John West

John West is an independent consultant providing facilitation, learning and capacity building advice, strategy development, team development, leadership development and coaching/mentoring services. In addition, John is also writing a number of articles on foundational values for development and humanitarianism.

John's career ranges from developing, leading and mentoring teams: regional emergency response teams, personal marketing teams, large volunteer groups; full-time professional youth workers and leading peak representative organisations. John holds professional qualifications in theology and marketing.

After leaving Australia in 2000, John lived and served in Africa based in Nairobi and for some time Johannesburg. He now lives with his wife in the UK. He worked most recently in World Vision International (21 years) as Associate Director for Humanitarian Capacity Building, Africa Humanitarian Capacity Building Manager, and State Manager Victoria Australia. He also pioneered the establishment and management of a major innovative accommodation facility at Ainslie Village, Canberra Australia, providing low cost accommodation and communal services for 280 low-income people. For 17 years he worked with Fusion Australia (now International) establishing key community centres in Western Australia and Canberra and developing and leading teams of professional community workers.

John has a passion for teams and building the capacity of individuals, teams, organizations and communities to achieve their objectives. John says, "There are many things I love about GULL, but key among them is the idea that professional recognition is accessible and affordable to people the world over." He continues, when I first discussed the ideas with Richard, I was excited because there was a tremendous congruity between the way we were working to develop emergency response teams and the way GULL is set up.