Maura Walsh is an organisation development and change consultant and executive coach with 20 years experience in organisation and professional development. In a previous life, she trained in linguistics and language teaching and taught in universities and language schools in Libya, Greece, Spain, Australia, Ireland and the UK.
Her early career in learning and development focused on individual learning and professional development in the public, private, community and higher education sectors. She developed certificate, diploma and degree courses in Training and Development in Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland, and was part of their education development team. She also ran a private practice in management training, consulting and coaching with clients in health, government, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, the built environment, SME’s and zoos.
Since then, she has consulted to a range of organisations in planning and managing change, developing leadership and collaboration. For example, she has undertaken evaluations and organisational reviews, coached leaders and managers in taking up new roles and managing change, and delivered workshops on leading teams through transition. Her main interests are in developing capacity and capability for effective collaboration within and across organisations and the relationship between cognitive and organisational learning.
She is currently researching a PhD in inter-organisational collaboration in the Department of Management in Strathclyde Business School. She holds an MA in Education and an MA in Advanced Organisational Consultation from the Tavistock Institute/London City Business School, as well as post-graduate qualifications in phonetics, linguistics and language teaching. She is a member of the Tavistock Society and has written a book chapter, ‘When Consultants Collaborate and When they Don’t’ to be published in ‘Mindful Consulting’ in February 2009 by Karnac.