The People

Charles Sutton

Senior Partner


Charles has a varied and intriguing background.  In addition to work episodes in the pharmaceutical industry, education, and the Church, he also studied at Bristol (Educational Psychology and Biological Science), Oxford (Theology) and London (Organizational Psychology).

Early experience included quality control chemist, manager of a residential training centre (specialising in personal development), Officer for Social Responsibility in the Diocese of Carlisle and then Management College tutor.  Charles started working as a consultant during the early eighties.  Recently, following a Directorship at a leading business psychology consultancy for nine years, he founded the business psychology consultancy ‘Organizational Edge’.  Charles is also a Teaching Fellow at London University (Birkbeck College), teaching post-graduate Organizational Psychology; he is currently researching the ‘meaning of work’ and the changing understanding of ‘real work’, and organizational identity.

Charles is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a member of the British Psychological Society, the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology, and the Institute of Personnel and Development.  He has strong media links, with frequent press attention; and has a number of published and delivered articles and conference papers.

Charles’s main areas of business focus include:

  • Company wide change programme support: adapting to the drivers of creating new identity, merger and acquisition, new technology and processes, changing markets, and the steps from national to global interests.
  • Developing and communicating corporate strategy and identifying the imperatives: working with directors, key individuals and executive teams to bring about significant step change.  Developing vision and helping to translate this to action, ensuring that all parts of the whole are working towards the same goal.
  • Executive Board facilitation: working with directors on strategic, business, behavioural and attitudinal change.
  • Provision of executive mentoring: key individuals within organisations, specifically CEO, MD and Directors; typically in support of strategy development or implementation, major change processes, increased responsibility or senior position career development.
  • Behaviour and value driven change: accelerating and enhancing engagement and understanding.  Enabling organizational systems (e.g.: recognition, recruitment, development, etc) to reflect and support changing values and behaviours.
  • Major research assignments: to assist organisations with strategy development, organizational development, client delivery and the achievement of service excellence.

Clients, for whom Charles has worked during the last few years, include: Abbey, Accenture, AMP, Angel Trains, Audi (UK), BAA, Bradford and Bingley, BOCM Pauls, Budget Car and Van Rental, Ceridian, Como Group, Coutts, EMC2, Guinness, HBOS, HP Invent, Invesco, KPMG, Lloyd’s of London, Liverpool City Council, Mace, NatWest, Nirex, , Oxford University Press, Pfizer, PHH, PwC, Roche, MG Rover, Royal and Sun Alliance, The Royal Mail, J Sainsbury, Smiths Industries, Swiss Reinsurance, Total, T-Mobile, Toyota GB, Transport for London, Tullett Liberty, Unipart Group, Volkswagen Group, Watson Wyatt, Whittington Group and Zurich Financial Services.