Fiona Colquhoun

Practice Areas

Fiona mediates comfortably in environments throughout the UK, including global and top FTSE companies, businesses, professional services, and in the Public and Charity sectors. Some of Fiona’s cases are very litigious whilst others also involve longstanding, entrenched positions and high levels of interpersonal conflict. Her mediation experience covers Banks, Business, Commercial, Contracts, Charities, Clinical Negligence, Discrimination, Education, Ecclesiastical, Information Technology and Telecommunications; Central , Local and International Government, Police, Personal Injury, Property, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, and the NHS, Partnership, Pensions, Shareholder and Workplace and Employment matters in all sectors.

Fiona offers a complete range of dispute resolution techniques in her work including mediation, deal negotiation, facilitation, independent reviews, investigations and neutral chairing.

Career

Fiona has mediated since 2004 and conducted 500 plus mediations and other neutral interventions in the private, public and voluntary sectors including; commercial, employment and workplace, IT telecoms, healthcare, NHS partnerships and funding, clinical negligence, disability, pharmaceuticals, retail, banking, financial services, police, education, ecclesiastical, utilities, property, partnership and pensions.

Current ADR Career

Lead Mediator CEDR from 2004, member of CEDR Chambers; previously Principal Consultant, CEDR Faculty member CEDR ACAS Arbitrator 2007-2018

Corporate/ Business career

Previously Executive, Board Level Director in UK and global high tech companies with early career in the NHS.

Telecoms/ IT: Board Level HR Executive Director as Group HR Director, ICL 1997-2002, Board Level HR Director Group HR Director, Cable and Wireless plc 1991-96, Trustee Pension Board Chair 1991-2001 for both C&W and ICL, Personnel Director, Mercury Communications, 1984-91.

NHS: Personnel Director/Chief People Officer, Towers Hamlets Health District 1982-84, Hospitals for Sick Children, GOSH 1979-82.

Non-Executive and advisory appointments

Non-Executive NED St George’s NHS Trust 1993-99, Trustee and School Governor, Safeguarding Governor. Moat School, 2004 -2018 Trustee ,John Constable Educational Trust 2018 -2024

Non-Executive Adviser, Dieu (Management Development Institute Denmark) 2002-2010

Fiona has gravitas with warmth and many cases are highly emotional and sensitive. Some cases have taken place in the public domain, including, for example, the Sheffield trees dispute, the hospital treatment of a severely disabled young person, NHS funding disputes and involve detailed negotiations. All mediations can be delicate in different ways and Fiona is particularly experienced in relationship breakdowns in partnerships and employment cases, and in sad and traumatic clinical negligence matters.

In her corporate and mediation career, Fiona has strong global experience with M&A activity and major restructuring and downsizing programmes, Board and executive settlement arrangements. She undertakes other independent interventions, mediations with recommendations, neutral Chairing, facilitating sensitive discussions, conducting reviews and investigations, and coaches on conflict between individuals or groups.

Professional Memberships

Member Institute of Health Management 1978

FCIPD, Fellow Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development 1978

Fellow, Civil Mediation Council

Member of RSA

Birkenhead High School GDST

Clients

Feedback - Clients

• “Challenged the parties- She is top of our list for any further mediations.”

• “Fiona put her heart and soul into the mediation- well beyond the call of duty.”

• “Excellent, very impressive. We would happily use Fiona’s services again."

• “She has the art of keeping mediation going when people would want to walk away.”

• “Liked her style, sensitivity and good humour.”

• “Intellectually capable, got to the heart of the issues quickly.”

• “Able to process what was going on and problem solve in ‘real time’.”

• “Managed to rally the parties to converse, everyone was very shy in coming forward.”

• “Exemplary and completely impartial.”

• “Very commercial and professional, but also creative and intuitive.”

• “Calm and balanced with staying power, energy and well able to deal with the unexpected."

• “Very sensitive to the difficult personalities involved, and understood the issues.”

• “Stayed with this throughout - her follow up was sincere and very helpful.”

• “Fiona had an impossibly difficult task, their lawyers were just incredibly difficult - the most phenomenally difficult people I’ve ever come across, but it concluded happily.”

Industry Sector Expertise

• Commercial

• Commercial Contracts

• Construction & Engineering

• Charities

• Clinical Negligence

• Discrimination

• Ecclesiastical

• Education

• Emotional & Tense cases

• Employment & Workplace

• Healthcare & NHS

• ICT

• Partnership & Shareholder

• Pensions

• Personal Injury

• Police

• Property

• Public Sector

• Trusts, Wills & Probate

Languages Spoken

English

French (A Level)

Greek (elementary)

Experience

Commercial Contracts:

Regularly mediated disputes on breakdown in negotiations on funding and contracts, partnerships and future relationships from 2007 to present date. Parties from NHS and other entities: i.e. Primary Care Trusts, Commissioning Care Groups, Local Authorities and private providers.

