Our mission is to inspire people to be their best self because It's people, individually and as a team, in every single position, that create the success of every organisation.

This is me!My name is Pam, I am CEO of Fast Forward International.

This is my story.

Grab a coffee and let me tell you how I got here today.

Let’s start at the beginning.

I grew up in England in a house in a typical housing area outside Manchester.

I was an only child till the age of 11 when my younger sister Judith came along. I had a happy childhood and was blissfully unaware of all the adventures that were waiting for me

That's my home right there!True story:

When I was 16, I decided it was time to have a Saturday job.
I wanted to start earning my own money.

While out shopping in Manchester with my mum I said, 'I'm going to get a Saturday job today.' Mum said, 'Oh, how are you going to do that?' I replied, 'I'd like to work in that department store there, so I'm going to go and get a job.'

I went into the store, asked to see the manager and 30 minutes later came back to my mum saying, 'I start next Saturday'. And so, my first step into the world of work began.

This is us. ♥
Let's fast forward 5 years:

Married to Dave. We met on a holiday in Germany.

At 21 I was now taking on my first training role. I was learning to be a store manager for a chain of footwear shops, when I was invited by the training manager to take on a new role that would involve supporting 16-year-old school leavers who were joining the company.

It is surprising how things can turn out!
Why? Well…

I had always been nervous of standing and speaking in front of people and until now I somehow always managed to avoid these situations.

Not anymore! Time to face those fears.

The job included travelling around the country, visiting these kids in the stores and helping them to learn skills: soft skills, life skills, practical job skills. I got a company car and a salary increase.

At this point I thought: 'Wow, this is it, I've made it in life, a job with more freedom, to plan and manage my own days, helping others to learn – can it get any better than this?'

Little did I know!

I was soon asked to start providing workshops for all employees. I attended workshops and began the journey to learn my trade and skills as a trainer, facilitator and coach.

Here comes the twist!Downsizing!!

After 5 years the company got new ownership, new managers and a new philosophy and practically overnight 350 people were made redundant. I was not one of them, but I didn’t like the new company philosophy so I took it upon myself to find something better.

After 6 months searching, I found a new job as a Training Manager in Leicester, the midlands of England. We moved to our new home and started a brand new chapter.

Until…

Recession caused the company to downsize and this time I was one of the people to go. This happened two more times. So I I focused my energies again on getting another job. And then another just like I had when I was 16.

Changes up ahead…

One day Dave and I sat down and discussed the life we had and the life style we wanted. We both felt it was time for a change, a new way of living and working, a new environment, new people – a new adventure. And so, the decision was made - we would leave England behind and create a new life somewhere else. I was 33 years old.

We feel sLOVEnijaAfter some searching, I found a new job in Slovenia as the regional HR Manager for DHL.

We fell in love with the country, the nature, the weather, the food, the way of life, the people – in fact everything.

Slovenija was truly a dream come true for us.

The job with DHL was to help to set up and develop the management teams and HR functions in different countries and when these countries became independent it would mean I had done my job and my contract would end. So, after 5 years this day finally arrived and DHL wanted to move me back to a position in the UK. We didn’t want to go back.

With the help of many friends a plan was formed and put into practice. We were thinking of having our own training and development business.

And so … drumroll please …

in 1999 Fast Forward International d.o.o. was born!

That is now many years ago and we are still happily living and working in Slovenia.
In 2006, my younger sister Judith also moved out to Slovenia, made her home here and began working with the company too.

Through the years I continued my own professional and personal development and gained many experiences with different kinds of organisations in different cultures and industries. I have defined my own 'best practice' way of working in developing people, that I know and believe make a real difference in people's lives as well as in the success of organisations. 

And so here I am today.

Looking back I would never have thought I would be here in Slovenija, running my own international training and development business, living and working in the most wonderful environment, having the chance to travel and explore new places and countries, working with new people and cultures.

Does it get any better than this?

Whoknows, maybe you, the reader will be part of the next chapter of my story  .

Jude Hudson – Office Manager

Jude is the one making sure all of our work flows smoothly.

She is responsible for all the behind-scenes of all of our learning progrmmes, manages purchasing and invoicing and pays attention that all our processes work and all numbers come together at the end of all the work we accomplish.

