Business by Janice

JANICE HAYWOOD

After completing an Economics degree at the University of York I went into Retail Management and worked with C&A for 5 years. I then moved to Windsmoor, a British company selling ladies clothing to get a different type of retail experience and it was while working as Area Manager for this company that I had the opportunity to move to Spain to set up their Spanish operation with the department store group, Galerias Preciados. It took only 12 months for me to realise that I wouldn’t be moving back to the UK and so when Galerias Preciados was bought out by El Corte Inglés I was forced to change careers to stay in Madrid.

As I’ve always loved languages I decided to give teaching a try and did my CELTA course in 1995 with The British Language Centre here in Madrid. I was given my first teaching job with Chester and remember thinking at the time that if I ever had my own school I would want it to be a similar set up to Chester as I was impressed with their professionalism from the start. I later worked with The British Language Centre, ACE and The Windsor Academy. It was while I was at Windsor that I was approached by the owners to ask if I was interested in buying as they were looking to sell. Two teachers I had met while working at ACE joined me and we bought The Windsor Academy in June of 1999, renaming it Windsor Idiomas.

The combination of my retail management experience and 4 years as a qualified TEFL teacher provided me with the ideal skills to develop Windsor and grow it into a successful business.

In December of 2009 I gained my accreditation as a Small Business Coach with The Coaching Academy in the UK. I have always been passionate about business, that is, “authentic” business, businesses that run in line with solid personal values such as integrity and excellence.  My vision is to help other entrepreneurs achieve their dreams of freedom, independence and success and to this end I joined the international Business Coaching company, Shirlaws in January 2010, a company whose values and culture are rock solid and are completely aligned with my own. However, for various reasons, this venture didn’t work out and in March 2010 I joined a cutting edge, start-up  training company, Business Learning Solutions, an intriguing mix of language training and management skills consultancy. This company completes the missing link between English language training and the ability to funtion effectively in English for many managers/directors and is currently generating a lot of interest amongst Spanish subsidiaries of multinational companies in Madrid.