Meet The Team
Our backgrounds are fairly diverse, but some common threads are:-
 |
With extensive experience in journalism, Debbie has headed up news teams in television, newspapers and business magazines. She has worked as a Sky TV presenter and as a news reader for a regional news station. An award winning writer, communications professional and journalist, she also has wide-ranging senior management experience in communications and has headed up communications departments in the NHS. She has considerable experience of consultancy and of coaching board level directors in media and communications skills. Clients include: the NHS, HM Govt departments and many major corporations. |
Shoba worked at Sky News for three years, reporting on world events, presenting news bulletins and news editing. She has also worked for Thames TV in London and for TVS and Meridian in Maidstone, Kent. Shoba was a news reporter for a year on the now folded Today Newspaper and spent five years as a staff reporter on The Sun, where she later became deputy TV Editor.
As well as her Media Training work with One To One, Shoba also currently freelances for various national titles, including The Sun, Saturday Express, Woman's Own, Woman, New! magazine, Sunday magazine, What's On TV, TV Quick, TV Choice, TV & Satellite Week and The People.
Oxford graduate George Dearsley has been a media and presentation skills trainer for 18 years. He has coached board level directors at organisations like Cedel, BUPA, Earls Court and Olympia, Enterprise, Marshalls, the Co-operative Bank and Alstom and also senior executives at Shell, Kodak, Bank of New York and the Construction Confederation. He has presented corporate videos, helped finance directors to pitch to City investors, written for several award-winning internal company magazines and supplied the foreward to a plc’s annual report and accounts. He is a former journalist on four national newspapers and was an on-screen reporter for SKY Television.
 |
Greg de Polnay, former actor, is a RADA director/tutor and a specialist voice, communications and presentation skills coach to corporate and media clients.
As well as his consultancy work with One to One Communications, Greg runs his own communications and presentation skills training company working with major corporate clients. As part of his training portfolio he offers PowerPoint presentation/communication training and coaches teams when pitching for new business.
Greg has an MA in Text & Performance Studies and the Advanced Diploma in Voice Studies (ADVS). He is also a member of the Institute of Directors and ITOL (the Institute of Training & Occupational Learning). |
Gerard Blay has a technical background, having obtained an applied physics degree which included a year spent at Plessey's central research laboratories.
Gerard has over 21 years experience in the PR industry, and has worked for two of the world's leading PR agencies. Shandwick and Hill & Knowlton, with one year spent in the Middle East working on a mix of IT and consumer accounts such as NCR, Ford Motor Company, Standard Chartered Bank and Pepsi, He also spent two years working in house for PA Consulting Group in its banking, insurance and finance division.
Working as a freelance journalist, Gerard wrote for two of the Financial Times Newsletters, Business Computing Brief and Electronic Office and worked on the editorial team of Connexion (a leading Datacomms publication of its time). Gerard has undertaken direct and sub-contract work on a variety of IT accounts, including Digital, IBM, Microsoft, BT and BSG (Business Systems Group). He also launched US-based Voicelink (call management systems supplier) in the UK in the early nineties.
|