Contact Jude

Dave Welsby – Project Manager

Dave manages our internal and special project and is the one who creates the Learning Centre experience for our clients.
We know how big an impact the learning environment has on the learning experience and Dave takes care of everything before, during and after every workshop to ensure the environment is the most perfect it can be for each and every person.

Behind the scenes Dave is also the one who manages our website and other technical applications and makes sure everything works for us, finding new solutions to upgrades of many kinds when we need them.

Contact Dave

Pam Welsby – Founder and CEO

Pam has over 20 years experience in running her own business and in developing people in different industries and countries.

She is quickly able to see the best solutions for your specific challenges and always honestly advises about what will work for you.

She provides a wide variety of personal coaching programmes for high impact results.

Pam is dedicated to developing herself and her team. She brings in new topics, programmes, methodologies, and tools that keep us at the leading edge and ensures we can always support your organisation in the best possible way.

Contact Pam

Henrik Braband, Vice President, LEO Pharma, Denmark

Aligning Vision and Values

As a highly professional and convincing facilitator, Fast Forward managed to guide us through the difficult process of making the corporate strategy universe of our company both tangible and relevant to our employees. It is by no means an easy task to run 2 multi cultural sessions with up to 130 people from 12 different cultures - Fast Forward did this and did so with tremendous success. Looking at the feedback from the participants, Fast Forward managed to read the audience and thereby make the new vision, mission and values both understandable and appreciated. When dealing with everything from highly educated academics to blue collar workers, one must strike a fine balance - therefore it was clear to us from the beginning that we needed the support from highly professional process facilitators - Fast Forward and their skilled personnel was our choice and will most definitely be so again.

• Specific Outputs: Enhanced feeling of being part of "One Company" by the employees.
• Individual tasks now seen by the employees in a broader context (does it fit with the vision, mission and values?).
• Efforts more aligned than ever before. • More focus in the organisation – ("...we finally have a clear direction"...).
• Enhanced winner mentality in the organisation (..."we want to go places in this company!"...).
• Managers feel better empowered (..."now we can link our decisions up to an overarching goal!"...).

Ulrich Nagl, Technical Project Manager, LEK d.d.

As far as my project team is concerned the impact of the Teambuilding workshop was a big success! Including:

✔ increased face-to-face meetings,
✔ initiated a Kick Off Meeting where we invested in establishing a communication concept together,
✔ elaborated our project plan and milestones together. All have the same information on our specific objectives,
✔ telephone and face-to-face principle used for sorting out conflicts and misunderstandings,
✔ we opened the project folder on the shared drive and are hosting and updating all important documents together across sites.

All these activities lead to more trust between the team members for the 2 sites and I feel at the moment a strong commitment from both sites to overcome hurdles and challenges together! I feel a very good team spirit at the moment. I do not know if everything is connected to the workshop but it certainly helped to improve it.

Nada Grozl, Customer Service Manager, Save Tires, Slovenia

Fast Forward helped our Customer Service team to realize that an individual cannot win as an individual, but as a team. We focused on team work and working as a team we developed many ideas about how to improve our relationships and how to raise our profile with other departments.

We spent quite some time together and this helped us to know and understand each other better. With some additional knowledge about different types of people we also recognised our own styles and the styles of others. By using this tool (SDI®) we learned how to react to different types of people and this really helps to make our daily work with customers and colleagues easier.

All in all, this training was a good opportunity for our Customer Service team to become more united and more team oriented, and this has helped us to solve problems together and to adapt easier with less stress to all the changes we are facing daily.

A strong team is actively seeking new challenges and we are definitely on this way.

Mirjana Mladič, Marketing, Communication and HRD, Mikro+Polo

The mentoring skills programme proved to be very useful and ‘hands on the job’. In four 4-hours modules the participants learnt all the basics of what mentoring is, how to become a mentor, how to develop a training programme, how to communicate with different types of mentees and to follow-up and evaluate the delivery of the mentoring programme.

The satisfaction of the participants with the training was very high (9,3 on the 10-level scale), 73% would recommend it to others and the comparison of their self-evaluation at the beginning and at the end of the programme has shown a significant improvement on all points.

