Carolyn is an organisational development specialist with extensive experience as an internal practitioner in the public sector. She has over 25 years of public sector experience leading teams and services in a variety of change and L&D roles and was there at the start of OD’s development in the NHS. Moreover, she was a part of the setup and growth of the OD function at one of the countries largest and most successful NHS organisations, Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. During her time there (2008-15) she helped grow the strategic influence of OD in the wider NHS. Additionally, she developed its practitioner capability through work with the NHS DoOD network.

Carolyn worked for the Civil Service OD&D function (2015-19) with a dual focus: practising OD across the Civil Service and developing OD for the Civil Service. Her consulting has included work with Departments and Agencies such as the Ministry for Housing, Communities & Local Government, the Department for International Trade, the Cabinet Office and Public Health England as well as Civil Service Professions such as Government Internal Audit. Additionally, she has also worked across the whole-system on developing and implementing a model to enquire into and work with culture at multiple levels.

Having experienced the vital strategic importance of OD in public sector organisations, Carolyn is a strong advocate for developing OD capacity. In partnership with Mayvin, Carolyn led on refining and delivering the accredited OD&D capability programmes for the Civil Service. She also enabled the conditions for the Civil Service OD&D practitioner network to flourish as a system of influence.

In her practice, Carolyn draws on a wide range of OD approaches to enable change through team, service and system-level interventions. This includes Appreciative Inquiry, large group interventions and conversational change to understand and influence culture. Carolyn is passionate about developing the adaptive capacity of people and systems to learn and thrive.

Her development path includes an MSc in People and Organisational Development from Roffey Park Institute, a PG Cert in Coaching and various psychometric certifications. Also, Carolyn is an Associate of the Institute of Human Systems Dynamics.

Carolyn has lived with her partner in South East London for almost 30 years. She enjoys all the delights that city life has to offer, particular its food, art galleries and cinema. She balances all this with regular Pilates, walking and a new found love of 5Rhythms – a dynamic movement practice.

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UK Civil Service: Organisation Development and Design Capability Building, a Case Study of Mayvin’s work with the Civil Service.