Our Team
Neil Orvay Trainer
Expertise :
Communication, Influence, Sales, Negotiation, Leadership, Team Building, Coaching, NLP, Empowerment, Unconscious Bias, Psychometric Profiling, Time Line Therapy.
Language :
English
Location :
Dubai, Hong Kong
Neil is a certified Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming and Time Line Therapy (TM), an ICF accredited business coach, and one of the most recommended corporate trainers on LinkedIn with over 175 named client testimonials. He has studied negotiation at the Harvard Negotiation Institute and Persuasion Psychology with world renowned expert Dr. Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University.
He has developed training courses covering Neuro Linguistic Programming, Collaborative Communication, Conflict Management, Sales Psychology, Deal Pitching, Negotiation Theory, Influencing without Authority, Psychometric Profiling and Personal Empowerment. He works with Leaders and their teams to develop customised deliveries allowing theory to be put into practise. Neil has taught his courses too over 7,000 senior executives and middle management globally.
Neil has been involved in presenting and public speaking since the age of 16 when he held a military scholarship with the Royal Air Force through College and later University. He has spoken at conferences and investment road shows on a wide range of topics including Asset Securitisation, Collateralised Debt Obligations, Voice-Data Convergence, Entrepreneurship, Customer Service, Sales and Negotiation Theory, Communication Skills, Body Language, Personal Empowerment, Building Trust, Psychometric Profiling and Persuasion Psychology.
He is a regular on international presentation circuit having presented at the British, American and Canadian Chambers of Commerce in Hong Kong, multiple entrepreneur forums, internationally for the spa and wellness industry where he has personal investments, and at the International Association of Drilling Contractors in Dubai. He has had articles published or profiles written in many leading publications including the Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post, Hong Kong Business, British Chamber of Commerce Magazine, Peak Magazine and Spa China.
Neil holds a BSc (hons) degree in Accountancy and Financial Analysis from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an Executive Master’s degree in International Negotiation and Policy Making from the Graduate Institute in Geneva. He was the Chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce Angel Investment Program in Hong Kong from 2007 until 2021. From 2013-2018 Neil was a visiting professor at Edinburgh Napier University and is currently a visiting lecturer for the Graduate Institute in Geneva teaching Negotiation Psychology.
Neil started his career in Investment Banking in 1990 and spent 13 years at the forefront of Capital Markets in London, Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong. An entrepreneur at heart, he co-founded Sense of Touch, a boutique day spa in Hong Kong in 2002. After 20 years of operation and approx. 100 industry awards, Sense of Touch has three premier Hong Kong locations employing approx. 30 staff and a customer base of over 75,000 expatriate and locals.
In his spare time Neil has a passion for ultra-marathons and has completed both the Marathon des Sables and the Gobi March, each 250km ultra marathons in the Gobi and Sahara desert’s respectively. In January 2017 Neil summited Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa at 5,895m. He has raised over US$100,000 for community projects and cancer research.
Joe Sevack
Expertise :
Negotiation, Influence
Language :
English
Location :
Hong Kong
Joe Sevack is a lawyer with more than 25 years of experience representing buyers and sellers on mergers, acquisitions and investments, banks, sponsors, borrowers and issuers on complex financings, liability management and restructuring transactions, and underwriters and issuers on equity and equity-linked financings.
Joe has practiced in Asia for over 20 years and been involved in some of the most significant transactions in the region during that period, including the very first high yield bond issuance by a PRC company, landmark non-performing loan acquisitions in Thailand and Korea, and the inaugural sovereign bond issuances by Vietnam and Malaysia.
Joe has regularly been recognized by his clients and peers as a leading lawyer in major industry publications, particularly in the areas of capital markets, high yield and leveraged finance and banking. He spent the first eight years of his career with Cravath Swaine & Moore in New York and later Hong Kong,
and has served as a corporate partner at several leading international firms including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Paul Hastings.
Joe obtained a B.A. in Business Management and Political Science from California State University and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School, where he was Articles Editor of the Minnesota Law Review. He is admitted to practice in New York and as a Registered Foreign Lawyer in Hong Kong.
