Dr David Kearney

OPDC started - and initially grew - as a training organisation, but we wanted to make a bigger difference to clients' organisations. At first I had to force a conversation with clients about their broader issues - now they expect it!

What's good about being part of OPDC is the opportunity to share client relationships and different thinking: we complement each others' skills gaps and blind spots. I'd loath being a one-man band. I see us like barristers in chambers: each of us has their own network, so we work as a team and independently. We stimulate and challenge each other, manage the business together, share vision and strategy.

Originally, I trained as a psychologist and started out working in education. Even then I became very interested in the school as an organisation: its vision, values, strategy, leadership, teams. I took unpaid leave for a year, extended my mortgage and started OPDC with no clients! Phil came on as a partner a couple of years later.

I've got a strong image of OPDC as an island in a huge lake that's the organisational world - there's lots of bridges, lots of ways of getting to us - a relationship, a problem...I would like working with us to be a memorable, relevant and rejuvenating experience.

When I'm not working, I make furniture and guitars: I like bending the wood, its smell and texture, the first note! I also attempt to play golf with my son: but the real satisfaction is in the walks and the talking