My name is Lesley, or some people call me ‘Lellie’. 

I live in Tintern, South Wales with my husband, Chris. I grew up close to here, in rural Herefordshire, near to the border with Wales and the town of Monmouth. A beautiful but somewhat dull place to grow up, I longed for the big city and after a summer holiday working in Wolverhampton, I headed to Manchester for university, where I studied a degree in History.

After graduating, my partner and I chose to stay in the North West, moving to Lymm purely because it was half-way between our new workplaces in South Manchester and Warrington. For more than ten years, Lymm and Cheshire was home, despite work often taking me elsewhere at times (Leeds, Birmingham and London mainly).

We loved the community in Lymm and made many friends through Lymm Ladies Circle and Round Table. With my mum’s family up the road too, Cheshire felt more like home, than Monmouth ever did. However, after losing our Russian Black Terrier suddenly to cancer in 2017, we found ourselves questioning our commuter-belt lives and longing to live somewhere more rural again.  

Soon after, an opportunity came up to relocate to the Falkland Islands for two years and in May 2018, we headed out there, as I took up a role in Falkland Islands Government. This was a life-changing experience and one of the best decisions of my life. 

Upon returning to the UK in 2020, we knew we couldn’t return to the busy North West, so I found myself heading home back to the Wye Valley.

Professionally, I am a Chartered Member of the CIPD and proud HR professional. I am fascinated by the world of work and am particularly interested in the way technology is changing the future of work and HR. Some of my professional interests include graduate and early career talent development, diversity, inclusion, authentic leadership, coaching, social learning, collaboration, workplace technology and flexible working. I often tweet about these topics and more over at twitter – @lellielesley. You can learn more about my career history here.

Outside of work, I enjoy knitting, spinning, weaving, music, board games (especially Ticket to Ride, Takenoko and Machi Koro), camping, canoeing, wild swimming and much more. I am addicted to my smartphone and spend too much time on social media. I also enjoy writing and photography, so I do try to blog now and again. Learn more about my life outside of work here.