Joe has extensive experience developing and presenting trainings and seminars to lawyers, bankers and corporate executives on a wide variety of legal and business topics including high yield and leveraged financing structures, private equity, syndicated lending, mergers and acquisitions, non-performing loan acquisitions, legal and financial due diligence, and securities law and regulatory compliance.
An all-around physical fitness enthusiast, in his free time Joe can usually be found either on one of Hong Kong’s many beautiful hiking trails, a tennis court or the gym.
Shirley Adrain
Expertise :
Diversity & Inclusion, Women’s Development, Leadership, Influencing and Personal Empowerment
Language :
English
Location :
Singapore
Shirley Adrain is an executive coach who trains and coaches corporate and individual client’s around effective career management. She draws on over 20 years of Financial Services experience spent in a variety of leadership roles with global financial institutions. She brings particular expertise around diversity and in helping women return to the workplace.
Shirley started her career with JP Morgan in London and subsequently New York. She has also worked for Citigroup, Barclays, Merrill Lynch and Société Générale in a variety of leadership roles across London, Singapore and Hong Kong. This global and diverse experience has allowed Shirley to appreciate the complex and often political environment in which her clients operate. During her Banking career, Shirley developed a passion for coaching individuals and teams, finding this the best way to create an environment of collaboration, teamwork and common ground where people are empowered, accountable and engaged.
She implemented a coaching programme for leaders at Citigroup and was inspired by the positive impact on both the leaders themselves and their teams. She has also designed and implemented several international leadership development programmes and Global Career Frameworks.
Shirley has always been a strong advocate for the advancement of women, sponsoring and developing a Coaching for Success Programme at Citigroup to support and enable the progression of women in the organisation. She also contributed to the critically acclaimed book, “Your Loss: How to Win Back your Female Talent” to help prevent the female “brain drain” that is all too prevalent in most major industries today.
In 2012, Shirley decided to change career emphasis and become formally certified as a coach. Shirley is founder and CEO of "Career Catalyst Group Ltd" where she focuses on Executive Coaching, training and consulting. Her main clients are global banks and law firms. Her clients appreciate her deep knowledge of their environment and understanding of the challenges they face. She also developed and runs very interactive workshops on Gender Bias for where her experiences from her Banking career allow her to enliven and challenge senior leaders to overcome their biases and promote more senior women leaders.
In 2017, Shirley took over as Managing Director at “Back to Work HK”, working with individuals and organisations to help them retain female talent and also develop returner programmes to tap into this talent pool.
Shirley is an Accredited Executive Coach and trainer with the Association for Coaching (AC), with over 400 hours coaching experience. In 2018, she became a Certified Clean Coach with the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) and uses this methodology to get to the root cause of problems that have been holding her clients back. In 2002, Shirley became a Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Business Practitioner. Shirley has been applying these learnings to her working life, helping individuals, teams and organisations to get more of the results they want.
Outside of work, Shirley has two young children and is an accomplished singer, with concerts in Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Centre and in Hong Kong this year. She is also a keen hiker and is currently training for the 100k “Just Challenge” South Africa in 2019. As a proud Scot in Hong Kong,
Shirley was Chieftain of the HK Cricket Club for 5 years, organising and hosting the annual Burns Supper.
Shirley holds an MA in Psychology from Glasgow University and an MSc in Business IT Systems from Strathclyde University.
Peter Chum
Expertise. :
Communication, Influence, Sales, Leadership, Team Building, Personal Empowerment
Language :
English, Cantonese
Location :
Hong Kong
Peter is an accomplished entrepreneur differentiated by the uncommon complements related to sales & marketing expertise, strong business acumen, and a relentless drive for extraordinary results. Peter is skilled in investment advice catered for the UHNW, Business Negotiation, and Business & Strategic Planning. He completed his Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) at the Richard Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario, Canada in 2001. In 2003 he merged his own investment brokerage firm, Kleinwort Minkins Asset Management Limited, with Xinhua Finance Limited and later became the first Chinese conglomerate to ever list on the Mother Board of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2004.