In the course of the programme we have also developed all the necessary documentation for the mentors (internal instructions, rewarding system, forms, etc.), we formed the “mentors’ club” and agreed on regular exchange of experience. We have also published an article in our newspaper Mikrofon. Last but not least, we additionally trained 3 future mentors who were mentees during the programme (“mentor the (future) mentor”). The programme is one of the most rewarding in the framework of the project ASI.

Iza Login, Deputy CEO, Outfit7 limited

The basis for a successful company is a strong and aligned management that works well together. When we take a day with a skilled facilitator, the majorority of issues, problems and questions arise and are communicated, solved or at least planned to be managed in the most appropriate, non-aggressive and non-offerensive way.

Through open communication of perception of strengths managers understood others’ behaviours better and found a solution for smoother cooperation.

Herve Dussart, Country president central europe, Astrazeneca

The Need: Newly formed Central Europe cluster aggregating 6 countries and embarking on an experimental cross-country business model with recently appointed leaders needed to be successful. The initial communication cascade of strategic priorities and stretched targets were poor, alignment suboptimal, resistance to change visible, engagement limited and team spirit embryonic.

The Content: A 3-step-approach + individual coaching for Senior Leaders.
a) Ensuring understanding of core priorities and communication training for all leaders.
b) Ensuring understanding of people differences, cultures, motives, behaviours through SDI model and roll-out across the organisation.
c) Change Management training and dissemination of new company values expected to impact behavioural changes.
The Changes: Increased cross-functional / cross-country effectiveness. Simplified communication. Increased level of feedback and ability to receive challenges. Full alignment on company strategic priority, strong restitution and understanding of why it was chosen.
The Benefits: Increased Team engagement and pride. Meet the stretched business target the 1st year. Target exceeded the second year. some Emerging Talent was recognised and promoted outside their own country. European Company Award for accelerating one of the strategic products.

Garry Kemp, General Manager, DHL - CIS and Baltics

Three years ago we had reached a crucial point in our business development. We had put in place an infrastructure, systems and procedures that would enable us to achieve our demanding and challenging business goals. We had provided the necessary tools to enable our staff and managers to do the best possible job and achieve their goals. Yet something was still missing.

Our managers were not using these tools effectively. They were not responding to the change in the management style. We expected them to use their initiative, take real responsibility and ownership for their results and act as role models for their teams, motivating and empowering them to also achieve their best. And yet the more responsibility we gave them, the more they seemed to stay with their dictatorial style, issuing orders, keeping information and power to themselves and managing through commands.

We recognised that we needed to do something to begin to change the culture and attitude of our managers. We would never meet the demands of a rapidly changing and more competitive market place unless we had a strong management, who could truly manage and lead their teams in a way which would bring out the best in everyone, maximise potential and harness all our human resources in pursuit of the common business goals.

That was when we brought in Fast Forward. They worked with us to help us define more precisely what we needed to do and together we developed a long term management development programme that has enabled us to build a workforce that understands what is expected of them, recognises the importance of working with and through their people to achieve real results, take the initiative in making improvements and satisfying our clients and most importantly now has the skills and attitudes to make the best use of the business tools, systems and procedures.

This has provided us with a very solid foundation for the future. Our business has once more entered a new phase in its development, where we are now faced with the integration of different businesses, not just in terms of systems and procedures but also in terms of culture, management style and attitude. Without the development of the last three years this would have been a formidable task. However our management has responded to the challenge positively, they have taken the ownership for achieving what they can in their own areas of responsibility, they are proactive in taking the initiative and solving problems and they have successfully motivated their teams to continue to perform well during difficult times.

Our business results also speak for themselves. Continued growth and achievement of revenue and profit targets plus improvements in service standards and customer satisfaction. The management development process has, in many ways, been a catalyst to help us to achieve the results we are so proud of.

Karl Paulins, General Manager, DHL - Baltics

Pam designed and implemented a long-term Senior Management Development programme for 30 Senior Managers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The programme yielded immediate payback, enabling the tremendous growth in the business to be managed in a professional manner. The longer term success of the Programme is evident from the high proportion of participants who have gone on to senior roles within the global DHL network.

Pam interacted well with the participants and was a great support to me in advice on further development needs.

Igor Jakovljević, Cluster Manager for DPD Croatia and Slovenia

We contacted Fast Forward to support us in developing our leadership group in Slovenia, putting in place core skills and attitudes to build a strong, professional DPD that could manage the future challenges.

