About Harmony
Who are we?
We are an HR consultancy providing a range of HR services. We are based near Cambridge and have many years’ experience working with businesses, schools and charities, including Cambridge Colleges. Our clients are mainly based in London and the South East and we are happy to travel to you if preferred.
Our work is always carried out or overseen by Harmony HR Solutions’ Managing Director, Caroline Banwell, who is also a consultant employment law solicitor with Kesteven Partners Limited. Caroline is a member of the Employment Lawyers’ Association.
Caroline Banwell has over 20 years’ experience advising clients on employment law and HR. She trained and worked initially as a solicitor for a City firm and has advised a wide variety of clients from SMEs to multinationals and from small primary schools to Cambridge Colleges. As well as considerable knowledge of the business and education sectors, she has also worked extensively for the charity sector and was recommended in the Charities and Not for Profit section of the 2017 Legal 500 for her work heading the Cambridge office employment team at leading charity and education firm, Stone King.
Caroline collaborates with other Cambridge HR consultants on project work from time to time. As a solicitor, she is a member of the Employment Lawyers’ Association and spends around 50% of her time carrying out work as a solicitor.
Caroline has been a school governor in both the state and private sectors and is currently governor of her old school in Hatfield, Hertfordshire.
Caroline has worked as a professional violinist in the past and still enjoys playing chamber music.
Caroline gives advice through Harmony HR Solutions Limited as an HR consultant and not as a solicitor and Harmony HR Solutions Limited is not regulated by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority. Caroline works as a solicitor for Kesteven Partners Limited which is a law firm regulated by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority.
Samantha Cooney has breadth and depth of experience in employment law and HR having practiced as a Barrister at leading London Chambers and also having worked as In-House Counsel for a number of years. Sam has worked closely with clients in a range of sectors from aviation to international telecoms, NHS trusts and in the charity sector and advised on matters involving highly commercially and politically sensitive issues.
Sam has experience in the full repertoire of employment law issues from disciplinary matters to managing absence, equal pay and discrimination. She also conducts HR investigations.
Assheton Bogg BSc is an Associate for Harmony HR Solutions. He is a highly experienced HR consultant and practitioner with over 30 years of leadership development, employee relations, organisation design and change management expertise gained within major UK PLCs and blue-chip multinational consultancy and professional service organisations.
He has led and implemented large HR programmes across culturally diverse and complex organisations internationally, in the public, private and third sectors, and brings to his clients a wide range of leadership development expertise and organisation design methodologies, instruments and processes.
He is an organisation design and HRM change management Associate of the World Bank, United Nations, GIZ GmbH, Atos Consulting (formally KPMG), Adam Smith International, Coffey International and Particip GmbH.
Lesley Dorrington works as an Associate for Harmony HR Solutions. She has over 19 years’ HR experience in large private sector organisations, all of which have been highly unionised environments.
Her experience covers the full spectrum of HR including resourcing, learning and development and employee relations. She achieved Investors in People accreditation and a 5 Star EFQM status. She has also worked with organisations to drive down high levels of absenteeism and turnover and achieved best-in-class levels of employee engagement. The majority of the work has been within highly unionised companies and is proud of the fact that she has never had any days lost to strike action.