This year was one of great progress and new beginnings for Consalia. As a sales education organisation and advocate for the integration of sales and higher learning, Consalia has been providing sales leaders and organisations with the knowledge, coaching, and education they need to meet their goals today, whilst being equipped with the understanding and skills needed to adapt to abrupt change as the sales industry continues to develop and mature.
The foundation of education provided to sales leaders is based on the doctorate of Dr Philip Squire, CEO of Consalia, and his passion towards sales as a profession. With Consalia, his goal is to make sales the world’s most sought-after profession. Through the journey of his career, which lead to the founding of Consalia, Dr Phil met Peter Critten, who was both a dear friend and supporter of sales education.
Peter was an advocate for bridging the gap between the sales profession and the academic world, in hopes to provide a richer alliance between the two. He was a pioneer and looked for creative solutions to problems within the sales industry and beyond. Believing that every individual practitioner could bring about change through change in themselves, he sought out the opportunities within complex sales issues, and what could be revealed if we approach them from a different angle.
As a dear friend to Consalia and an important figure within the industry, it was only right to honour his great contribution to the development of sales education with an award ceremony, which was available only to graduates of the Level 7 Postgraduate MSc Apprenticeship programme and Consalia Master’s programme.
First of its kind
Consalia’s first annual Peter Critten Award ceremony took place at The Wharf Restaurant, Teddington Lock. It was truly a night to remember.
There were three categories of awards presented at the ceremony:
- Special Commendation for Cultural Shift
- Special Commendation for Future Contribution
- Special Commendation for Learning Reach
As guests gathered in the reception hall by the bar, many interesting conversations could be overheard. Peter’s family joined graduates and industry friends in the celebration and joyous atmosphere. Once all the guests had arrived, the ceremony officially began as awards and acceptance speeches were given. Winners of an award that unfortunately could not be present, sent in a recording of their acceptance speech answering two questions:
- What inspired you to develop and continue with your Master’s project?
- What are your plans going forward to progress these achievements?
Below are the winners for each category and their acceptance speech:
Special Commendation for Cultural Shift
Jon Skitt, Market Reach, Media Specialist, Royal Mail
Project title: My learning journey and how it has inspired me to drive fundamental changes and ways of working at Royal Mail.
“I do work for Royal Mail and we’re going through so much change at the moment. So there’s so much pressure on managers, particularly sales managers at the moment to build that trust engagement. So my project on Emotional Intelligence … for those of you who are not familiar with it, in essence, it’s about having better social awareness, better self-awareness, nurturing people, inspiring people. So I developed a model where I could measure that at Royal Mail…”
Lennie Monteiro, Director of Sales Performance, Sysco Canada Inc
Project title: How can my values, inform my future practice as A Sales Enablement Leader
“I think first and foremost I’d like to reflect on my journey. I think one of the things that the Masters taught me is that if you can’t lead yourself, how are you going to lead others? And I’ve seen a marked, I wouldn’t say a jump, I would say in my leadership skills. I continue to grow in my journey as a sales enablement leader."
Simon Topley, Telesales Account Manager, Royal Mail
Project title: Transforming a Sales Office to a Sales Centre of Excellence
“It’s an experience that I found both challenging and intoxicating. It's an opportunity to take some time out and really think about something in-depth. Then take it back into a room and actually put it into some practice. It's at that moment when you’re putting it through that practical side, that it absolutely starts to make sense”
Stuart McCracken, EMEA Vice President, SAP
Project title: How do my core values and beliefs impact my time management and what improvements can be made as a result?
“Thank you to Consalia, to Middlesex University and also to Peter’s family as well for allowing me to be part of his legacy. Mythology and Business, bit of a weird one right? But it hasn’t actually changed the way we work with our customers and in our team. Moving forward, im now doing my Doctorate in Mythology and female leadership, which should be an interesting one…”
Special Commendation for Future Contribution
Donald Howieson, Business Manager, SKF Group
Title: How can I change my habits to make my role more tangible as a sales enabler?
“I only have really one word to say, and it’s the work that Phil mentioned at the beginning in module 1. And I honestly thought he’d made it up. But that word was ‘reflexivity’… I was looking at Phil thinking “that’s not a real word”. But reflexivity was something, I think. That I went away and learned a little bit more about and understood a little bit more about, and then I’ve tried to practice, not particularly brilliantly, but by practising it, it’s definitely helped me move forward…”
Special Commendation for Learning Reach
Darragh Power, Leadership Development, SAP
John Massey, Global Head of Leadership Development Midmarket Sales, SAP
(Joint winners and voted outstanding by the judges)
Project title: The Love of Learning
Darragh: “One of the things that really came through is that, the lights were on and the fire still burned. And it was amazing. He [Peter] had this fantastic curiosity about what people were doing and what that really meant for people. And I think that that’s something that sums up Consalia as an organisation and the Master’s programme, is that you never know when touching somebody emotionally can really have an effect on their life and what happens as a result of that…”
Grant Van Ulbrich, Global Director for Sales Transformation, Royal Caribbean Group
Project title: “How will I be the new voice of Sales Effectiveness for the EMEA Sales Team?”
“My inspiration really was I think around the passion for the programme. The Masters programme completely transformed my life. And it transformed my way of thinking about sales through a psychological based standpoint and through a science-based standpoint. And I really enjoyed it. I was very excited about the learning at a later stage in life, and I was excited about the opportunity that I could do it within my work practice. I thought I knew sales […] but through the Masters programme I learned that there was so much more to it.”
Axel Ferreyrolles, Head of Innovation & Digital Strategy, Global Sales Leader, SAP
Project title: A journey towards Mastery in “Leading Sales Transformation”
“I knew that I needed to look at answers outside of our standard enablement area, and I looked into ancient tradition. Because in ancient tradition, what happens is that we create sacred space for transformation to take place. And I was wondering, how can I create such a space? Qualitative space where managers could have the time to reflect, to innovate, and to research on their own practice. Sales practice? And I couldn’t find any answers, not until I talked to Consalia, to Dr Phil Squire, about the possibility to create a Master’s Programme…”
The first annual Peter Critten Awards Celebration was a great success, with winners from leading companies such as Royal Caribbean, SAP, Royal Mail Group and more. With this success, the Consalia team have great expectations for the second instalment of the awards in 2023, with more submissions from our diverse graduates of the Master's programme.
We look forward to next year’s submissions.
For more information about the Peter Critten Awards, please email pca@consalia.com