About Us
We believe that putting people and relationships first leads to long term personal and business success.
by clicking on any member of the team.
Founded in 1993, we are a leading people development business that uses cutting edge occupational psychology to facilitate change and success.
John Cooper
Founder and Managing Director
John Cooper is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.
John works with CEOs and senior executives to deliver solutions that maximise the success and well being of people. His clients include Forensic Science Service, N4 Solutions, Southwest RDA, Alterian and Messier Services.
His particular interests focus around leadership development, executive coaching and facilitating high performing teams and cultures.
John is passionate about harnessing emotional intelligence in organisations and enjoys racing yachts and writing music in his free time.
07890 270 215
Jo Maddocks
Founder and Product Director
Jo Maddocks is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist with particular expertise in assessing and developing Emotional Intelligence. He is co-author of the individual, team and organisational effectiveness EI measures (ie™ , te™ & oe™), widely used amongst people development coaches and consultants.
His expertise in this area stems from working with a broad section of the population from motivating disaffected teenagers to fulfilling potential in high achievers.
Jo has spent 15 years applying psychological measures of personality and intelligence to improve business performance. Over this time he has created a process of how EI can be used to manage our personality and 'IQ' to be both personally and interpersonally effective.
Jo began his career with the Employment Services rehabilitation teams, before co-founding JCA (Occupational Psychologists) Limited in 1993. His experience with JCA has ranged from creating and delivering psychometric training, developing the MAPS motivation and self esteem programmes, team facilitation and organisational consultancy.
He is a Level B verifier for the BPS, NLP practitioner, FIRO Human Element ® trainer and company director with JCA.
07890 270 216
Sarah Speers
Senior Consultant and Training & Products Manager
Sarah Speers joined JCA in 1997 and now manages the Training and Products division of JCA.
Sarah works with HR, training and development professionals to provide a complete psychometric solution for organisations. She also delivers assessment centres and profiling for selection and is an external field board representative at the University of Gloucester and visiting lecturer. Her clients include Arup, BNG, Cargill, Chelsea Building Society and Endsleigh.
Outside of work, Sarah enjoys horse riding and has ridden for the majority of her life, recently returning to riding after a couple of years gap. Cooking is also a regular hobby as well as foreign travel. Sarah lives with her husband just outside Worcester.
07890 270 217
Bill Davies
Senior Consultant and Guidance and Career Development Manager
Bill has worked in careers guidance and personal development for over 20 years. He has a number of strings to his bow including being a trained trainer, having management experience, lecturing at the University of the West of England, leading a business development unit, and writing career development material. He is currently the Membership Secretary for The British Association for Psychological Type (BAPT).
Whilst at JCA Bill has been part of leading the development and delivery of the 'Catalyst' and MAPS+ ™ products. Catalyst is a powerful personal development process for senior managers and other key personnel. MAPS+ ™ is a 'soft' assessment toolkit for building motivation and self esteem and measuring client change.
Bill's specialist areas at JCA include 1:1 counselling and executive coaching, team building and development, careers counselling and developing self-esteem and motivation.
07890 270 218
Rich Cook
Senior Consultant
Rich Cook is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist with over 11 years consultancy experience working within the private (e.g. KPMG, Gillette, Co Op, Vistakon, Schering Plough) and public sectors (e.g. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Forensic Science Service, Ministry of Defence). This experience includes work with clients with a UK (e.g. Department for Education and Skills) and international focus (e.g. Shell).
Rich is passionate about applying the principles and power of emotional intelligence to all areas of personnel practice to maximise individuals' effectiveness emotional engagement and organisational commitment. His current consultancy work in this area includes assessment and selection, executive coaching and leadership development. In all cases, Rich's approach is characterised by a focus on delivering solutions that are pragmatic, focused and deliver positive outcomes at both an organisational and individual level.
Rich's other professional interests include the challenge of developing assessment and development solutions that can be applied successfully on a global basis and fair assessment in selection.
07921 744 710
Linn Brynildsen
Senior Consultant
Linn is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist and a Senior Consultant at JCA. Her work and experience, in both the public and private sectors, includes executive coaching, leadership development and team development programmes, design and delivery of large scale development programmes, and bespoke exercise design at executive level. A highly experienced MBTI and FIRO practitioner, she has used psychometric instruments extensively in the facilitation of individual, group and team development.
Linn is particularly passionate about working with individuals and groups around the principles of Emotional Intelligence and the 'human element', enabling them to connect with themselves and others at the level of feelings and attitudes and work to their full potential. Her sensitive, engaged yet assertive style means she easily gains the trust of those she works with and facilitates sustainable development change.
In her free time Linn enjoys pilates, yoga and skiing, and travels back to her native Norway several times a year to be with family and friends.
07971 160 708
Hannah Ward
Business Development
Hannah joined JCA in 2005 as a member of the Client Support team providing administration support to consultancy projects and supporting our clients using our psychometric products. She is now a member of the Training and Products team recently taking on a Business Development role.
Her particular interests lie in Client relationships and Event Management. She was responsible for JCA's involvement in co-ordinating the first National Emotional Intelligence Conference run by the Centre for Applied Emotional Intelligence in September 2006.
Hannah is passionate about outdoor activities and regularly enjoys going to the gym, mountain biking, running and horse-riding. She also enjoys spending time with her friends, family and her cat Moss.
07921 971 818
Ruth Tovey
PA / Client Support
Ruth joined JCA in 2002 after completing a Psychology degree at the University of Gloucestershire. Previously she worked in event management within the hospitality industry. She currently works as Personal Assistant to John Cooper providing support to a variety of consultancy projects and is also a member of the Client Support team.
