About Us

Company Heritage
Values
Results
Capabilities
International Locations
Alliances & Partners

Company Heritage

The Oxford Group was founded in 1987 by Nigel Purse, Sheena Porter and Ian Ritchie who shared a vision of building a business that would make a real difference to its clients by designing and delivering truly inspirational people development solutions. Previously Nigel and Sheena both worked as HR Professionals in the Mars Corporation whilst Ian was HR Director of a major division of the Burmah Oil company.

Throughout the 1990’s we grew steadily on the basis of a clear focus on the quality of our solutions and people, and a growing number of long term relationships with many of the world’s leading organisations such as Barclays, GE, Shell and Vodafone, as well as a continuing relationship with Mars.

Today 80% of our work is repeat business or referrals from clients delighted with the impact of our programmes. References are readily available from all of our clients, and we actively encourage you to talk to them about the effectiveness of our approach.

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Values

The Oxford Group has always operated from the basis of strong values of respect for people’s rights, capabilities and potential at work. Still today our people and our clients report that this is the most distinctive feature of working with our company.

These values shine through in the open, two way relationships we build with clients.

“You’re not like other consultancies – we can trust you!”

They are also evident in the behaviour of our people in designing and delivering development solutions which, whilst they truly challenge and stretch participants, are transparent, honest and positive in intent and implementation.

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Results

Results are the lifeblood of our business – the value stories our interventions create where leaders and their teams have demonstrated measurable improvements in business performance as a result of changing their behaviour and implementing new skills.

Underpinning our commitment to delivering real business benefit is a tough methodology of define, design, deliver and evaluate.

In the define phase we work alongside you to ensure the real needs of all stakeholders are considered, and clear outcomes and success measures are identified. We then design unique development experiences that deepen self awareness and build knowledge, skills and confidence. Our team of exceptional people development specialists and executive coaches deliver solutions in local language, across multiple cultures, whilst maintaining quality and consistency. Finally we always evaluate the outcomes of our work (at no charge to you) and feed the learning back into your organisation.

“Last month our General Manager in Spain received a major order that he could not fulfil locally. As a result of the Masterclass programme he phoned his colleague in Germany, a co-delegate on the programme, and they agreed the order would be fulfilled in Germany. I can tell you this would NEVER have happened before this programme. This alone has paid for the programme!”

“As a result of attending the Essential Leadership course I totally changed my approach in the pitch to a major client. We won it and it’s worth at least £500,000 a year. I don’t believe we would have been successful if I’d adopted my old approach.”

“I’ve saved at least half a day a week by delegating better, which must be worth £7k a year to the business, x 10 colleagues who are doing the same – that’s £70,000 at least.”

“We blew last Christmas’s sales by lack of planning. This year the sales guys just wanted to jump straight in again saying “what goodies shall we sell”. I held them back and got the planning right. We’ve already sold 40,000 of the 50,000 bundles, which is worth at least $4m. It’s a fantastic result thanks to the insights about watching the “big picture” from the course and the coaching.”

“My voice wasn’t being heard in the supplier negotiation. Instead of just firing off another email I got on the next flight and met them face to face. This alone will have saved us millions of euros a year.”

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Capabilities

We work in the areas of leadership, team effectiveness, executive coaching and organisational development (click on heading link for more information).

	Leadership World Class Leadership and Core Skills Development for International Managers Inspirational Leadership, Future Leaders,Management Development, Core Skills Includes: Classic & Innovations
	Executive Coaching International Executive Coaching for CEO’s, Directors and Senior Executives That Delivers Business Results Leadership Coaching, Business CoachingTransition Coaching, Career Coaching
	Team Effectiveness Facilitating Real Teams in Real Time to Improve Their Performance Now and inthe Future Team Performance, Team Events,Complex Teams, Large Group Facilitation
	Organisational Development Building the Strategies, Tools and Capabilities to Foster and Sustain Organisational Excellence Business Partnering, HR Effectiveness & Strategic Support, Managing Performance & Potential, Talent Assessment, Organisational Change

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International Locations

We have headquarters in Oxford, Paris and Washington, DC.

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Alliances and Partners

We have an exceptionally strong network of partnerships and alliances with leading people development specialists and academics around the world. We frequently work in collaboration with colleagues in these organisations to deliver seamless services to our global clients.

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