Assessment Team

Bev White | Managing Director, HR Consulting

Bev joined Penna in 2002. In just eight years she led our Career Transition business into the number one position in the UK market place in the private sector. She has accountability for leading the continuous design, development and delivery of the Career Transition services. Bev was made Managing Director, HR Consulting in 2009, which encompasses Career Transition, Training and Development, Board and Executive Coaching and Performance and Change Consulting Solutions.

Bev’s earlier career included seven years as CIO of NtL and prior to that as Director I.T. for Schlumberger. Today, she is President of the UK Association of Career Firms and of the European Board for the Association of Career Firms. In her work, she is passionate about innovating to make sure that our services are relevant for our clients and add real value to their business.

Gwyn Rogers | Director of Talent and Assessment

Gwyn has worked in leadership assessment and development for more than 20 years and now leads our Assessment practice. He has an extensive track record of working with multinational businesses at board level to measure and develop leadership talent as part of significant change programmes. These have included mergers and acquisitions, brand changes and restructuring.

Over the years, Gwyn has undertaken leadership assessment and development projects across sectors including retail, engineering, financial services, manufacturing, utilities, FMCG, communications and leisure. This has seen him work with companies such as Marks and Spencer, Boots, Serco, Hyder Group, Courtaulds, William Hill, Masterfoods, Powergen and Sky. He has also been involved in the recruitment and ongoing coaching of CEOs and board members of several UK PLCs and FTSE organisations, and has a wide experience in Top Team development. Gwyn is a Chartered Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society.

Ian Matheson | Head of Executive Assessment

Ian leads Penna’s executive assessment practice. He has more than 25 years experience in talent strategy and assessment as well as general business management. Ian has wide experience of working with clients to identify individual capability and potential, whether this is for selection, individual development or to enable the organisation build a thorough understanding of the potential within pools of staff for succession planning. Ian’s primary focus is on working with senior executives (board level or other strategic roles) or ‘emerging leaders’ with high potential in both the private and public sectors. He uses a broad range of individual or group based assessment methods to measure what matters and provide reports for clients and individuals on identified strengths, areas for development and the business implications of the assessment. Ian has been consulting on talent assessment issues for 15 years after a successful career in HR and business management. He is a Chartered Psychologist.

Jackie Sykes | Head of Talent and Assessment

Jackie’s primary areas of expertise are selection, assessment, talent management, coaching, development and psychometrics. Since joining Penna in 2006 Jackie has delivered successful consultancy projects for clients in both the private and public sectors, including British Council, BT, Southwark Council, British Gas, National College, Serco, and Steria. Prior to Penna, Jackie worked in consultancies and as an in-house Occupational Psychologist at Centrica, where is she was responsible for selection and assessment.

Jackie has had many articles published on the assessment arena and she has presented at the BPS Occupational Psychology Conference and Test User Conference on the business impact of role profiling. A Chartered Psychologist with a Masters degree in Occupational Psychology, BSC (hons) in Psychology, and a Diploma in Positive Impact Coaching, Jackie also has a Chartered FCIPD qualification and is an Associate Fellow of the BPS. She has extensive experience with using psychometric tools for recruitment and development and is trained in OPQ, Wave, MBTI, HPI, HDS, EQi, 16PF, FIRO B, Lominger, Talent Q and OPI.

Jenny Straumers | Principal Consultant

Jenny’s main areas of expertise are psychometric assessment and development, including competency framework design and the design and delivery of assessment and development interventions. She has extensive experience of leading assessment and development projects for a variety of clients and training assessor and client teams to ensure consistency of delivery. She is experienced in providing developmental feedback to individuals on psychometric tools and 360 instruments. Since joining Penna Jenny has delivered a large number of successful consultancy projects for clients such as BT, Steria, Howden, Ministry of Justice, Department for Transport, the Planning Inspectorate and Government Equalities Office.

Before moving into assessment Jenny worked in Executive Search delivering a wide range of search assignments in the IT and Consumer industries across Europe. She has also successfully managed large volume recruitment campaigns for central government clients, specialising in psychometric assessment. She achieved an MSc in Business Administration with Spanish whilst studying at the University of Linköping, Sweden. She also has a Diploma in Translation from Surrey University. Jenny is British Psychological Society accredited in occupational testing to level B and is qualified to use a wide range of psychometric tools for assessment and development.