About Your Expert Course Director

Benedict (Ben) Stanberry
Healthcare Consultant
UAE

Benedict Stanberry began his career as a hospital administrator, healthcare assistant and auxiliary nurse, from where he went on to hold healthcare-related positions in legal practice, academia, management consulting and elected politics and to become a senior executive in a number of healthcare organisations.

Originally trained as a lawyer, Ben has both bachelors and masters degrees in law, was a faculty member of both the law school and business school at the University of Wales in Cardiff and was named Welsh Lawyer of the Year in recognition of his healthcare advisory work with the Welsh National Health Service and the European Commission.

Following a move to management consulting in 2001, Ben led the provision of healthcare advisory services to numerous public and private sector organisations. He was a healthcare policy adviser to several government ministries and a director and interim chief executive of a Brussels-based NGO representing the health ministries of the member states of the European Union.

In 2008, Ben was awarded an MBA scholarship by Henley Business School, which is consistently ranked among the world’s top programmes. Since 2009, he has been a healthcare management consultant, lecturer and author – advising and training numerous healthcare organisations in the Middle East, including the UAE Ministry of Health.

Ben is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a Member of the Institute of Directors.

Jill O’Connell
Healthcare Consultant
UAE

After completing her degree, Jill O’Connell initially worked as cabin crew for British Airways. Throughout the 1980’s she lived through the legendary transformation of the airline, in which it reversed consumer opinion to become the ‘‘World’s Favourite Airline’. This experience left a deep and lasting impression on her and showed her what can be achieved through the collective commitment of an inspired workforce.

In the 11 years she has been in Dubai she has worked with various high profile organisations. At the American Hospital in Dubai, she successfully managed projects in the development of customer focused policies and standards and the initiation of a service competency framework for all frontline staff.

Working as a consultant to the Department of Economic Development she designed the assessors guide for the Dubai Service Excellence Scheme – a quality award which continues to value and reward superior service throughout the Emirate. For 5 years she was a cabin crew manager at Emirates Airline and was directly responsible for the performance management of over 300 employees – reward, recognition, assessment, development, talent management, discipline and welfare.

More recently at Al Ain Hospital, she partnered with the senior management team to deliver a strategic plan, staff appraisal and training programme to enhance customer service.

Jill is certified by Global Air Training in the UK as a CRM/TRM (Crew/Team Resource Management) instructor, offering Human Factors training to Doctors and medical teams working in high pressure environments. The overall aim of this non-technical skills training is to reduce medical error attributed to human factors.

Jill holds a Bachelors degree in languages, a post-graduate teaching degree and an MBA in Strategic Human Resources Management. She also holds UK diplomas in assessment and coaching and is a member of the Association for Coaching in the UK. She is Lead Consultant of Leading Edge Consultancy – an HR company based in Dubai.