On site HR and H&S consulting

Simon Cowles Director, Intuition Limited
BCom and BEd (Canterbury)

Simon Cowles has considerable HR consulting experience in both New Zealand and Australia. His specialist areas in recent times have been:

• Implementing significant organisational change processes for medium/large organisations (up to 10,000 people) which are aligning strategy and operating model changes with new structure.
• Implementing business improvement strategies for organisations undergoing major growth.
• Managing the people side of merger/acquisition projects, conducting HR due diligence on potential acquisitions, managing the HR part of outsourcing bids and subsequent transition/implementation.
• Setting up, managing and mentoring HR/ER/OD teams in medium and large corporates.

“Simon is a trusted advisor with whom I have had a long and mutually beneficial professional relationship. I strongly recommend Intuition for both small business and larger enterprises who want to delegate responsibility to their line managers, and do so with confidence.” Ian Frame
CEO, Rangatira

Background

Simon has had a broad range of corporate management experience: as the HR Manager in a large manufacturing company (now General Cable) and Group HR Manager for a food processing group with 12 subsidiary companies (now Goodman Fielder). He was also involved in general management in the strategic, marketing, production, and merger/acquisition areas of this group. After five years as a Management Consultant for Deloitte, Simon established Cowles Notley (Business Consulting, HR Consulting, Recruitment and Employment Law) leading a team of over 30 practitioners. Simon was EGM HR & HSE for Downer Engineering Asia Pacific, based in Sydney, and managed the People & Capability function for Genesis Energy in NZ during consulting assignments.

Simon has also been a guest speaker in the HR area whilst acting as a sounding board to directors, chief executives and senior managers with business change, strategy or HR issues. He has also lectured part-time in HR and Organisational Change at the University of Canterbury.

Simon has considerable experience in the tourism, health, education, manufacturing, processing, contracting, engineering, telecommunications, facilities management, electricity generation/retail, and not-for-profit sectors. He also has private/public sector experience, including chair responsibility, as a professional director in the health, not-for-profit, tourism, property, economic development, and HR industries.

John Luhrs South Island Director
LLB and BCom (Canterbury)

• Facilitating Annual and Strategic planning workshops
• Delivering commercially focused and informed advice to move organisations forward including all acquisition/disposition activity, eg. contracting out, contracting in, entering JVs, PPPs, Partnerships, partnering, etc
• Managing change including workforce planning, consultation and implementation of organisational change in the workplace
• Managing employment relationship issues, eg. personal grievances/conflict in the workplace
• Driving process improvement

Background

John has an extensive senior management background across a number of ownership structures including:

• Public (both central government and “mixed” central and local government ownership)
• Private (including NZX & ASX 100)
• Not For Profit
• Iwi Health and Social Services

He has served boards as a CE (West Coast District Health Board, He Oranga Pounamu, and Richmond Services – now Emerge Aotearoa) and GM (Enable Networks Ltd), and has reported to 11 Chairs during his career to date.

John’s industry sector experience includes private and public legal practice, sharebroking, manufacturing and distribution, health (DHB, Iwi, and community based mental health), engineering, telecommunications, regeneration planning, and fintec.

John is a Paul Harris Fellow and has chaired a retirement village, rest home and residential care facility (Windsorcare) and is a former trustee of Life Education (Canterbury). Currently, John is a trustee of the Rotary Club of Christchurch Charitable Trust, chairs two Canterbury Clinical Network committees, and is a Facilitator/Capacity Partner for Springboard Trust Strategic Leadership for School Principals Programme.

Alan Davis Associate
LLB (Canterbury) and MBA (Victoria)
Certificate Industrial Relations (Victoria)

Alan Davis has supported a wide range of SMEs with their people-related business issues, across a vast range of industries. He is experienced in all the HR disciplines and is a mentor to other HR practitioners.

He supports clients across the North Island (excluding Auckland).

He is a highly experienced HR practitioner, working with small to medium enterprises as well as corporates as an advisor, consultant, and senior executive. His broad capability has been recognised by his peers with the HR Institute of NZ awards of HR Generalist of the Year and HR Person of the Year. Leading HR commentator “The HR Director” named him amongst HR practitioners leading change in business across New Zealand.

Alan is a practising employment lawyer, a member and certificate holder with the Association of Workplace Investigators (AWI), accredited Mediator, a member of the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute NZ (AMINZ), and accredited coach.

In addition to his broad HR experience, he brings deep specialisation in HR, including:

• Leadership and strategy
• Managing change and organisational design
• Managing teams and individuals for performance
• Resolving disputes (individual and collective)
• Employee development and coaching
• Collective bargaining and employment agreements
• People policy review and refresh
• Health and Safety
• Remuneration

Background

Alan commenced his career as an Industrial Advocate/Legal Officer with the Canterbury Employers” Association, advising a range of industry sectors and numerous SMEs, before embarking on a more generalist HR career in consulting and senior management in some of New Zealand’s leading private sector corporates, core public sector agencies, and the education sector. He now runs his own practise as a Barrister and HR Strategist and advisor on people-related business issues and is a long-standing associate of Intuition HR.