Meet the Team

Here at Continuous Improvement Projects, we’ve a broad range of different experiences – in life, as well as professionally. Meet some of the team below.

Kiran Kachela

Managing Director and Black Belt Lean Six Sigma Practitioner

Olivia Chalmers

Head of Change and Service Management (Green Belt Lean Six Sigma Practitioner)

Becky Kendall

Senior Programme Manager

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Benedicte Cormier

Change Manager

Barbora Hallam-Skalova

Head of Change and Service Management

Barry Sanderson

Process Improvement and Black Belt Lean Six Sigma Practitioner

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Jonathan Middleton

Snr. Process Improvement and Black Belt Lean Six Sigma Practitioner

Nicola Jay

Project Manager

Stephen Entwisle

Sustainability Change Lead

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Yanjie Wang

Sustainability Officer

Marie Klebnikoff

Change Catalyst

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Kiran Kachela

Director

I have always been an entrepreneur at heart. At the age of 11, I ran a paper round, employed my friends to work for me and paid them from my own wages! So, when the opportunity to set up my own consultancy presented itself, I jumped at it. All these years later, it is still the best career decision I have ever made.

Lean Six Sigma principles underpin everything I do professionally as a Black Belt practitioner and personally as a wife and mother of 2 children. The design of my home, preparation of meals and even household chores are heavily governed by lean principles.

I am also a Prosci Change Management Practitioner and qualified Project Manager. I get great joy from leading complex change initiatives and seeing them come to fruition. I am enthusiastic about all things ‘CI’.

Whilst I have a drive for business, taking up the role of a School Governor in 2017 and witnessing the reality of poor social mobility fuelled my passion for improving prospects for young people. This is why in 2019, I teamed up with some friends to set up a social enterprise, Morph, which offers skills development to both professionals and pupils.

Family is very important to me and I am a strong advocate of a healthy work-life balance. In my spare time, I love cooking and baking with my children as I enjoy experimenting with new cuisines and flavours.

I have a keen interest in interior design and enjoy unleashing my creativity by redecorating my home. My love of cuisine and décor have led to me exploring the world through travelling with the added bonus of family time.

Olivia Chalmers

Operations Change Manager

Upon finishing my A Levels, I was eager to dive straight into the wide world of business and landed my first position within the Business Improvement team in a large FM company. Within a few years I obtained a strong knowledge on the complexities and challenges within the world of FM, and was able to develop my project management skills through completion of the APM PMQ (Project Management Apprenticeship). Joining CI Projects in early 2019 has opened the door to many new and exciting challenges and I hope to be able to further develop my ability to bring new and innovative change into the workplace.

I am a versatile individual, always open to new challenges even when it is completely new territory and will always tackle these challenges head on.

Outside of work I enjoy spending time with my family and friends, eating and drinking and talking endlessly about the weather, work and good memories. I enjoy visiting different countries on both short and long holidays and even being a tourist in my own country.

Becky Kendall

Project and Programme Management

With a degree in Theatre Arts & Drama, IT project management may not have seemed a logical choice for me! But I started my career at a travel guide publishing company, where I discovered an unexpected enthusiasm for managing technical change projects. I pursued this career into Local Government, broadening my skills and experience across a wide range of IT and business transformation projects, which has since broadened further across different industry sectors. I have a passionate commitment to diversity and equality, and find the current climate of fast-paced cultural change fascinating and exciting. Working with organisations who are keen to embrace change and tackle challenges can be very rewarding. I love cooking and eating out, especially experimenting with recreating dishes I’ve had in restaurants, with some notable successes and failures. I have a weakness for sushi, and am a bit of a Japanophile generally. I recently moved out of London into the commutable countryside in Kent and am hoping to discover a love of gardening! It’s early days, but I have ambitious plans to grow vegetables and build some kind of water feature.

Benedicte Cormier

Change Management

Team player with CI Projects since 2017. A true believer of CI Projects’ 3 core values, which resonate so well with my own truths and ethos. So a little about me… I love laughing, smiling, sharing, running, (and yes) shoes and bags, being with people and (trying to) be an inspiration to my 18-year old son. I am passionate about team playing, leadership, motivation, delivering to the best of my ability and by default, I am a fixer, so I rejoice when challenged with some organisational or project-related issues. I’ve spent nearly 2 decades working in “marcomms” for FMCG across an array of industries and more recently, combining my skills in the FM world to focus on change management. Following some personal and health concerns, I became invested in supporting my local community as a thank you for the support I had received, and took up Trusteeship to two not-for-profit organisations. In my few spare hours, I like to grab some fabric or yarn to make bags, a hobby that in time, I hope can turn into a financial and social venture and maybe bring me closer to Marc Jacobs.

Barbora Hallam-Skalova

Senior Change and Transformation Manager

I am an experienced Project and Change Manager with over 15 years of experience in the FM industry, in both, public and private sector. I have mobilised a variety of projects as well as managed TFM services at complex and challenging contracts.

My passion is in driving performance improvements, managing complex programmes and managing the people side of change. My mission is to "win hearts and minds" to create engaged and high-performing teams that go the extra mile.

I am an advocate of wellbeing in any settings, work and home. Striking a balance between family and career has always been a challenge for me, but I do occasionally manage to “bite the cake.” I enjoy reading about health, namely the holistic approach to it. I believe if you don’t make time for wellness, you will be forced to make time for illness.

In the bit of spare time I have I enjoy hobbies, such as dancing, painting and retail therapy.

Barry Sanderson

Process Improvement Manager and Black Belt Lean Six Sigma Practitioner

Hi there, I’m Barry and my role at CI Projects is the Process Improvement Manager. My background is in Continuous Improvement - in a Modern Manufacturing environment. I have worked within Semiconductor manufacturing for some 16 years, moving from DRAM to Flexible Electronics and everything in between.

