Penny is a native of the UK but was raised in Canada.  She returned to London in 1986 to complete a Masters degree at the London School of Economics and pursued a career in strategy consulting in London, Belfast and ultimately the Netherlands where she stayed for 10 years.

Penny joined the first European telecommunications joint venture, AT&T-Unisource and has worked across multiple cultures and geographies. She left AT&T having become the first female international business development director for the joint venture in Europe, managing multiple distribution channels and an organization of over 2000 people.  She returned to the UK to settle, spent 2.5 years in Executive Search with Egon Zehnder before certifying as a counsellor and psychotherapist and becoming a certified mediator through CEDR. She then joined the UK’s premier executive coaching firm, The Change Partnership and in 2006 founded her own firm, Familias & Company, which focuses on executive leadership development and family business consulting. She is a senior associate of the Family Business Consulting Group in the US and an experienced non-executive director. Penny works and speaks globally, spending a considerable amount of time in the Middle East.

Penny is an experienced school board governor and is passionate about family issues, the need to provide children with self-esteem and the best care possible and has worked with the NSPCC Full Stop Campaign and the World’s Prize for the Human Rights of the Child. Penny lives in West Sussex, enjoys travel and writing and spending time with her godchildren.