Ann Andrews CSP is a seriously inspirational entrepreneur who spent 30+ years as an HR specialist encouraging organisations and individuals to learn, unlearn and relearn so they could face any change or challenge likely to hit their lives, careers or businesses.
Current work
Not being good with idle hands, Ann recently created ‘Big Thinking Business Forums’ - a series of Masterclasses designed to offer ‘thinking’ time for busy owners and entrepreneurs. In a world where any business is just one ‘tweet’ away from disaster, she believes that taking time to create a plan B is vital.
Previous experience
Her early experience in the military exposed her to astounding leadership skills and an unusual way of working she still passes on because she firmly believes that if business understood the power of unleashing their people, they would be staggered at the results they could achieve.
A seasoned conference speaker, Ann is regularly invited back to challenge people with her infectious humour; real life stories and readily implemented, common sense tips. One organisation had her speak at their conference 5 years running!
Ann specializes as a conference ‘opener’ but can be effective as a break between technical topics or even as the after lunch presenter. She has presented at conferences around the world, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Belgium, Australia, Fiji and London.
Awards
A past National President of the National Speakers’ Association of New Zealand, she was the recipient of The Spirit of Excellence Award in 2000 and again in 2009, this is the highest award in the speaking profession. She was recently made a Life Member of NSANZ.
Author
Ann has written five business books; co-authored a further 8 and recently sold her highly successful online training company The Corporate Toolbox.
Thank you very much for your excellent presentation to our 15th Annual Managers & Leadership Conference last Wednesday. Our delegates really appreciated your address on ‘3 Essentials you did ... keep reading Employers' & Manufacturers' Association (Northern) Inc.
It has been a privilege to meet and work with Ann. She was a speaker at an event I produced recently and she was one of the outstanding presenters on the day. I hear a lot of presentations but unlike 99% of them Ann's presentation will stay in my head. Ann is a wise person and we are incredibly lucky to know her.
Ann was the speaker of choice at our last Employer Forum. The 300-plus attendees rated her as the best speaker on the day, and the evaluation forms that we received back, showed that her material was both informative and relevant to the attendees. Her effervescent personality and animated delivery added a very special dimension to our conference and we look forward to working closely with Ann on our next Forum later on in the year.
I was amazed - 10 minutes into a one-hour presentation Ann had my employees involved and inspired. As a result of that one presentation we are ALL thinking differently. For the first time in my role as GM, the attendees are taking personal responsibility for outcomes rather than waiting for me to chase things along. Thank you for showing us the difference between parent/child and adult/adult.
Incredible. The speed that you established a rapport with the audience took my breath away (how did you do that?)
Ann Andrews is a dynamic and exciting presenter. Ann challenges the way people view the world and is extremely influential in “harnessing” the change process to help organisations move forward as a unified team.
Thank you soooo much for the outstanding session you did at our conference. The feedback has been absolutely amazing.
Fantastic, realistic, clear and concise. Very logical - clearly knows her stuff from real life experiences - loved your stories. A great way to start the day.
Thank you so much for your fab training the other day - the team raved about it after and thought you had a lovely presenting style. Thank you and well done.
Ann, on behalf of the GM of AA, myself and the team manager, I want to thank you for what you have done for us all. You have provided an environment for that team to be open and honest, whilst challenging their thinking in a non-threatening manner. Also your objective view of the team and how we function has been invaluable.
On the 2nd day of our 2 day conference, I asked the attendees what had been the highlight of the 1st day. Half the audience said Ann and the other half said ‘X’ and Ann …… We will be asking her to come back next year for sure.
Just wanted to let you know that you are wonderful Ann. We really enjoyed your seminar and the ability to have a good laugh at ourselves.
I am just so glad that I didn’t go shopping instead of attending Ann Andrews post conference workshop. Once again, she was an inspirational speaker, her session was interactive and I came away with tools to tackle some team issues and am happy to report that they have had significant impact!! She is funny and I just loved hearing her speak. She demonstrated great skill in packing so much into the session and I believe left nobody feeling that they hadn’t had support with their issue. Best of all we had the benefit of her wisdom and experience as well as a challenge of our beliefs and practice. Thanks Ann.
