Jafar Akhavan-Moossavi

Chair

Jafar has been privileged to serve as senior leader, coach, coach supervisor, mentor, independent practitioner, chair, executive board member and learning and development specialist in a variety of different roles and contexts; from leading civil society bodies to central and  local government, police, education, non governmental organisations, think tanks, international bodies to school governor, working with young people deciding on their educational and career paths and advocating the cause of rough sleepers. 

 Jafar established his independent coaching,  mentoring, leadership and people development practice some 20 years ago.  Jafar's practice and approach is underpinned by his fundamental commitment to promote and practice values based, inclusive and collaborative approach to people, organisational and societal development. He is motivated by commitment to harness our individual and human potential in the service of our collective humanities and achieving 'public good'... Jafar has been able to successfully integrate Action Learning in his diverse international practice.

Jane Garnham

Jane joined the IFAL Executive in 2016 although she has been associated with IFAL for a number of years initially as a member and also contributing to workshops and the annual conferences in 2013 and 2016.

Jane first experienced action learning in 1999 and was so struck by its power and value that she trained as a facilitator and began facilitating sets in 2003. 

She was part of a self-facilitated set for almost eight years, an experience that continually strengthened and developed her practice and is about to start a virtual action learning contract with peer facilitators and consultants.

She recently facilitated a number of large action learning programmes, one for social workers where there is a focus on improving safeguarding practice and one for leaders and managers of a large provider of housing and care and support services as part of a leadership programme. She has also piloted action learning for people using mental health services and remains delighted by one comment from a set member when he said, “action learning helps me do better at living”.

Currently she is facilitating a large number of sets for newly qualified nurses in health trust as part of their preceptorship programme, working with a national mental health charity developing leadership capability and working with front line managers delivering services for homeless young people in south London.

A qualified coach and accredited action learning set facilitator she continue to learn, is part way through her End of Life Doula training and soon to train in Nancy Kline’s Thinking Partnership approach.

Craig Johnson

Craig Johnson is an Associate Professor at the University of Bradford, School of Management. His career started as a software engineer for mission critical systems in the emergency services. This included the design of command-and-control systems and the first national fire
service computer system.

Craig's research interests are in the areas of action learning, organisational learning, and more lately artificial intelligence. He teaches on courses for Digital Business, Project Management, Responsible AI and Digital Health and Informatics. He is the
former MBA Director, responsible for gaining the NHS Accreditation.  

Craig's interest in action learning started in the 1990s when he studied for an MA in Management by Action Learning. This continued into his PhD where he conducted research using structural equation modelling on the learning organisation concept for FTSE-300 and AIM-listed companies.