People at the heart of organisational change

Mark Hutchinson works with Boards, CEOs and executive teams to strengthen leadership capability,  organisational performance and lasting change. With more than two decades of experience in leadership consulting and organisational development, with a foundation in Clinical Psychology,  he brings a rare combination of strategic insight, psychological depth and board-level perspective to some of New Zealand's most complex leadership challenges.

Mark founded Divergent & Co in 2016 after a decade working at senior levels in large, blue-chip organisations in London, including a period as OD Manager at Barclays UK retail bank during the Global Financial Crisis. That international experience, combined with 14 years as a consultant at global leadership firm YSC, has shaped a practice built on robust thinking, genuine challenge and the ability to work credibly across the full leadership spectrum.

Clients, including Fletcher Building, Chorus, Mercury Energy, NZTA and NZ Post, value his ability to connect leadership performance with the delivery of strategic priorities. He works comfortably across board and executive contexts, supporting Chairs through CEO succession and development, while helping executive teams strengthen their culture and capability. His work includes CEO selection, induction and development, as well as leadership and culture reviews across a range of sectors.

Since 2019, Mark has served as a director on the board of Airways Corporation, a Crown-owned enterprise. Navigating the organisation through the most severe downturn in aviation history — including daily crisis meetings during the 2020 lockdowns, when Airways lost 95% of its revenue overnight - deepened his understanding of how CEOs and leadership teams can work most effectively with boards under pressure.

Mark began his career as a Clinical Psychologist in New Zealand and the UK, a foundation that underpins his ability to help individuals develop meaningful self-insight and sustain genuine personal change. His style is engaging, insightful, curious and challenging — qualities clients greatly value in a trusted advisor.

Qualifications & Governance

• BSc (Hons, 1st Class), MSc (Psychology, with Distinction), PGDipClinPsych — University of Otago

• London Business School: Strategy & Innovation Programme

• Member, NZ Institute of Directors (Company Directors Course, Finance Essentials, Advanced Directors Programme)

• Author, Pruning for Growth — IoD Autumn Magazine

Paul Thompson brings a rich blend of commercial leadership and psychological expertise to his work with senior leaders and boards. Before becoming a business psychologist, he spent over two decades in Managing Director and marketing roles across a range of international companies — a grounding that ensures his work is always anchored in business reality rather than theory alone.

In 2005 Paul joined YSC, one of the world's leading global leadership consultancies, where he partnered with Mark Hutchinson supporting the capability agenda at numerous blue-chip organisations. That partnership has endured: Paul has been a Principal of Divergent & Co since its founding in 2016, bringing  deep expertise in senior leader assessment and development accumulated across multiple engagements spanning a wide range of sectors and functions.

Originally from the UK, Paul relocated to New Zealand in 2012, and initially continued to work with YSC as an Associate until the foundation of Divergent & Co. Since 2019 he has also been a Beachhead Adviser for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, with a focus on leadership and culture. In this role, outside specialists work in partnership, helping SMEs develop and grow their overseas business.

Paul's clients consistently describe his style as thoughtful, empathetic and stimulating — someone who creates the conditions for genuine self-insight rather than surface-level feedback. His marketing background gives him a particular ability to connect leadership insights to commercial goals, and his experience in executive roles means he understands first-hand what it takes to perform at the top. He is especially valued for his work with boards: gathering nuanced feedback, supporting Executive and CEO development, and helping senior leaders understand what lies beneath their track record — and how to build on it.

Qualifications

• MA in History — University of Oxford

• DipPsych in Psychology — London Metropolitan University

• MSc in Occupational Psychology — Goldsmiths College, University of London

• Chartered Psychologist, British Psychological Society

Jo Nicol is one of New Zealand's most accomplished organisational development leaders — a strategist, designer and executive coach with over 25 years of experience transforming how organisations and their leaders perform. Her track record spans the UK, USA, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, and includes some of the most recognised OD work in the international business community.

At the Royal Bank of Scotland, Jo held senior leadership roles including Head of Organisational Change and Head of Customer Service, where she led award-winning change programmes at scale. As Global Organisation Development Manager at Fletcher Building, she designed and led culture and capability initiatives for 19,000 people across 40 countries — work that earned the team a Fortune 500 Best Leadership Development Award (International, 2015) and the EFMD Award for Most Innovative Executive Development, in partnership with the University of Auckland (2014). These are not just New Zealand accolades; they are benchmarks against the best in the world.

