Brendan Walsh, Managing Director

Brendan Walsh, Managing Director of Bowland Solutions reflects the unique blend of technological excellence and human touch that makes Bowland Solutions so effective. It’s thanks to his extensive experience in customer service, HR and IT that the Bowland Solutions proposition is so attractive.

With knowledge, skills and experience spanning the business disciplines, Brendan has led other organisations to success as a managing director and contributed to the successes of countless others in consultative roles to which he was personally appointed.

Following a fast-track career within the HSBC Group, Brendan has headed his own consulting and IT businesses.

In consultancy roles Brendan has worked directly with many top brand organisations including Wedgwood, NHS Direct, Britannia Building Society, HSBC International, and Advantage West Midlands.

With a first degree in Mathematics, Brendan has recently achieved an MBA from Nottingham University Business School completing a thesis analysing the value and content of the narrative elements of 360 degree appraisals.

Read Brendan's thoughts on 360 degree appraisals.

Eric Stauffer, Systems Design Director

As Bowland Solutions’ Director of Systems Design, Eric is the heavy weight technological expert behind the Company’s systems creation. But with a first degree in psychology, he is not a typical systems designer. As well as ensuring the highest development standards, Eric has a personal interest in leading the creation of systems that provide simple solutions to business needs, exploiting the best technology available.

With over 17 years commercial IT experience, much of this in internet development in the States, Eric spent the early part of his career designing systems in the US pharmaceutical sector. Latterly he has been extensively involved in developing e-commerce sites for retail and created the World’s first and most popular online wine discussion forum.

He has a first class understanding of all major databases including Oracle, SQLServer, and mySQL with specific technical expertise in Unix, PHP, Perl, and VB.NET.

John Rice, Sales & Marketing Director

John joins Bowland Solutions with over 15 years experience in Sales & Marketing within the Telecommunications, Engineering and Broadcast sectors coupled with skills in training and business performance coaching.

It was in his latter role within a training & development organisation working with an eclectic mix of clients such as Microsoft, HSBC, Specsavers, Virgin Retail and Fujitsu that his interest grew in the area of Performance Appraisals and 360 Degree Feedback.

 “What I found most fulfilling was where we could strategically develop individuals and teams through a proper understanding of the business aims, what competencies supported those aims, and then establishing where the gaps were. I could see the 360 Degree process provided everyone with a clear insight, and that self-awareness was key to effective development.”

John’s experience within learning & development has given him an understanding of how the HR function operates and the context in which a 360 Degree Feedback process works best.

Personally he has a passion for travel and new experiences, having just returned from a round-the-world trip with his partner Lesley, where they learned to Scuba Dive, taught street kids in Peru, and went to Spanish school.
“We have built up a huge amount of memories and were fortunate to be able to do it, although I can’t see the scuba diving as a hobby here in the U.K.!”

“My goal is to develop what we do, so we can offer an end-to-end service, from helping define the vision, mission and values of the organisation, to then providing an effective means to measure the behaviours and ultimately to work with our clients to create great development programmes which address their strategic objectives……… And when I’m not doing that, I will be decorating the house!”