Join us for an insightful discussion
Most leaders know what good leadership looks like. The difficulty is doing it when the pressure is on. Deadlines tighten, information is patchy and people fall back on old habits. They focus on their own brief, stop talking to other teams and say yes to work that can’t be delivered. The learning that made sense in the training room gets lost in a busy week.
A business simulation gives leaders a safe place to see this happen in real time. Teams run an organisation together against the clock, and within minutes the patterns that hold real organisations back start to show. More importantly, leaders get to try a different approach and see straight away what changes.
In this session, Alexandra Norbury, Head of Commercial at Roffey Park, is joined by programme directors James Choles and Simon Coker and Roffey Park associate Tom Bamber. Neil Ballantyne, CEO of Immersive Edge, and David Edment from Immersive Edge complete the panel. Together they’ll share what they’ve seen running simulations with senior leaders in government, the public sector and private organisations, and how it helps learning carry over into everyday work. You’ll also get a short look at the simulation in action.
Join us to explore:
- What happens to leadership behaviour under pressure, and why people revert to default ways of working
- Why capable teams still fall short when they don’t work well with other departments
- How organisation design and incentives shape behaviour, often in ways leaders don’t notice
- Why taking on work that looks good at face value can cost more than it earns
- How simulation helps leaders practise what they’ve learnt and make the change stick
This isn’t a product demo. It’s an honest conversation about how leaders learn and change, drawn from real programmes, for the people responsible for developing them.
Who it’s for:
Senior leaders in HR, L&D, OD and talent who design or commission leadership and management development.
What you’ll leave with:
A clearer view of why leadership learning often fades once people are back at work, and practical ideas for using simulation to help new behaviours hold.
James Choles
James is a Programme Director at Roffey Park Institute and an experienced manager, facilitator and learning designer. He has a deep belief in experiential learning and the power of reflection to help people grow.
His career spans public service, leadership education and 15 years living and working across Asia, with a consistent focus on creating safe, purposeful spaces where individuals and teams can learn, connect and thrive in complex working environments. James uses the simulation on Roffey Park’s Senior Practitioner Programme for senior civil servants, where it helps participants put what they’ve learnt into practice.
Simon Coker
Simon is a Programme Director at Roffey Park Institute and an organisational development practitioner with over 20 years’ experience supporting people and organisations through meaningful, practical change.
His career spans international contexts and multiple sectors, with a strong thread of experiential learning, cross-cultural working and creating trusted spaces where individuals and teams can reflect and grow with purpose. Simon has used the simulation on leadership programmes for the civil service and financial services.
Neil Ballantyne
Neil is CEO of Immersive Edge, which designs business simulations that show how people really lead, collaborate and make decisions under pressure. Participants run an organisation in a live simulation, managing cashflow, capacity and people as challenges unfold.
Neil has more than 25 years’ experience working across business and technology and is a Chartered Engineer. He joined Immersive Edge as Chief Technology Officer to build the simulation platform before becoming CEO in 2023, and now leads its work on AI-enhanced facilitation.
David Edment
David is Business Development and Training Manager at Immersive Edge, where he uses business simulations to help teams work through change and understand what’s getting in the way of performance.
Before joining Immersive Edge, David spent many years in recruitment and people development, including senior talent roles with Parity Group and AMI Expeditionary Healthcare. That background gives him a practical view of the workforce challenges organisations face and how people respond when the pressure is on.
Tom Bamber
Tom is a Roffey Park associate and leadership development consultant and coach, with nearly 20 years’ experience working with people from the front line to the boardroom. He works with Roffey Park on its leadership programmes and delivers the simulation with private sector clients.
His experience covers sectors including housing, policing, the NHS, finance and manufacturing, and he has trained more than 6,000 people. Tom is a qualified NLP practitioner who also works with tools such as MBTI and the Strength Deployment Inventory, and he runs his own ILM-accredited centre, T Bamber Associates.
Alex Norbury
Alexandra is Head of Commercial at Roffey Park Institute, where she works with organisations to shape leadership and organisational development that helps them through cultural change and leadership alignment. She is particularly interested in how organisations build the capability their leaders need as work becomes more complex.
Before joining Roffey Park, Alexandra spent more than a decade at the World Textile Information Network, including six years as Head of Sales. She is a founding non-executive board member of Skills Symphony, a national alliance of learning organisations, and writes the LinkedIn newsletter Leading Through It on the realities of leadership today.