In 2017 Peter completed his Master of Arts degree in Coaching and Mentoring Practice and has been active in promoting best practice in talent development, organizational design & development through helping his clients build and sustain evidence-based coaching culture within their organisations. Peter is the Founding Member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Counsel (Asia Pacific Region), a member of the Institute of Coaching and an ICF-accredited Associate Certified Coach.
As an HRM (human resource management) Consultant and a Business & Executive Coach, Peter applies vast and remarkable life experiences and tactful life skills to coaching and mentoring top executives and clients in areas related to Sales & Customer Service, Organisation Capability Building, Management Development, Career/Talent/Change Management and Organizational Design & Development.
Peter is a devoted Buddhist and a mindfulness practitioner. Peter applies Mindfulness-based coaching techniques when working with clients experiencing stress, pain or other types of mental and emotional strains as well as tackling life problems.
Peter assisted in delivering various coaching modules at the HKU for its Master of Counselling students, and, at the HKUSPACE for its HR managers from sizable organizations. He has delivered numerous workshops and seminars on the enhancement of management/parenting skills using coaching as a fundamental tool for the city’s respectable NGOs, educational institutions, local and international business entities and charitable foundations.
Currently, Peter is pursuing a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UK). He intends to research on the effects of corporate coaching culture has on the upcoming trends of talent development and management in Asia. Following that he would study the effects of the application of Recovery Coaching as a vocational intervention to promote reintegration in Hong Kong.
Peter is dedicating much of his resources to coaching and helping individuals who are less resourceful including family members of dementia patients and elderlies, as well as ex-offenders, in combat against marginalization. Peter is also a Recovery Coach for vocational rehabilitees and their family in times of recovery.
Raphael Sachs
Expertise :
Communication, Influence, Sales, Negotiation, Personal Empowerment
Language :
English, French
Location :
Bangkok
Raphael is a French entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in Fast Moving Consumer Goods and Services within start-ups and multinational companies. Based in Asia for the last 15 years, he developed a deep knowledge of most Asia-Pacific markets and cultures.
Raphael started his career in 1994 in Marketing at Honda in the European Automotive Division. Fast-paced like the cars he likes so much, he quickly oversaw the brand’s product range for France before moving to Sales, taking the regional responsibility of 18 dealerships
His entrepreneurial spirit led him to take his first step out of the Corporate world, co-founding his first start-up, Square Internet.
After selling it to foreign investors, he set up his first consulting company, Avila Consulting. Here he specialised in managing mandates on behalf of investors in ailing internet companies, including an automotive portal and a pharmaceutical B2B marketplace. Raphael successfully exited this company when it was acquired by a Venture Capital Fund and moved on to his next enterprise.
Whilst traveling the world and looking at opportunities in various countries, he fell in love with Asia and especially with Hong Kong. Fuelled by the local dynamism and its anything-is-possible spirit, he partnered with fellow French entrepreneur Eric Noyel, and together they built a regional Consumer Goods Manufacturing and Distribution group spanning 9 countries and employing more than 1,000 associates. The factory became the world’s second largest in its field and the house ware brand they created challenged the most established players in most regional markets through global retailers.
Excelling in negotiation and always challenging the status-quo through an acute ability to think out of the box, Raphael co-led this company until being acquired by the world leader - from Germany - in this sector in 2011. He then ensured a smooth transition after this acquisition by taking a leading regional corporate position for the new owning multinational group for three years before moving to his next entrepreneurial project.
Complementing his independent business consulting activities, Raphael has been trained and certified in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and other Business Applied Psychology disciplines by Evolution-U since 2010. A natural people’s person, it was a logical step that he shares his extensive experience and train and teach others looking forward to improving themselves, and in particular, those with an interest in business and how the topics of Persuasion, Influence, Negotiation and Communication can help achieve success.
Raphael holds an MBA from the Institut Superieur de Gestion in Paris, France. He is a founding member of Mettā, a global network of entrepreneurs, connecting the dots between start-ups, industry experts and investors, driving tangible business value for the stakeholders in its community.
Raphael is passionate about cars and motorbikes and used to race them before becoming the father of two beautiful children. He is also an eclectic sports enthusiast with his biggest interests in ski, tennis, football and golf. As an extensive world traveler, he visited over 70 countries to date for business or pleasure, or both.