The Roffey Park Institute has been a fixture on the business scene of the South East for many years; with Dr Arlene Egan now as its CEO.

Roffey Park offers exceptional facilities in the heart of rural Sussex to companies of all sizes and provides digital, blended and face-to-face learning, underpinned by 75 years of research and practice.

It is a centre of expertise in organisational development and a pioneer of action learning and, for the last 30 years, their MSc in People and Organisational Development has been at the forefront of developing the practice and field of OD which enables people and organisations to thrive.

Maarten Hoffmann sat down with Dr Egan to explore her background and the future plans for the Institute.

Maarten Hoffmann: Please give me some of your personal background – where you are from, previous roles, your qualifications and what led you into the CEO role at RP?

Arlene Egan: Well, I am from Ireland and live in Dublin, so I get to travel over to the UK quite a bit with my CEO role – as well as many other exotic places.

My professional career began back in college, where I studied psychology, specialising in sports and cognitive psychology. This combination gave me a unique perspective on high performance across a range of domains as well as a deep understanding of how thinking and performance are linked.

I have worked with leaders in different spheres on critical thinking in leadership – there is always something to learn there, especially in such uncertain economic times.

I have spent decades in executive education and leadership roles, I have sat on boards across various industries and, as well as that, I am a coach, author and business mentor.

I began working in Roffey Park in 2019, where I held different senior roles and, when the opportunity to become the CEO came up in 2022, I jumped at it. I have a deep passion and strong belief in the work we do at Roffey Park. Our clients are truly amazing to work with and to have become CEO is a genuine honour for me. I adore my job and the team at Roffey Park.

MH: You have a magnificent venue, can you give me some details of the property and how it operates?

AE: The venue is not only spectacular, it’s very special. There is a distinct feeling that you get here that is hard to explain. It is situated in a beautiful setting in West Sussex, and participants and clients describe it as a learning retreat.

It is literally a space to think, to connect and to develop. The venue offers a range of services, with the majority of clients coming from the South East to use our space for their own development and training days. The fact that we have 60 bedrooms and an amazing restaurant, as well as a pool and gym, means that the venue is very versatile. Roffey Park delivers some of its training to clients here also. The best thing to do, is to drop by and see what it’s like. The amazing team there is always happy to show people around the venue and discuss how they can help.

MH: Roffey Park speaks of many aspects of learning underpinned by 75 years of research and practice – can you outline the history of RP and said research?

AE: Roffey Park Institute began after World War II, when soldiers returned from the war to a changed world. Roffey Park Institute pioneered a new way of holistic development, much of which was based on the concept of good quality conversations and peer learning. A strong reputation developed for our ability to deliver relevant, impactful leadership and management development.

As well as helping organisations that are going through change, whether planned or emergent, we were established to help organisations to deliver what matters to their key stakeholders, and this remains our focus today. We also have a strong history of research, with many of our core papers available on our website. We have conducted research into topics that matter to organisations; for example, how to build trust and resilience and, more recently, an international study on female leadership.

The research we conduct is often done for, or in collaboration with, organisations interested in understanding more about a specific topic relating to organisations and its people.

MH: You offer Organisational Design consultancy services, among many other courses. How does this work for external companies that might be interested in such?

AE: We actually work with organisations in both organisational development and design. In terms of development, the type of work we typically support organisations with ranges from top tier development, strategic thinking, refreshing organisational culture or values and talent retention strategies.

In the organisational design space, we help organisations to assess the effectiveness of how they are set up to work, and then to create and implement a plan for optimising organisational design.

Organisational change and transformation is extremely prevalent both across sectors and across the globe, where organisations know that something is not quite right and change is needed to enhance performance.

Yet, organisations often don’t know where to start. This is a complex task for anyone. To support this at an early stage we offer “The Roffey Park Day,” which is a day with one of our consultants to help you to gain clarity on how you should be thinking about your organisational design and development.

This year, there has been a higher -than-average number of mergers and acquisitions, and we also help leadership teams involved here to develop and implement a post integration plan. This can help productivity, cultural alignment and minimise staff disruption, and ultimately ease the transition for all.

Our organisational development and design offering is becoming very popular with our clients, and no two organisations that we work in are ever the same. We have a team of highly skilled and experienced consultants that partner with clients and support them on their change journey.

MH: Are Roffey Park services available to companies only and if not, how does this benefit the individual?

AE: While the majority of our services are used by organisations, we have a range of open programmes that anyone can enrol in. You can find details of these on our website. We also run free events throughout the year which we call our “Navigator” events and anyone can register to attend these.

MH: The building is magnificent. Is it available for local companies to hire as a venue?

AE: Absolutely. Businesses, whether local or further afield, can hire rooms for training or weekend-away packages. We have rooms of different sizes to cater for small or large groups or conferences. We also have some offices that we rent out to small businesses and start-ups in our hub. This is a growing community within our venue.

As CEO my ambition is to continue to build on the great work that Roffey Park has been doing for nearly 80 years. We work across sectors including pharma, tech, finance, retail, health, government, manufacturing, construction and education.

We understand the connection between organisational design and performance and leadership approach and performance and we are very passionate about our work. We are looking forward to working with more clients and creating solutions for them that help them to deliver what matters.

www.roffeypark.com

Roffey Park Institute, Forest Road, Horsham, RH12 4TB