Clinical Negligence:

Fiona’s has mediated c 25/30 clinical negligence cases per annum in recent years; and many of these are tragic and emotional. She is frequently selected for her very sensitive approach, and is able to deal well with complex and litigious situations. Fiona has dealt with multimillion claims and settlements, as well as in some instances, litigants in person. Nearly all of Fiona’s cases settle on the day, or soon afterwards with her careful follow up.

Education

Fiona regularly mediates and resolves disputes within Schools and Universities involving teaching /academic staff, trustees, parents and internal management staff and has been one of CEDR’s senior CISAS adjudicators. Fiona has also trained a number of senior individuals from Universities, educational trusts and schools as mediators and has also trained teachers and school prefects in mediation skills. Fiona was a School governor of the Moat School in London for 12 years and is currently a Trustee of the John Constable Educational Trust.

Emotional and Tense cases

Fiona regularly mediates tense cases where emotions run high and the parties are distressed. This applies to all sectors of Fiona’s work and particularly to longstanding disputes in the public domain, Employment & Workplace, Clinical Negligence, Discrimination, Healthcare & NHS, Partnerships & Shareholder, Personal Injury and Trust disputes.

Employment & Workplace

Fiona’s immense experience of all types and levels of employment and workplace situations, delivers very substantial value to the parties and their representatives in any dispute. With Fiona’s substantial corporate background, many cases involve Board level or senior employees in Banking, ICT, Professional Services and FTSE and global companies. Fiona is particularly commended in the Chambers Directory for her work in employment and workplace disputes and for her abilities in dealing with especially ‘challenging and tense disputes’. Fiona has worked in both unionised and non-unionised environments, and has mediated a dispute over several days on work practice changes, between senior management and national and local Trade Union representatives in the transport industry.

Parties give consistently positive feedback on Fiona’s professionalism, sensitivity, good humour, tenacity and patience in dealing with complex situations, often involving emotional and challenging individuals. She is very flexible and pragmatic in her mediation practice; adapting the process appropriately in certain instances with the parties’ agreement, by using a combination of her mediation, coaching and arbitration skills. She has a warm rapport with people.

Fiona is also experienced in mediating with vulnerable individuals with mental health conditions, for example, claimants suffering from stress and depression. She has also worked with individuals with autism, bi polar, asperser’s and a number of conditions and disabilities.

Pensions

Fiona is very experienced in the potential conflicts of interest between employers and Trustees, having been a Pension Fund Trustee for many years and Trustee Chair in both Cable and Wireless Plc. and subsequently ICL (International Computers Limited) Plc. for 10 years. She worked with NAPF to set up the Pensions Mediation Service in 2006.

Partnership & Shareholder

Fiona has extensive expertise in resolving disputes between business partners and shareholders in a variety of sectors including Banking & Finance, Healthcare, ICT, Retail and Professional services. Cases have been between founders/owners, directors, partners and involved family members in business together and have involved commercial/business, corporate governance and relationship issues. Fiona has also mediated several breakdowns in GP practice partnerships. Disputes have also included breakdowns in ‘strategic partnerships’ and ‘joint ventures’ businesses in the private, public and voluntary sectors.

Reconciliations achieved in partnership mediations have resulted in different and revised working arrangements e.g. redeployment from Executive Director to part time Non-Executive Chairman, or parties have agreed to new or modified business plans.

Fiona has also mediated cases where partnership dissolution or the details of partnership break up have been agreed.

Healthcare & NHS

Fiona mediates regularly in this sector and understands the NHS environment having worked for 10 years at Board and non-executive level. Fiona has also mediated and adjudicated on number of public sector disputes, particularly NHS funding disputes, where recommendations binding on both parties have been written up, when negotiations faltered. In some cases, Fiona has worked with an independent expert e.g. on a determination re accident and emergency metrics in a teaching hospital.

Workplace Interpersonal Relationships

Fiona has resolved peer to peer matters, relationship breakdowns, re-integrations following suspensions, periods of absence or reinstatements and team dynamics on working relationships, at all organisational levels in all sectors (corporate, public sector, education, charities, within partnerships etc. and professional disciplines). Fiona uses facilitation, coaching, assistance with difficult conversations, problem solving and engaging individuals in more effective working frameworks to improve interpersonal relationships.

Education

Awards