Executive Advice was founded in 2007 and is based in South West London. It is led by Helen Deavin as a sole practioner who can also draw upon a network of specialists when required.

Helen is a highly successful business leader with considerable International experience gained primarily within the Professional Services sector, working for global public, private and VC backed companies who are market leaders in their field. Key expertise exists in leading turn-around situations for underperforming businesses; driving strategic reviews, direction setting and business planning; achieving operational excellence; and leading large globally distributed teams through change; to achieve strong commercial results.

Helen Deavin - Executive Bio

Helen Deavin has worked as Senior Business Leader and International Business Advisor for the past 30 years with successful multi-national companies such as Hewlett Packard, Agilent Technologies¹, SHL, Corporate Executive Board and Gartner.

Helen was initially trained as a business advisor by Hewlett Packard as part of their world renowned quality management program – the Quality Maturity System (QMS). This is an integrated system for managing and improving business performance. It consists of strategies, practices and tools designed to help build stronger and more competitive businesses by delivering the right set of products and services to customers in a timely and cost effective manner. Following deployment of this system Hewlett Packard found correlation existed between operating profit and high quality maturity scores. In addition Hewlett Packard’s Quality Maturity System received worldwide recognition from Harvard, INSEAD, Tom Peters and The Deming Institute as a world class business management system.

Once fully trained and qualified, Helen applied her business advisor skills with executive management teams located around the world. In 1993 Helen relocated to Hewlett Packard’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, California where she ran a globally distributed team of advisor’s with the charter of deploying business performance methodologies within organisations in Hewlett Packard to ensure they met their financial goals. Through this position Helen gained first hand knowledge of coaching senior management teams in Europe, Asia, Japan and the USA. When Agilent Technologies became an independent company from Hewlett Packard, Helen took on the key position of Strategic Planning Manager for Agilent’s global services business. Here Helen worked with the Executive Board to determine the direction for services within the newly formed Agilent Technologies.

Since 1997 Helen has put her Business Advisor skills into practice and has fulfilled Senior Executive positions accountable for leading the turn around of under performing businesses. In her Senior Executive roles Helen applied management methodologies to improve the financial, customer and operational results of businesses on a Global, European and UK basis. Please see the results section for examples of the successful quantifiable results Helen has achieved in these roles.

Helen's skills and knowledge enable her to offer Board level advice in the following areas:

• Turn-around of P&L performance

• Strategic business planning

• Operational excellence

• Talent management

• Leadership of large globally distributed teams

• Change management

• Managing customer facing projects

• Building strategic relationships

• Innovative process improvement

• Services marketing & business development

Helen is actively involved in volunteer and charity work. She is a qualified Mentor for the Youth Offending Program and a Business Advisor for the Young Enterprise charity.

Helen holds a BA (Hons) Degree in Business Studies from Plymouth University. She is a qualified practitioner in Change Management, Coaching, Talent Management and Leadership

¹ Agilent Technologies became an independent company from Hewlett Packard on 1st November 1999. Agilent Technologies is the world's premier measurement company and a technology leader in communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis. The company's 20,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenue of $5.1 billion in fiscal 2005.

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