The programme was a 5 module programme that took our leaders on a journey from basics of the leadership role, through the core leadership skills including the role of a leader, organisation and planning, relationship building and handling conflict, motivation and leadership, and finally performance management.

The programme was well designed not only in content but with strong emphasis on preparing the leaders for the learning, and focusing them on applying learning and making changes in their daily work. This was visible in their everyday work, their attitude and their results. During the year, they matured into more competent and capable leaders that were better able to manage and motivate their teams to achieve the results, which were above expectations by the end of the year. A great success.

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Veit Stutz, CEO, Alianz Poland

Our business was experiencing growth with challenging goals. To maintain this continued growth it was necessary to accelerate the personal and professional development of the Managing Board so they could drive and lead the business, as one team.

Individual coaching was used for each board member with one team workshop at the end of the process This generated huge progress and improvements in building trust, better understanding for each other and ultimately more effective collaboration.

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Jani Resnik, Managing Director , Amway Slovenia and Croatia

In our organisation, we put a lot of emphasis on training and having a good working environment. We believe that only competent, well trained and happy employees are prepared for changes that occur regularly today. We wish to offer focused trainings to our employees, therefore we expect training providers to adapt their work to our demands.

Fast Forward International has provided an intensive 2 day Internal Communication course for our employees. The Teambuilding Workshop was a great opportunity to focus on ourselves as a team and on what we still need to contribute to our own and company’s growth. Fast Forward structured the Workshop in accordance to our business and personal needs which increased the flow of communication in the office and helped us to build a team spirit, where people work positively and constructively with others.

Everyone was very happy about the quality of the training and the grades given in the feedback were also very high. Participants have commended the professionalism and motivation of the trainers, their knowledge, and flexibility in meeting our special demands and adapting to our working environment. We are further developing a positive and supportive working environment where people work together to achieve common goals.

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Tanja Simenc, Head of Freight , DHL - Slovenia

The Freight management team decided, together with the HR department, to organise a Team Building session for all Freight employees. The aim of the Team Building session was 'Change Management - Organisational as well as personal'.

Since this is a very important topic for business and people, we decided to ask for professional help. Due to the really good experience  of other departments within our organization we have decided to use Fast Forward.

Fast Forward - Pam Welsby - prepared a tailor-made session for our team. She guided us through the importance of positive thinking, overcoming limiting beliefs, confidence building, presentation skills, decision making, managing our time, as well as coping with change. In addition to that we have learned more about each others responsibilities and work tasks.

We left Kranjska Gora with a lot of will to go forward within the business and an understanding of what is important and how changes can be looked at as a positive contribution to our daily life.

I would recommend this session to every individual who is working in a business environment.

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Zdenko Casar, Lek d.d.

I have been involved with the coaching process with Pam Welsby over a year and a half. The coaching process has enabled me to become a more patient person, willing to listen to others and to enjoy doing it.

Moreover, the coaching helped me to gain the capability to listen to other peoples perspectives and to try to search for and understand others opinions. In addition, I have gained valuable suggestions related to dealing with difficulties either personal or project orientated in the business environment and in business case preparation.

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Olga Kravchenko, HR Manager, McDonalds Ukraine

After the coaching with Pam all the participants passed the stage of "shock" after getting their 360 report and came to a phase of "realization & improvement". High professionalism and safe environment impressed even those of our employees who before refuse to be coached.

Pavel Drnovšek, Lek d.d.

Coaching was a great experience for me. I really learned a lot how managers should lead their associates and how to handle challenging situations.

Nowadays it is essential for the manager to focus on people. Emotional Intelligence is becoming more and more important in a constantly changing professional environment. Constant changes are a part of our every day work and we need to be prepared and equipped with the knowledge to handle the situation in the best possible way.

I recommend individual coaching sessions with Pam Welsby to each and every manager but especially for the managers that has just been appointed for the first time to the manager position.

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Krzysztof Kornas, Market Access Director, AstraZeneca Pharma Poland Sp. z.o.o.

I wish to express my gratitude for leading me through the coaching process in the last 9 months. This has been a great pleasure and a significant learning for me.