I live and breathe continuous improvement in everyday life, as you can always see ways of making things better once you switch your mindset. Seeing processes in action, watching a team come to the root cause of a problem, or opening out a whole process flow to see the gaps, is so worthwhile and exciting. I love sharing the Lean Six Sigma toolkit and supporting teams to use them.

Jonathan Middleton

Black Belt Lean Six Sigma Practitioner

After a successful 12 years in an IT management career, I was given the opportunity to study for my Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification through the Juran Institute. This changed my career path towards business improvement and became an independent consultant, successfully delivering Lean Six Sigma projects. Over the last 15 years my clients have included some of the largest financial services companies in the world including Barclays, Lloyds Bank, HSBC, Bank of America, The Royal Stock Exchange. More recently I have also delivered sustainable process improvement projects for insurance, retail and energy clients.

Client project briefs have been varied to include problems such as, the need to do more in less time and people, reducing risk and improving controls, the removal of waste and defects and the reduction in variation. I have also worked on various project types such as IT transformation, regulatory change, organisational change and out and out process improvement.

Since moving into managing Lean Six Sigma projects I have developed process mapping, project management, change management, organisational design, workshop facilitation and stakeholder management skills. I have achieved qualifications such as PRINCE2 Practitioner and Change Management Practitioner.

My passion is to deliver real sustainable process improvement, that makes a real measurable difference to client partners and their staff.

Out of work I am a Level 1 FA Football Coach and have been managing a boys football team for the past 9 years. I also manage an under 15’s cricket team and have helped run a youth club. I have a Charlton Athletic season ticket and play the drums.

Nicola Jay

Project Manager (Associate)

I am passionate about Business Improvement and Project Management. I enjoy achieving success for an organisation and its stakeholders. I have worked in variety of industries, such as FM, Healthcare and Construction.

Stephen Entwisle

Sustainability Change Lead

I left Grammar School without career goals in mind. The Care Manager at a senior citizens home at which I did voluntary work, suggested that I try nursing. I applied for State Registered Nurse training at a local hospital and to my surprise graduated three years later. Twelve months after that I graduated as an Intensive Care Nurse and started a degree in Applied Biology.

On completing the degree, I was offered a research scientist position at GSK (Glaxo as was then). Over the next 19 years GSK gave me many fabulous opportunities, sponsored my PhD, and helped me to realise my strength in leading global programmes. For the last seven years I managed transformational change programmes, following a merger first with Welcome and then SmithKlineBeecham. Recognising the incredible experience in managing transformational change that GSK had given me, I decided to leave GSK to set-up my own management consulting business in transformational change.

My interest in sustainability was probably initially kindled by my Economics lecturer at university, ironically because of the concern at that time that fossil fuel reserves would soon be depleted, and the lights would go out. But it was only after listening to, and talking with, leading horticultural sustainability activists, after undertaking a leading landscape design course for fun, that I started in 2018 to actively contribute by developing an outline framework for sustainable landscape design.

In 2019, Kiran and I co-founded the social enterprise, Morph, with other members of the team. The focus was on societal sustainability and this led us to developing our first training programme on leading and managing sustainability change. Due to the pandemic in 2020, we decided to put this venture on hold and focus on what we could impact through CI Projects. In early 2021 Kiran and I both undertook Cambridge University courses in sustainability change leadership.

Aside from my interest in landscape design, I enjoy reading novels, the theatre, genetic and genealogical ancestry, culture, hikes and travels with family.

Yanjie Wang

Business Administration Manager

I did my BSc degree in Management from Shanghai University of Electric Power. After eight years working on the Rizhao Power Station project, from the R&D stage until the completion of the power station, I came to the UK and completed an MSc course in Financial Decision Making. I managed a successful nutritional supplement company for many years before setting up my own and selling it at the end of 2020. I like solving problems, whether it is a puzzle or a process.

I recently completed the Business Sustainability Management course at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Passionate about our planet, I am an advocate for the circular economy. I am a member of Sustainable Amersham leading the Plastic Free Amersham initiative in association with Surfers Against Sewage. I have a big dream that one day we will be living in a “waste free” world!

In my free time, I enjoy playing tennis, family skiing trips and long walks through the beautiful Chiltern countryside.

Marie Klebnikoff

Change Catalyst

When asked what my biggest enemy is, my answer would be without any hesitation ‘waste’! I HATE WASTE …waste of time, effort, people, waste of potential, agricultural waste, any type of waste.

I only recently articulated it clearly, but reflecting on my 20+ years as Client Lead in major branding agencies, I can see it has always been in me as a key driver of how I approach projects, problems, or people.

I am often described by my colleagues as assertive !!! I like to think it refers to my energetic & agile decision-making and has nothing to do with me being French (not to mention my Russian roots)....

I am passionate about people, their minds and stories, obsessed with mid-century architecture, driven by beauty and design. Alongside branding & architecture, what keeps me awake at night is thinking of how best to connect the dots outside of the box in order to create an impact that matters.

I can be called a brand and design architect, a people and project activist or a catalyst of change without any hesitation, but please call me Marie :-)

Meet the Team

Kiran Kachela

Olivia Chalmers

Becky Kendall

Benedicte Cormier

Barbora Hallam-Skalova

Barry Sanderson

Jonathan Middleton

Nicola Jay

Stephen Entwisle

Yanjie Wang

Marie Klebnikoff

Kiran Kachela

Olivia Chalmers

Becky Kendall

Benedicte Cormier

Barbora Hallam-Skalova

Barry Sanderson

Jonathan Middleton

Nicola Jay

Stephen Entwisle

Yanjie Wang

Marie Klebnikoff

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