CTPM is building on its continuous improvement and innovation offerings and appointed two more members to its team at the Young Street office in Wollongong.

President and founder Ross Kennedy has appointed his daughter Rebecca Kennedy as director of lean in services and Dr Andrew M Connery has come on board as director of innovation. “We are very excited to be welcoming Rebecca and Andrew to the team. With their exceptional experience and the expansion of our offerings we’ll now be able to assist more businesses achieve operational excellence and innovation”.

Ms Kennedy is a Wollongong University Alumni with over 10 years international people development and lean thinking experience with Deutsche Bank London, Germany, New York, India, Singapore, Philippines and Sydney. She is presently assisting a major law firm in Sydney through a Green Lean Sustainability Program sponsored by the NSW Department of Heritage & Environment. And helping an IT company in Wollongong through support from NSW Department of Industry Smart & Skilled program. 

Both companies are achieving great outcomes from applying lean thinking into their businesses to address specific business challenges.

“I’m excited to be back in Wollongong and for the opportunity to help local businesses who are having challenges in their office environments,” she said.

“Whether it be designing / streamlining processes, supporting projects or reviewing overall operations I’ve seen all these areas reduce staff frustrations and lost time therefore creating a more productive and enjoyable workplace.”

Dr Connery has over 30 years of industry experience in senior marketing and management roles.

After a three year break completing his PhD thesis on overcoming the barriers to innovation, at the UOW’s Sydney Business School, he said he had landed the perfect job to spread the word on how to make innovation a reality.

Dr Connery has already developed, with the help of CTPM’s vast continuous improvement experience, a practical empowering innovation framework to allow organisations to strategically guide the application of Innovation to ensure new ideas are captured, prioritised and brought to reality in a disciplined way that allows staff to spend a small amount of allocated time each week on practical innovation.

“Everybody talks about the need for Innovation in their businesses. However our research reveals very few, if any, organizations have a structured process in place to turn new ideas into commercial realities. The challenge for most managers /owners, is recognising the difference between Continuous Improvement and Innovation and then applying a framework for Innovation so that it becomes a key enabler for growing and protecting the business. I’m really looking forward to supporting local businesses and making Innovation a reality,” he said.