We Buy Profitable & Distressed Businesses
MA PhD
C.Env FCIOB FCMI FASI FCIM MRICS MIEx AIWSc ACEA
BSc (Hons) PG Dip
ACIS MBPsS Churchill Fellow
His experience in international research, practical innovation, PLC & Public Body Chair Directorships equip him to constructively analyse, observe & contribute to all aspects of business & public sector activity.
His experience in international research, practical innovation, PLC & Public Body Chair Directorships equip him to constructively analyse, observe & contribute to all aspects of business & public sector activity.
Michael is one of the four co-founders of the internationally recognised Green Party. For a brief period he was a member of an EU consultancy team on the transfer of social assets in the former Soviet Union. As visiting Professor of Civil & Construction Engineering Research with University of Wales, Newport he promoted environmental construction. He is a Chartered Environmentalist and won HRH Prince of Wales’ ‘Big Tick’ awards for Business in the Community 3 years in succession.
As a young man he gained national recognition for the UK’s first private ‘Parker Morris’1 space standard homes, a development which also won Civic Trust Awards. ‘Borrowing’ best environmentally sustainable building practice from Canada, he built the first private ‘platform’ timber fame homes in the Midlands. His technical design, engineering, fabrication and delivery of the UK’s first ‘Amphibious House’ built on an island in the river Thames, featured on BBC’s “Grand Designs”.
Delegated to UNCTAD for the Commonwealth Human Ecology Council, he was a founder member of the Community Land Trust Association, a member of the Faculty of Building’s Low Cost Housing committee and an advisor to the Trustees of Walter Segal Self-Build Trust.
As a board member of Welsh Assembly Government/Forestry Commission Wales sponsored ‘Wales Forest Business Partnership’, he established & chaired ‘Wood Knowledge Wales’, a research & information dissemination body charged with helping the Welsh timber sector achieve World Class status.
Experience as a House builder and Estate Agent led him to encourage and promote people’s ability to “Self-Build” their own ‘eco-homes’, sponsoring ITV’s ‘House Race’ programme for 2 distinct designs built and completed over 2 weeks in Birmingham’s Bull Ring. The television programme followed the build over 7 nights and was repeated many times on the Discovery Channel.
Having designed containerised Disaster Relief Emergency & Relocatable housing (DiRReP) for international application, he consulted to many countries on this and the establishment of prefabricated ‘Off-Site’ construction plants, e.g. China, Middle East and African states.
Michael is a former board member of the national New Homes Marketing Board and sat on the Home Builders Federation Wales executive. He is a Freeman of the City of Coventry.
With knowledge and experience of business turnarounds, Michael has a good grasp of Corporate Governance, risk and finance. He places strong emphasis on integrity, innovation, insight and engagement with the community. He draws on a broad circle of commercial, academic and intellectual contacts to bring a pragmatic, considered approach to an organisations aims and direction. This enables him to provide impartial, best advice, guidance and governance.
Drawing on his experience training and developing students and employees, Michael encourages Socratic inquiry to drive thought processes and gain new, ‘cutting edge’ innovative insights. Grasping complex local, global and technical issues and interactions in this way enables him to deliver well-grounded professionals able to comprehensively address their commercial activities and policy delivery.
Prepared to challenge engrained thinking, Michael recognises the need for patience in achieving results, using his knowledge and objectivity as a catalyst to provide focus and develop strategic planning.
Having developed and delivered Leadership and Committee management training courses for British Junior Chambers of Commerce, he was promoted as the British candidate for International Secretary General of Jaycees International and rewarded by being made a Senator of Jaycees International.
Putting this experience and knowledge to good use, he has chaired and led boards and committees locally and nationally.
Today he applies all of this this as a widely recognised environmentally sustainable industry leader.
Michael’s specialties are Low Energy Housing, Off-Site Construction, Environmental Risk Management, Environmental Planning & Sustainable Development, Research in Town & Country Planning, Housing issues in Europe & former Soviet bloc, International Affordable & Emergency Housing,.
As an academic he has written on low cost housing, social injustice in planning and more recently the UK Housing Crisis2. He speaks internationally on environmental, timber, housing, town planning, and related issues.
He enjoys travel, theatre, opera, reading, research, writing, and sharing knowledge
Multi-talented and well qualified, she has excellent manufacturing and hands-on management experience. As a Psychologist she brings an interesting dynamic to our understanding of staffing and personal development. This is also fed by her grasp of administrative, financial and corporate matters, both practical and legislative.
After school she served a management apprenticeship with the then East Midlands Electricity Board. Involving practical field experience, as well as accounting and record keeping, she became equally at home climbing a pole or pushing a pen.
She then moved to a small manufacturers of telephone equipment, becoming adept at lending a hand to solder components as well as helping with equipment testing, packaging and despatch. This all stood her in good stead when she took up the position of Practice Manager with a burgeoning firm of Midlands based Estate Agents. Here she rapidly gained experience of dealing with the public, marketing and promotion, as well as controlling their finance, administration, personnel selection and training.
During a market downturn, a position with Coventry City’s finance department then beckoned. This quickly led to her becoming a section leader, responsible for several higher education colleges and the Civic Theatre. It also gave her an enviable understanding of the difference between public and private sector finance.
For her, the private sector won out and she moved into heavy manufacturing, taking up the position of Deputy Accountant for one of the UK’s major Construction Equipment organisations. Ever keen to further her own development, she was head hunted to become the Managing Director of the company that made talking books for the blind. However, on her first day she found herself running a rescue and turnaround operation when the Company’s bankers ‘pulled the rug’. Having restored the firm to its former leading position, she also instigated considerable R&D, including Braille computers.
Aware of her success, she was then head hunted to control the finances and administration as deputy CEO of the UK’s largest industrial removal forms who had run into administrative problems. With 19 branches around the UK and busy overseas operations, it was a big job. However, she soon had this running sufficiently smoothly to be able to pursue further qualifications with the Open University, gaining her BSC and PG Dip.
When the owners decided to retire, she led a Management Buy-Out Team, but was turned down by the owners who preferred a trade sale to an international competitor. After assisting them to integrate their operations she became a freelance Management Consultant for a varied range of companies and business sectors, including undertaking due diligence exercises and developing acquisition proposals.
This also gave her time to pursue her psychological interests in developing methods and programs for assisting children with learning disabilities for a PhD. While this led to her being awarded a prestigious Churchill Travelling Fellowship, taking her to Australia, Canada and the United States, unfortunately the University she was registered with proved unable to provide the equipment needed, so after over 2 years work she was forced to discontinue this.
Freda then joined Benfield Group as Director of Finance and Administration, bringing her many skills, talents, insights and experience to bear on the group’s development.
Freda is one of the co-founders of the international political Green Party movement.
By helping promote sustainable development and environmentally-sound lifestyles, Benfield Group aims to create a sustainable future – together, with our customers and partners.
