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

Change Manager and Green Belt Lean Six Sigma Practitioner

Becky Kendall

Senior Programme Manager

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Benedicte Cormier

Change Manager

Barbora Hallam-Skalova

Senior Change and Transformation Manager

Nicola Jay

Project Manager

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Scott Clements

Transformation Director

Marie Klebnikoff

Change Catalyst

Stephen Entwisle

Sustainability Change Lead

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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.

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.

Scott Clements

Transformation Director

My 30 years of commercial experience has given me a broad range of skills from sales and marketing to project delivery and change management. My career started with 15 years successfully selling technology and professional services at Canon and has moved on to driving change. Throughout that time I have been both a business owner and an employee giving me valuable insights into the issues and pressures from different perspectives.

I really enjoy explaining complex solutions in straightforward terms and coaching people so that they have their own “lightbulb” moment. I believe in getting to the heart of a matter quickly and testing strongly held beliefs to find the best possible solution which serves staff and the organisation in equal measure. I use Lean and Agile Portfolio principles as a framework together with technology platforms (culture management tool, employee engagement, intranet and learning) to communicate and assess the “what”, “why” and “how” of behaviour change.

I enjoy skiing, sailing and learning about new ideas - whether that’s reading or listening to podcasts when out walking. The books I have drawn the most inspiration from include:

Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change by Don Beck and Chris Cowan - I found this a mind-blowing evolutionary approach to personal, organisational and societal paradigm
Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation to Join the Conversation on Next-Stage Organizations by Frederic Laloux and Etienne Appertshifts - I really liked how this demonstrates the theories of paradigm shifts and how they are translated into businesses.
Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan - I found this a great practical book on organisational transformation for those that maybe haven’t made the paradigm shift yet.
The One Thing by Gary Keller - a great short book which gets to the point on why focus is important.
Drive by Dan Pink - Well-written explanation of the unintended consequences of trying to drive human behaviour and gives a deeper insight into human motivation.

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 :-)

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.

Meet the Team

Kiran Kachela

Olivia Chalmers

Becky Kendall

Benedicte Cormier

Barbora Hallam-Skalova

Nicola Jay

Scott Clements

Marie Klebnikoff

Stephen Entwisle

Kiran Kachela

Olivia Chalmers

Becky Kendall

Benedicte Cormier

Barbora Hallam-Skalova

Nicola Jay

Scott Clements

Marie Klebnikoff

Stephen Entwisle

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