Most of us at some point in our careers will think of throwing in the towel and moving on to pastures new - and for three old school friends from Neath, the new pastures of the Brecon Beacons were one of their most successful business moves.
Mark Soanes, Kevin Gould and Geraint Lewis were all in high-level management positions in London when they decided to launch Call of the Wild – an innovative management and leadership development company based in Wales.
Now the business is one of the UK’s leading personal and organisational development companies and boasts a portfolio of regular big brand name clients including BT, Vodafone, Orange and Barclays Bank.
Mark Soanes, director at Call of the Wild, left his job as an associate partner at Knight Frank in London to co-found the company. He said:
“We initially noticed a gap in the management training market about ten years ago. Management and leadership training had been reduced to hours of lecturing in classrooms, with very little practical work involved and, as a result, people were shying away from it.
“The three of us had always been keen on blended learning approaches combining classroom and experiential learning, after years of experience in management, we recognised that this approach could be used as an effective development tool for management training courses.
“Kevin had spent ten years in pharmaceutical sales and Geraint was European commercial manager at a large electronics company, but none of us felt we had really found our niche yet.
“The idea of providing bespoke management and leadership development programmes was one that struck a chord with the three of us. It was a huge risk for us to take as we all had well-paying jobs and settled families, but the move has really paid off.”
Call of the Wild courses are developed in consultation with the client to meet the organisational needs and to create measurable outcomes in the work place.It also offers a personalised feedback programme for all businesses and offers an ‘all-inclusive’ package including accommodation, catering and transport to corporate groups.
“Our philosophy is based in experimental learning, not lecturing, which gives the training a ‘real world’ focus and provides a refreshing alternative to the more traditional management and staff training programmes,” Kevin added.
“The business has been more successful than we had ever imagined and as well as handling over 200 courses and events each year now, we also have the added bonus of being able to call the Brecon Beacons our office.”
The company has gone from strength to strength and won numerous awards including
- National Business Tourism Company of the Year 2011/2012
- SMARTA 100 Top Small Companies in the UK 2010
- Leading Wales Awards Winners 2010
- Welsh Small Business of the Year 2008/2009
- National Team Building Company of the Year 2008/2009
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