Not just to survive, but to thrive.
Seven areas of work. Each engagement starts with your context — your culture, systems, challenges and operating reality — rather than a template.
The challenge
Public sector and international organisations around the world are facing unparalleled challenges: financial pressures, demands to deliver more and increase impact with fewer resources, and the need to respond to exponential technological and societal change. These are challenges for which the public and third sectors — and international organisations — are often ill-equipped.
Organisations everywhere have one key asset to help them succeed: the people who work for them. Yet the way those people are hired, led, organised, developed and deployed is, more often than not, no longer up to the task.
And HR functions, the stewards of that resource, are frequently seen by top management as an administrative overhead rather than a strategic, high-value function with a crucial role in enabling the organisation to succeed.
Helping organisations formulate strategies that deliver measurable and significant impact, based on an understanding of your culture, systems, challenges and operating context — in order to increase your capacity to deliver better results and build a positive organisational culture that enables both people and organisations to thrive.
Design and implementation of change and transformation projects and programmes — helping you successfully navigate the pitfalls that derail the majority of change processes.
Transforming HR functions from a focus on the administration of personnel to a strategic function that is capable of adding significant value to your organisation.
Advising and supporting HR leaders and senior leaders whose portfolio includes HR, helping you achieve your professional objectives.
From establishing graduate entry and talent programmes to internal talent deployment and senior hiring and assessment. Previous experience includes establishing a multi-award-winning Graduate Programme at UNDP — giving opportunities to highly talented young people from some of the world’s least developed countries.
Experience includes successfully launching award-winning employer brands, including EU Careers and UNDP Careers.
Keynote speaker on HR, change management and related issues. See the Impact & Recognition page for topics and past engagements.
Why APC is different
All too often, when faced with difficult situations, public sector organisations bring in one of the big consultancies. They come with a standard slide deck — tailored to the private sector — that is laden with empty management speak. Yet every organisation and every set of challenges is unique. Understanding that is the key to success.
After the sales pitch, the project is run by juniors. When the contract is over, you are left alone to implement recommendations that don’t really make sense, along with an exorbitant invoice. Sounds familiar? It is no surprise that the majority of change processes end in failure.
At APC, services are delivered by global experts in HR strategy and transformation — not by a sales team. APC will help you implement the process. Our advice and support is grounded in the reality of your experience, from someone who has been there and knows what works and what doesn’t.
Community
A network for independent HR and leadership consultants. More to come.
Ascent People Consulting is also able to draw on a number of recognised experts who share the same values, and who are able to provide a range of specialised advice and services in different aspects of HR and transformation — including assessment, early careers and graduate programmes, organisational design, business partnering and leadership coaching.
Talent management and selection
Lieve Van Molle is a leading specialist in talent management and selection processes for international organisations. With over 30 years’ experience as consultant and practitioner, she advises on HR practices and capability frameworks, serves on selection boards, and coaches managers and executives.
An independent consultant since 2020, Lieve works with international organisations including the European Banking Authority, Frontex, EU-OSHA, ENISA, Fusion for Energy, NATO, EUROCONTROL and UNDP. She turns HR strategy into practice, advising on how organisations select, assess and develop their people, from concept to implementation.
Working with HR, management and staff, she redesigns selection processes and builds competency frameworks, aligning them with the organisation’s objectives across recruitment, performance, learning and career development.
She sits as an external expert on selection boards, trains selection board members, and conducts executive assessments and performance reviews. She coaches individuals, from aspiring managers to executive directors, in their role, in transition and as they prepare for their next step, and advises leadership teams.
Lieve previously worked at Hudson in Brussels for over two decades, where she successfully built and led the International Public Sector business unit. She held long-standing framework contracts with EU institutions, agencies and other international organisations, and led large-scale, high-stakes projects, from assessment centres to leadership programmes. For many years she served as an external expert on the European Commission’s Consultative Committee on Appointments.
Lieve is Belgian, holds a master’s degree in Romance philology from KU Leuven, and works in English, French and Dutch. She is certified as a lead assessor, as an interview chair with the Belgian federal administration, and in a range of psychometric instruments.
M.A. in Counseling Psychology
A different kind of executive coaching
Zeyad brings a unique and valuable perspective to executive coaching, drawing on three elements which combine to enable him to help managers and leaders navigating complex challenges, who need help in dealing with demanding situations, or are new to their role. Equally, they may simply need an independent sounding board to help discover fresh approaches or provide constructive and impartial feedback.
Zeyad’s skills are founded on three elements which combine to form a unique set of abilities:
Firstly, he is not only an executive coach, but also a trained counsellor and psychotherapist with an MA in Counseling Psychology from the American University in Cairo.
Secondly, his work as an executive coach is informed by an extensive career in business and diplomacy spanning several decades, over which he held various positions in public and corporate affairs, public relations, and marketing, primarily with multinational corporations active in Egypt. Additionally, he served as a diplomat for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This experience enables him to understand the challenges facing managers and leaders from a practical perspective.
Thirdly, Zeyad is both multi-cultural and multi-lingual. An Egyptian national, he grew up in various regions, including Europe, the Middle East and the USA, and is fluent in Arabic, English and German.
Zeyad tailors his approach to meet each client’s needs, integrating a variety of techniques to help with different aspects of the challenges faced by managers and leaders at a time when the demands on them have never been higher.
Ascent People Consulting is building a community for independent consultants working in HR strategy, organisational change and leadership — people who advise international organisations and the public and third sectors, and who mostly do it alone.
The shape of it is still being decided. If that is the kind of network you would find useful, say so now and it will help decide what this becomes.
Describe the problem rather than the service. Every conversation starts with your context, not a slide deck.