Anna Wildman – Oil in the Engine

Anna Wildman spent 10 years in The Royal Navy before entering the private sector and applying her leadership skills to a senior role at Cathay Pacific Airways. She later became Global Director for Learning and Development at KPMG, where she was responsible for performance management skills training for 140,000 people in more than 142 countries.

She led workshops to help managers lead performance management conversations with their staff, dealing with topics from goal setting to poor behaviour.

“Over the past 30 years I’ve observed thousands of discussions at work and noticed that certain questions and skills help every discussion to bring out the best in people, even when those conversations are tough. I want to help managers navigate their way through the conversation by providing a structure and examples of what to say using words that’ll work.”

And this is the focus of Anna’s business, Oil in the Engine which she founded 12 years ago, and her book – Now You’re Talking!

Oil in the Engine provides bespoke skill-building workshops and 1-2-1 coaching to help HR and learning development professionals around the world to train staff on how to develop so-called soft skills that lead to an enhanced workforce.

Anna joined the GetSet Solent programme to help her grow the business further.

“The workshops run by GetSet Solent are incredibly useful and a great opportunity to receive professional business advice to support your own decision-making and business growth. The sessions are energising and present an opportunity to step away from the day-to-day running of your business and think about how you can move it forward.”

Anna has applied for the GetSet Solent Revenue Grant, and as part of that process she was required to submit a business plan.

“The mentoring support at GetSet Solent was so helpful. I received advice on how to best format the business plan and invaluable feedback to enable me to fine-tune the strategy, which I’m confident will boost my profitability.”

She plans to use the grant funding to produce a series of performance management ‘how to’ videos for LinkedIn and YouTube to help her access a global audience and generate business leads and book sales.

“Over the next 12 months I also plan to launch two e-books, one as the full version of Now You’re Talking! and also an abridged one on Amazon.”

Find out more about Oil in the Engine and her book.

Exclusive Discount

Anna has very kindly offered our readers an opportunity to purchase her book at an exclusive 50% discount.

Simply visit her site add the book to your basket and enter the code Getsetnow to get 50% off.

Offer valid until 30 April 2023.