Ruth's main interests lie in co-ordinating team building activities and coaching programmes for our corporate clients. In the long term Ruth plans to complete her MSc in Occupational Psychology with a view to working towards Chartered status as an Occupational Psychologist.
Outside work Ruth enjoys spending time with her family. She particularly enjoys spending her weekends feeding the ducks and watching Thomas the Tank engine DVDs!
01242 239 238
Claire Bott
Training and Products Co-ordinator
Claire joined JCA in December 2006. Previously she worked in London for 5 years at a Financial PR Agency organising financial results presentations for FTSE 100 & 250 clients. Claire's position within the company is Training and Product Co-ordinator. She is especially adept at hospitality and is the friendly face of JCA's front of house.
Claire's main interests include socialising with friends and going for long walks on the Malvern Hills!
01242 239 238
Maureen Nisbet
Financial Controller
Maureen has been with the company for eight years and has watched JCA develop and grow from its humble beginnings to the International Company it has now become. Maureen has had previous experience in both financial and public sector accounting.
Maureen's main focus is to provide Financial and Management Reports to the Board of Directors, and to ensure the smooth effective operation of the day to day accounting function. Maureen works closely with all the JCA team to ensure that accurate and concise Financial and Management Reports are available.
Outside of JCA Maureen's main objectives are keeping her daughters under control, making sure her husband, dog and horse are fed and her ambition is to compete in a triathlon.
01242 239 238
Graham Coxell
Chairman
Following a short stint in the RAF training as a pilot Graham has spent the last 17 years operating within the financial services sector, of which 13 years has been in the financial services outsourcing and technology sectors and 3 years as Chairman of JCA.
In Graham's early career he held senior sales and business development roles within UK Blue Chip retail financial services organisations. Graham played a major role in the development and growth of a software development company, being appointed as Chief Executive in 2000 and leading their very successful IPO in April 2001, as well as a number of acquisitions including the Exchange plc.
In March 2005 Graham joined the Capita Group as an MD of one of its recently acquired business's. As part of this role he has defined and implemented Capita's Financial Services strategy, including the acquisition of a number of complimentary businesses. This resulted in him being appointed as the Financial Services Business and Commercial Development Director.
Graham has built his career by working with companies to ensure they grow and prosper through developing first class solutions that deliver exceptional results for customers, based around a sustainable, long-term business and people strategy.
Graham joined JCA as Chairman in 2004 and is passionate about the value of psychology in getting the best from people.
01242 239 238
Rob Jones
Sunday Launch Limited - Technical Director
JCA work in conjunction with Sunday Launch Limited in providing our Psych-e online system.
Rob has over 12 years of experience as a systems analyst and is also a keen web analyst programmer. Having both development and analytical skills have provided Rob with an excellent background for establishing customer requirements.
Rob is a keen photographer and sportsman. Rob lives in the Cotswold's with his wife and family.
01242 239 238
Dean Pollard
Sunday Launch Limited - Technical Director
JCA work in conjunction with Sunday Launch Limited in providing our Psych-e online system.
Dean has over 15 years experience as a developer and programming team leader. His latest skills have been dedicated to graphical user interface (GUI) design and producing websites that are innovative and professional.
Dean has been an enthusiastic snowboarder since 1996 and lives in Cheltenham with his wife and family.
01242 239 238
JCA
Established in 1993, our cutting edge approach builds self esteem and delivers emotionally intelligent attitudes and behaviours that dramatically improve motivation, productivity and relationships.
Over the last decade JCA have been building an industry leading reputation for applied business psychology and people development interventions which create lasting value and sustained change within large organisations.
Renowned for our rigour, sensitivity and creativity, JCA's success stems from our company values and the individuality of our team members.
Our progressive and client centred approach creates energy, engagement and trust to maximise effectiveness and achievement.
Emotional Intelligence and how we manage our personality is at the core of everything we do.
1993 - Lets be different
John Cooper and Jo Maddocks create a lifestyle based practice of occupational psychologists in Cheltenham focused around career assessment and psychometric profiling
1996 - Independent Experts in Assessment
John Cooper Associates (JCA) became recognised UK leaders and trainers in psychometric testing. The Psychometric Resource Centre became a national network and centre of excellence for good practice and research in Psychometric testing.
2000 - Improving productivity and well being
JCA consulting solutions became renowned in the West of England as high impact and creating lasting effect. Solutions now include assessment and development centres, team development, coaching, stress management, and a range of metrics and products. Additionally we help establish Gloucestershire University Business MSc and move to our new premises, Schutz House.
2002 - Getting the most from people in a sustainable way
JCA Ltd is formed as a vehicle for growth and moves to prestigious new premises, SPA House.
Our proposition is based on:
- ( our own internet enabled Emotional Intelligence and FIRO Element™ tools)
- JCA resourced and 'train the trainer' solutions for clients
- Approaches and methods which go deeper and create lasting change for teams and individuals
2004 - JCA: A People Development Business building amazing success through maximising the power of people
Former client and youngest FTSE 250 CEO ever, , joins JCA as chairman. Our intention is to become the leading practice of occupational psychologists in the UK.
2006 - Leaders in Emotional Intelligence and new generation psychometrics
JCA's Individual and Team Effectiveness tools were a key focus for this year, with a variety of significant landmarks including:
- The first Applied Emotional Intelligence conference hosted in Windsor, a popular event that will now be run bi-annually
- International partnerships with our first agents in Ecuador
- Development work starting on the Organisational Effectiveness questionnaire
01242 239 238