Richard Budd

Richard’s early career begun in the hospitality and retail sector, spending almost 10 years in senior management roles, where he successfully led a number of businesses through high periods of growth.  After having his first child, he decided that the long hours, weekends, and late nights were not suited to a family life, so decided to use the skills he gained in operational management to help support other businesses and become a qualified business advisor.  He now has over 14 years’ experience supporting organisations, across a broad range of sectors, focused on employee engagement, culture, people management, business development, strategy, and customer experience.

In 2016, Richard set up his own consultancy business, focused on people, culture, organisational development and engagement and has worked with a huge variety of organisations, from small SMEs, through to larger corporates such as Amey, Pearson Education, Bannatyne Group, Vinci, Morrison Utilities, Gleeds, GO Ahead Group, and Seetec to name a few.  Over this time, he has worked closely with Investors in People, supporting over 120 organisations through their accreditation and has been a finalist in the prestigious Investors in People Consultant of the year awards. 

It was through IIP, that Richard met with SWR in 2016, helping them towards their Gold accreditation in 2020.  Following this, Richard joined the SWR team in 2021, to drive SWR’s people and culture strategy on a part time basis and support the development and launch of SWR People Academy.

Some of the areas where Richard can support:

• Performance Management and People Development Planning
• Business Strategy and Plans
• Developing a High-Performance Culture
• Vision and Values Creation
• Employee Engagement
• Senior Leadership Team and Board-Level Dynamics

Fundamentally, Richard has a strong belief that organisations need to understand the linkages between their business strategy, people strategy and customer experience strategy and develop them as one, rather than in isolation.

Outside of work, Richard enjoys spending time with his wife, two daughters, and Labradoodle.   He’s also avid football fan, and has coached his hometowns under 16’s girls’ team for the past 10 years