Our Team
Ramona da Gama
Ramona da Gama is a business and strategy growth coach who helps SMEs accelerate growth, entrepreneurs move from employment to starting their own businesses, and large corporations increase their value through sustainability, employee engagement initiatives and change management. It is Ramona’s first-hand experience of founding and running three businesses – a media sales consultancy, a Kensington-based jazz club, and her coaching practice – as well as being instrumental in large organisations’ business strategies, such as working with Sir Stelios with the launch of EasyJet that qualifies her to coach and train others. She has also worked with Rupert Murdoch at Times Newspapers, Lord Rothermere during the re-launch of The Mail on Sunday, Virgin Atlantic and with the Shirlaws team on The Lloyds Bank/TSB Group merger.
Ramona is passionate about making a difference to businesses and individuals. Her sustainability work sees her assist large organisations with cultural change, which takes the form of establishing and implementing initiatives that invest in the business’s human capital as well as corporate social responsibility. These initiatives ensure the longevity of the business as well sustaining its positive social reputation, staff retention and ultimately making it more attractive for its shareholders and new investors. Ramona speaks regularly on sustainability, working closely with the European Sustainability Academy, as well as other organisations such as the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group.
Ramona works with organisations to develop and train their managers to become leaders, who empower their teams to achieve the overall vision for their organisations. She has qualified and worked with Shirlaws Coaching delivering Business Management Coaching, and Performance Coaching International delivering Leadership and Coaching programmes. She is a mentor and coach for The Debrett’s Foundation.
Ramona also delivers articles on Entrepreneurship and Career Development for The Telegraph and The Guardian. As part of supporting her clients to scale up and grow, Ramona helps them seek investment and funding.
Stuart Black
Stuart J. Black, is a professional with over four decades of global real estate and investment experience with proficiencies specifically within the investment advisory and risk analysis arena.
Stuart previously held senior board and management positions within some of the leading names in global real estate which has awarded him a truly whole of market understanding. His in-depth knowledge of transacting, developing through to disposal brings that edge when identifying opportunities, optimising returns and minimising risk throughout the value chain in real estate investing.
Lisa McWilliam
Lisa has had the privilege of leading some of the top global creative businesses. She has managed diverse teams and talent across multiple markets and departments. Her experience as CEO, MD and General Manager have enabled her to get a first-hand deep understanding about the importance of world- class leadership and the power, productivity and passion of a high-performance team.
Lisa is known for her innovative leadership models and strong results- both commercially and inspiring teams and individuals.
She specialises in business marketing strategy, brand strategy, innovation and team training with a focus on consumer and corporate brands.
Sabrina Anwer
Sabrina is a social media marketing consultant with experience across a variety of product and service businesses.
Since graduating, Sabrina has gained experience across a range of industries, including fashion, beauty, e-commerce, lifestyle and retail. Using her creativity and eye for detail, Sabrina has worked with these businesses to optimise their online presence, both on social media and their websites.
She specialises in creating high quality and engaging content for businesses, in the form of photos, videos, graphics and brochures.
Peter Chesley
After graduating in business and working in London for many top companies, I went travelling for 6 months. During my travels around the world, I took up professional photography and created videos using drones, specialising in landscape and wildlife. I moved to France to learn the beautiful French language. Here, I took the world-renowned CELTA qualification to teach English as a foreign language and set up my business. Using my work, life and educational experiences I’m now an English teacher / trainer / consultant and professional photographer.
Stephanie Sadjak
Stephanie Sadjak is a skilled professional specialising in strategic marketing, sales, and business development. Her collaborative efforts with our clients are dedicated to enhancing their performance and fostering sustainable growth.
She is equipped with a successful background managing the full marketing mix for prominent enterprises, spanning diverse sectors including luxury, beauty, and lifestyle brands, all on an international scale.
When it comes to event planning and organisation, Stephanie gets really passionate. With her eye for detail and creative approach of staging a brand and raising the awareness, she creates upscale key account and PR events from luxury networking gatherings in London or St. Moritz to expansive retreats accommodating up to 800 attendees in Croatia.
Stephanie has experience of working in different markets such as Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia and UK and is an expert for the DACH-market (German speaking countries). She has a high cultural awareness and helps businesses to grow in these areas through targeted marketing and sales activities. As an advanced relationship builder, she delivers strategies for business development and connects different markets.
She is fluent in English, German and speaks conversational French
She founded her own boutique marketing & sales agency nobl to help her international clients with customised and individual solutions.
Katriina Cooper
Katriina (Kit) Cooper is a highly skilled branding and communications professional, with 25+ years of experience producing strategy, ideas and words for big corporate brands, newly listed ones, start-ups, SMEs, charities, FMCGs and service industry firms.
With experience spanning diverse sectors, including IT, legal, management consultancy, engineering, property, education, financial services, mining and natural resources, pharmaceutical, travel and logistics, Kit has in-depth transferrable knowledge to bring to your business and communication challenges.
Her specialities include generating wide-ranging insights and connecting them together meaningfully. Writing in a way that is interesting, thought provoking and fresh. Driving the marketing and expression of brands. Understanding the link between strategy and creativity, and helping teams deliver inspiring work.
Kit’s greatest skill is combining her sector insights with her know-how of multiple brand and communication specialisms. Her intelligent joined-up thinking has helped to create new brands, refresh existing ones, develop sustainability strategies, reports and communication content, and drive ideas and strategies throughout organisations, via inventive employee engagement campaigns.
Kit is known for presenting with clear thought and process, delivering clear meaning amongst complexity, and collaborating and encouraging contributions from all quarters. She is also a starter-finisher. Someone you can trust to get a job done.
Ananda Shakespeare
Ananda Shakespeare has enjoyed a career as a magazine editor, journalist and PR professional spanning more than 20 years.
Her depth of experience expands to lifestyle, business, property and esoteric subjects too. She has worked with most of the leading publications in the UAE, both editorially and as a PR professional.
Career highlights include compiling numerous one-off books for the Time Out empire in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and GCC including Time Out Doha and working with Ideal Home and International Wristwatch magazines in the UK. Her meticulous eye for detail was tested and proven when she worked for five years as a sub-editor for MEED, Middle East Economic Digest), one of the oldest and most respected business titles in the region. Her early career included a period of employment with the UK’s BBC Radio 4.
A relentless networker and people person, Ananda adopts a deeply personal and hands-on approach to her clients, with industry experience spanning work with BourneRiver PR, UK Gold and PolyGram.
Ananda is a corporate member of the Middle East PR Association (MEPRA) where she sits on the Strategy Board and has corporate membership with the PRCA (Public Relations & Communications Association) of the UK and UAE and the Middle East and The Marketing Society.
Ananda is also an adviser to Abu Dhabi University for their Mass Communications courses and a guest lecturer on PR and journalism to both Abu Dhabi University and Middlesex University in Dubai.