Suppose you are the newly appointed retail manager who is enthusiastic, absorbed in learning and getting to know people as well as becoming familiar with the business? Perhaps you are facing stress and work overload, as your work-life balance has gone out the window!

This common scenario is leading to an enormous increase in the provision of support for change management, leadership skills, stress management, and performance management. These are the kind of issues that are likely to affect people in retail because of the enormous changes and uncertainty in the current competitive landscape..

Exciting initiatives in this emerging field of Retail Coaching have been set up by Mhairi Roche and Associates who have extensive and varied backgrounds in the retail sector.

We specialise in Executive Coaching, Individual and Team Coaching, Branding and Marketing, Industrial Relations and Human Resource, Display and Visual Merchandising

According to Public Personnel Management companies that combine coaching with their training programs improve profitability by 85% - as opposed to 23% through training alone.

Meet the Team…..

Mhairi Roche, Eddie Shanahan, Irene Canavan, Nigel Cole and Tara Nolan.

Mhairi Roche created MH Consultancy in 2010 as a network of Professionals providing specific services to Independent Retailers, Wholesalers and Manufacturers in Executive Coaching, Individual and Team Coaching, Industrial Relations and Human Resource, Branding and Marketing, Display and Visual Merchandising.

Mhairi is a Retail Coach who has a particular focus on Buying and Managing expertise within the Fashion industry. Her professional career extends to thirty years working predominantly for Ireland’s largest Department Store Arnotts.

Mhairi’s experience stems from a creative background in Display & Visual Merchandising, to senior positions held in a number of divisions within the Organisation– Womenswear Buying Director, Head of Fashion Direction, Head of Concession Development and Group Fashion Buyer.

Having left Arnotts In 2008 she was appointed to General Manager for a Distribution Company –Dr. Hauschka Skin Care a leading natural organic brand which supplies the Health & Pharmaceutical markets.

She combines her experience and skills in her role as a Coach to release the potential residing in individuals for both business and personal success. She believes strongly in using the coaching process “to facilitate people’s growth, development, change & leadership”.

Mhairi holds an Advanced Diploma in Personal & Executive Coaching and is a Licensed Business Practitioner of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). Mhairi is a member of the EMCC.

The Brands within MH Consultancy are Mischa Barton, Kathy Van Zeeland & Marla London Handbag Collections.

Eddie Shanahan is a business alchemist specialising in branding & marketing, new product & business development and customer service for the retail, fashion and homewares industries.

He lists leading Irish and international designers, homewares companies, retailers, semi state agencies, craft makers, media and blue chip companies among his clients. His experience stretches from profit through volume operations, to small independent companies and specialist luxury brands. He is a Director of the Leitrim Design House and Chairperson of the Council of Irish Fashion Designers.

Eddie Shanahan is a former Director of Merchandising & Marketing at Arnotts, a position he held for 9 years. Under his direction and management the company’s advertising was featured in the EPICA Annual of the best of European advertising.

He was Chairperson of the Members Board of Buy4Now for 5 years and Chairperson of the Kilkenny Group for two years during it’s expansion and redevlopment.

He chaired the Dublin City Businesses Association Traffic Committee from 2000 to 2004. He was a member of Dublin Tourism’s British Market Tourism Taskforce in 2005 and previously served on the Irish Trade Board’s Forum on the Irish Fashion Industry.

In 2009 he devised ‘Brand Clonmel’ for the Clonmel Chamber of Commerce.

Eddie Shanahan has also developed a unique concept of Shop Safaris where interested parties experience the latest trends in international retail development at first hand.

He is a regular commentator on fashion, lifestyle and consumer issues on television, radio and in print media.

Irene Canavan brings six years of human resources consultancy experience and over twenty years of practical industry based human resources expertise, culminating in her appointment as Group Human Resources and Training Director of Arnotts Limited. As a human resources and industrial relations consultant, she provides full human resources support to small to mid-sized companies, performing such roles as building a human resources infrastructure, ensuring compliance of personnel files, designing employee handbooks, drafting job descriptions and improving employer/employee relations. Irene is skilled in the area of redundancy and dismissal. Irene also advises companies who are considering restructuring or downsizing and provides counsel and guidance to junior and senior level management. She sits as an external member on the interview boards and recruitment and selection committees of large national concerns.

In 2006, she was invited to sit on the National Centre for Partnership and Performance (NCPP) Council designed to advance the NCPP strategy of building the capacity of employers and unions to bring about change in the workplace and enhance the quality of working life. .

Irene has served as the Chairperson of the Dublin Retail Skillnet Steering Committee, an employer-led initiative to promote and make available retail occupational qualifications to staff. Skillnet aims to develop a culture of continuous learning and development in member companies.

Managing her own consultancy company, IR Solutions, since its inception in 2005. She has acquired expertise in respect of the impact of human dynamics on organisational effectiveness and is passionate about practical personnel solutions which achieve results.

Irene holds a degree in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management from National University of Ireland and is an active member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Nigel Cole is a designer who has the ability to deliver world class display and merchandising solutions and firmly believes that "some of the best design solutions are the simplest and don't necessarily have to cost the earth."

Nigel studied in the Dublin Institute of Technology where he laid the foundation for a career in Display and Visual Merchandising. After graduating Nigel commenced his working life in the prop room of Switzers & Co. His role was to make, renovate and design props for the Grafton Street Department store and notably to work on their well known and much loved animated Christmas window schemes.

Nigel then went to work for Arnotts where his career spanned every aspect of Arnotts creative departments; he was promoted to Group Visual Merchandising Manager. He also worked as stylist on the Arnotts magazine where it named him their 'Style Guru" he takes great pride in being part of the team which won the P.P.A. Award the first year the magazine was entered.

Nigel is now a Display and Visual Merchandising Consultant he applies his wealth of V.M. experience to a wide range of clients i.e. Louise Kennedy, Diageo, Ladbrooks, National Lottery, Lisa Fitzpatrick, Lites Group, McCarren & Co., Tricot Marine, and Dunnes Stores.

Tara Nolan ‘s breadth of professional and cultural experience includes dealing with the human element within corporate companies including GE, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Bank, Standard Life, Pioneer Asset Management, Morgan Stanley, Bacardi, PWC, Zurich, and Pfizer as well as her years as a financial services consultant with Whitehead Mann, a headhunting company.

In addition to her master’s degree in business administration from Trinity College Dublin, Tara has studied and is certified in the sphere of professional and personal mastery with Newfield Ltd, recognised by the International Coaching Federation. She founded Lime Trees Road, her own executive coaching company, in 2009.

Tara coaches at a senior level in large global concerns. She is interested in culture as well as behavioural change for effect. Her latest work includes working with board members of a global insurance concern. She is also involved with transition coaching for leaders new to a role within their own companies.

Tara is committed to providing executive coaching, team development and group facilitation.

Her mission is to extend some of the fantastic teachings she learnt at Newfield and provide an opportunity through her coaching for people to be conscious and in choice.