Gilly Elder
Specialist: Customer Services Training
Sector: Aviation and Government
Gilly has worked with many airlines and began her career with British Airways as cabin crew in the 1970’s. She flew long haul, inaugural and VIP flights and represented the company in marketing and promotional events, eventually moving into the training department. After leaving the company to join her husband on overseas postings to the Middle East and Africa she was able to use her experience on a number of training assignments. While in the Gulf she worked with Abu Dhabi Oil Company and Abu Dhabi Gas. When living in Malawi Gilly designed and delivered a number of training initiatives for Air Malawi, including motivation and managing change in order to revitalise staff after major downsizing.
On returning to the UK Gilly joined Speedwing Consulting, a subsidiary of BA, and undertook various projects including being part of the customer services training team that supported the re-launch of Kuwait Airways after the first Gulf War. At Ghana Airways she was part of the management training team as well as designing and delivering the ‘Excellence in Customer Service’ programme. At Jet Airways, in Mumbai she presented a series of courses to front line staff and gave developmental and motivational feedback to their new trainers.
While working with Speedwing in UK she was part of a small team which set up systems and processes for BA’s ‘Business Efficiency Programme’ at Heathrow. She was also a member of the BA Contingency Planning team. Gilly worked on major recruitment programmes as well as a being involved in the restructuring of an operational area (Baggage and Loading). She was also part of the selection board involved in the promotion of cabin crew into management. When Speedwing was closed down Gilly supported the HR manager and was responsible for the redundancy process, compensation and provision of associated legal documents. This was a sensitive project requiring patience, tact, diplomacy and confidentiality.
As a self-employed trainer she worked with Air 2000 and advised on how to add value to their customer product. At London City Airport she designed a ‘Lets Connect’ course for Business Air, the handling agent. Another assignment involved working with Air Astana the evolving national airline of Kazakhstan to design and deliver a series of Customer Services and Ground Handling courses. This was in preparation for the start up of the airline operating its own passenger check in facility at Almaty International Airport.
Gilly joined Meteor, a subsidiary of the Go-Ahead Group, as Training and Development Manager to set up a new department to develop, design and deliver the soft skills training to 1000 staff throughout the UK. Departments included Airport Parking (Pink Elephant and Park One), Security, Shopping Outlets and Rail Parking.
Gilly has also designed and/or delivered training for City of London Business Link, Ford Motor Company, National Police Training, Palace of Westminster and Royal Navy. She also had a longstanding contract with Spelthorne Borough Council to deliver the Customer Service module, as well as Team Building and the Equity and Diversity course, as required.
Gilly joined MSP Solutions as their Senior Customer Service training consultant in 2010.