneurial spirit and his values-led approach. To quote the great man himself: "Just do it. Think yes - not no. Challenge yourself. Have goals. Have fun. Make a difference. Stand on your own two feet. Be loyal. Live life to the full".

What is your favourite pastime? Mountains - climbing them and photographing them. I have climbed across the UK, the Alps and the Himalayas, reaching just over 7,000 metres so far! I am aiming to go above 8,000 metres in the next couple of years.