Jo has since consulted to some of New Zealand's most prominent organisations including NZ Post, Fonterra and The Warehouse. Jo was awarded NZ HR Person of the Year & NZ HR Specialist of the year, 2015. Fortune 500 Best Leadership Development (International category (2015)) and the international business school EFMD award for most innovative executive development in partnership with Auckland University (2014). As Development Director for NZ Global Women, Jo delivered leadership programmes that accelerate female leader’s performance and success. Her consulting work is consistently praised for being individually tailored, results-driven and grounded in genuine understanding of the industries and leadership challenges her clients face.

At the heart of Jo's practice is a belief that the way executives learn needs to change — that leaders operating in a fast-moving, uncertain, digital world require something more than traditional development. She describes her purpose simply: to be the hand on a leader's back when they need it most.

With Divergent & Co, Jo partners with boards, CEOs and executive teams who are making hard calls in complex environments, and need an advisor who is entirely comfortable in that space.

Qualifications

• BBS (Bachelor of Business Studies)

• Harvard University, short course graduate 2005

• Advanced Regenerative Change Practitioner

• Schumacher College (Prof Jan de Vische)

Faye brings more than 25 years of experience helping organisations transform through the development of their people, culture and leadership capability. Her work spans the breadth of HR and organisational development, including recruitment, learning and development, culture change and executive coaching. Having held senior People & Culture leadership roles herself, she brings deep practical insight into leading people functions at the highest level.

What sets Faye apart is her ability to operate at both ends of the strategic spectrum simultaneously. She thinks long-term — building the organisational capability, culture and cohesion that sustains performance, while remaining equally skilled at the pragmatic, practical work of implementation that delivers near-term impact. This makes her a particularly effective partner for CEOs and executive teams navigating significant change.

Faye has worked across a broad range of sectors including financial services, manufacturing and the public sector. She’s skilled at building a compelling case for change and then working closely alongside senior leaders to execute it, bringing clarity, momentum and the kind of candid, constructive challenge that moves people forward. She has a particular talent for deep-insight interviewing and delivering direct feedback in ways that genuinely motivate senior individuals to change, rather than simply inform them.

Her style is warm, personally connected and authentic. She believes organisational change is most effective when people genuinely understand and engage with it — not just at a systemic level, but at an individual one as well, making the difference between initiatives that stick and those that fade.

Qualifications & Credentials

• Bachelor of Business Studies (L&D) – Massey University

• 25+ years across HR and OD, with Head of People & Culture leadership roles

• Sectors: financial services, manufacturing, public sector

• Specialist areas: executive coaching, culture and cohesion, talent and leadership development, organisational diagnostics, recruitment and assessment

Matt Harrison is an organisational psychologist with over 20 years of experience across some of the most demanding leadership and performance environments imaginable, from the operational bridges and flight decks of the Royal New Zealand Navy to the boardrooms of global blue-chip companies in the UK and Europe.

Matt spent a decade with the New Zealand Defence Force, rising to Head of Psychology for the Royal New Zealand Navy and then Deputy Director of Defence Psychology. In these roles he worked across a wide range of senior, technical and high-risk settings that include aircrew and special forces selection to leadership development, human factors, and high-performing team initiatives. That experience gave him an unusually rigorous grounding in what human performance actually looks like under pressure, and what it takes to build and sustain it.

He then spent five years consulting in the private sector in the UK and Europe, including as a managing consultant at global talent firm SHL and senior leadership development consultant at DPA. Working with major organisations across financial services, pharmaceuticals, construction, automotive and more, Matt specialised in senior leader assessment and development, OD and team effectiveness, delivering high-value programmes and executive assessment initiatives for some of the world's largest companies.

With Divergent & Co, Matt brings a distinctive combination of psychological rigour, commercial experience, and practical grounding that is rare in the leadership consulting space. He is registered as a psychologist in New Zealand and was chartered in the UK, and is accredited across a broad range of psychometric tools including the full SHL suite, Hogan Assessments, Saville Wave and others.

Qualifications & Credentials

• MSc (Psychology) — University of Auckland

• BSc (Hons) (Psychology) — University of Auckland

• BCom/BSc (Management & Employment Relations / Psychology) — University of Auckland

• NZ Registered Psychologist (General scope, organisational psychology specialty)

• UK Chartered Occupational Psychologist, British Psychological Society (since resigned)

• Commissioned Officer (Lieutenant Commander), Royal New Zealand Navy