Penelope Tobin

Penelope Tobin MA FRSA is known as "the barrier-breaker"! She`s founder and CEO of Barrier Breakers, the UK soft skills consultancy and training organization, and created BBM, the award-winning approach for soft skills development and evaluation. Using this unique tool, Barrier Breakers has gained the reputation for being at the cutting edge of human development work. Penelope designs "barrier-breaking" change programs for organizations who want to make the most of their people, and individuals who want to make the most of themselves -- enabling them to identify and remove the barriers that block their potential.

She also established Barrier Breakers Foundation to bring this work to disadvantaged young people, and the Foundation`s new project is an interactive website to empower and inspire teenage girls.

Penelope`s latest book, "The Jazz of Business", combines her passion for soft skills with her other passion… jazz. The book draws on her years spent performing around the globe as a professional jazz composer, pianist and vocalist, as well as academic research and the experience of great modern leaders. It proposes that to deal with the frenzy of change we`re experiencing, we all need to be able to "improvise", and to apply the principles of "jazz-leadership". Penelope speaks widely and advises at board level on how to achieve this kind of leadership in a new groove.