Hilda's passion is helping people create great businesses where people enjoy what they do. This is based on more than thirty years’ of business management experience. She has developed strong strategic planning, project management, team building and people development skills throughout her career, which have facilitated the introduction of change and growth in most of the organisations where she has worked.

From 1986 to 1998 Hilda worked at Barclays Financial Services, one of the largest financial services groups in the world. She started as an IT Team Leader and then moved into a Business Strategy and Programme Management role, where she was responsible for developing and implementing a strategy for various businesses within Barclays Financial Services. One of her key projects involved negotiating the sale of a business whilst maintaining customer retention and dealing with staff transfers. Another key project, which reported into the Barclays Bank Group Executive, involved researching and recommending a strategy for the integration of Financial Services products into the bank’s extensive branch network. This included looking at the profitability of the products and appropriate markets for them. During her time at Barclays she gained recognition and respect as someone who was able to communicate effectively at all levels within the Barclays Group.

Hilda left Barclays when she was headhunted by the Heath Group, an insurance broking group, to become their IT Director, which was a major role in their Strategic Change Programme. She restructured the IT Department to enable it to deliver new systems to the Group within the overall Change Programme. Hilda left the Group when it was taken over by Lambert Fenchurch.

Her last corporate role saw her as Head of Software Development for Churchill Insurance. Once again her skills in communication and introducing change were in demand. She travelled to India where she resolved issues between British and Indian Software Development teams.

In 2002, Hilda decided that she wanted a change from the large corporate business environment. She looked at what aspects of her various jobs she had really enjoyed and consequently trained as a mediator with Regents College London and completed a post graduate diploma in Executive Coaching.

The following year she joined Intermediation. Intermediation’s strategy was to introduce a new approach to mediation within the London Insurance Market. She gained valuable experience into the issues facing a start up company and supported the Chief Executive throughout her time with them.

Hilda decided that what she wanted to focus on was helping businesses grow and develop. At the end of 2003, she met Darren Shirlaw who had moved from Australia to start up Shirlaws Business Coaching in the UK. Hilda and her husband had already decided to move to Australia as the first step in their retirement plan. She joined Shirlaws in the UK and moved to Australia in August 2004. She has been working part time with the Shirlaws team in Melbourne but now wants to spend more time at home in Maffra.