Some of the key successes from the programme include:

✔ It was thanks to the discussions that we have had that encouraged me to apply for the new position and eventually I got a new assignment for managing Pharmacy Chains KAMs.

✔ What in particular I liked about the SDI profiling tool was the toolbox of behaviours that can be adopted for use with different personalities depending on their profile.

✔ Increasing my self-confidence within Senior Management Team leading to taking initiative/responsibility for important project building on my strengths (strategic analysis).

Darja Mirt, Novartis Animal Health, Slovenia 

High Impact Coaching through Role Expectations was a very intense exercise; well, discussion actually, which helped me to see/understand my co-workers from a different aspect and to understand their motivation and learn about the communication I should use with them. It also gave me the possibility to be honest to myself, see my ability to accept others as they are, as well as to discover my own frustrations on which I should still work.

It was a great learning experience, I just hope I'll be able to implement what I have learnt into a daily practice, my life.

Anja Ledinek, FDF Category Manager Northern Europe, Lek d.d. Novartis Business Service

Zsolt Bulath, Competency Development & Strategic HR Expert, MPL Group

MPL Group rapidly transforms itself. Its HR unit also changes to help the organisation achieve its strategic objectives for performance and growth. HR managers shaped a transformational roadmap with pressure on building stronger HR partnering capability to be able to drive alignment with the business, improve organizational and HR performance and establish a culture focused on adding business value. MPL Group HR co-operated with FFWD to design a foundational course that starts transforming the individuals themselves by gaining better understanding on their own behaviour and how it impacts others. The full HR core team working at the head office, 30 people, went through this modular foundational course in more turns. Attendees very much praised Fast forward trainer for her skills. The course resulted in raising the core team’s members self-awareness that led to better communication and co-operation outcomes. People still have the quick communication guide suited to their profile on their desks, so they can access some quick guide whenever needed.

Think Novartis, Lek Slovenija Innovation Team

Greater awareness of the meaning of communication, concrete definition of what is assertive, passive and aggressive communication, easier now to recognise own mistakes and respond appropriately to communication style of others.

Participant, Lek d.d.

Interesting workshop that opens your eyes on the importance of good leadership, our development and on the importance of continuous learning and setting personal goals.

Matej Horvat, Head Predictive Analytics and Modeling, Novartis

Working with FastForward has allowed me to be more conscious about the impact that we all as individuals have in the working atmosphere within the teams as well as on the success of our projects. This is especially important in times of increased uncertainty which brings further demanding challenges, but also opportunities that we mustlearn how to leverage.

Ajda Likar, department manager, Javni štipendijski, razvojni, invalidski in preživninski sklad RS

After having experienced personal interpretation of my Genos report, I can say that interpretation by an experienced person in this area is necessary for the report to truly have value. I could not have reflected my report through the responses of others by myself, because I would give in to my own perceptions and filters. With skilful help of Fast Forward I not only saw how others see me but already also found concrete ideas to make changes and improvements. What made me most happy during this process was that I also got feedback that came as a surprise to me. The report and the interpretation are exceptional tools for anyone who wants to get insides and understanding of own relations and work on the, of course by working on oneself.

Elizabeta Zupančič, Rehabilitation specialist, CenterKontura

I found the Emotionally intelligent workplace behaviour feedback report very helpful as an insight to a better communication, establishing more genuine and effective contact firstly with myself, secondly with the people around me. It is a great guideline for a better self-awareness and more fulfilling relationships. It is also a very detailed tool that helps you asses and understand your competences in various areas, while it gives you step by step guidance and support for improvement and personal growth.

Andrej Grčman, General Manager, Klicni Center Odmev, GROM informacijske rešitve

Our business aim is to have the highest quality of customer service for our clients and to grow our business for the future. We knew that to achieve this, we must raise the attitude and skills of our team and for this reason we chose Fast Forward as our partner.

With Fast Forward we used the SDI profiling tool for all our team to increase internal teamwork and communication as well as better understand the different ways of giving great service to different people, to handle any complaints or problems well and to be able to gain new business opportunities.

The changes in the team were quickly visible in the way they spoke with their clients, their ability to handle problems quickly and smoothly and in their sales successes. Working with Fast Forward has helped us to increase our standard of customer, grow our business and all together develop a high performing team that can keep on bringing us the results we want.