Our Team of External Mentors

Helen Ogilvy is an experienced business psychologist, executive coach, and EMCC-certified coaching supervisor with extensive expertise in coaching, supervision, and professional development. She currently leads the Internal Coaching Service for the UK Civil Service while also running a private practice focused on supporting coaches and leaders in developing self-awareness, resilience, and professional growth.

Helen combines psychology, coaching, and creative approaches in her work. Drawing on a person-centred Rogerian philosophy, she creates a supportive environment where clients can deepen self-understanding, explore patterns, and unlock their full potential. She believes that the most meaningful learning and growth come from within.

Helen holds EMCC Senior Practitioner accreditation in both coaching and supervision and is an active member of EMCC, the Association for Coaching, and the British Psychological Society.

Anna Hudáková is an experienced mentor and expert in strategic HR management, with extensive experience as an HR leader in international companies, including Slovak Telecom and Sanofi Group. She is dedicated to developing leaders and management teams in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and is a co-founder and coordinator of the Open HR Forum, which connects and inspires HR professionals. Her expertise spans the implementation of strategic HR systems and processes, HR business partnering, and building international corporate cultures. Currently, she serves as an external advisor to the President of Anglo-American University in Prague. Anna is committed to fostering the growth of HR professionals and enthusiasts, upholding core values such as integrity, respect, passion, humanity, results orientation, and teamwork.

Judit is an accomplished freelance teacher, trainer, and materials writer. As a trainer, she has worked with renowned institutions such as Pilgrims and British Study Centres. Judit’s main areas of focus include CLIL, PBL, materials writing, and creativity, and she is widely recognized as a leading expert in these fields. Her teaching materials, which are primarily designed for secondary school students, are widely praised for their engaging content and for promoting student learning. Judit has also published several works, including the highly regarded Creative Resources (co-authored with Bonnie Tsai) and the CLIL-related publication ‘The Sea! The Sea! Sustainable Development Goal 14 in a CLIL Process’. With her extensive knowledge and experience, Judit is a sought-after expert in the field of education.

Sandy Millin is a highly experienced language teacher and teacher trainer who has worked in various countries, including Borneo, Paraguay, Czech Republic, Crimea, and the UK. She spent six years as the Director of Studies at International House Bydgoszcz in Poland, where she was responsible for teacher training and development. Sandy is also an active member of various professional organizations, including IATEFL, where she has presented at annual conferences since 2012, and MaWSIG, where she currently serves as the Joint Website Coordinator. She has also attended and presented at numerous local and international conferences and has conducted workshops and training sessions in many different contexts. In addition to her teaching and training work, Sandy is also a materials writer and has published several books, including the ELT Playbook series and an ebook of speaking activities called Richer Speaking. She is currently completing her MA in Professional Development in Language Education through NILE, with a focus on materials development.

Mario is a founding member of the world-renown PILGRIMS Teacher Training Centre. He served as a teacher trainer at PILGRIMS from 1974 to 2019, and for many years he has also acted as a trainer and mentor for language teachers at the annual University of Oxford summer school. Mario has had a significant impact on the methodology of teaching English. He is the main advocate of humanism in language education, lecturing and training at conferences and educational events for teachers worldwide. He has co-authored numerous books, most famously including Grammar games, Once upon a time, Vocabulary, Creative Writing and Humanising Your Course Book. Here at The Bridge, Mario has helped us to design a feedback system and consulted our teaching methodology. We are currently collaborating on the HLT.digital project, an online teacher training platform.

Mike Shreeve has taught in state schools, language schools and management academies. He has also worked  in a business and professional context as an accountant,  business owner, director of consultancy and training and in HR  The connecting principle  is an interest in people and what makes them tick psychologically speaking . He has his own coaching client base consisting of professionals (accountants and lawyers) , educators and entrepreneurs . His main approach is as a holistic coach recognising each part of our lives  is informed by the other. Mike is  an EMCC qualified coach who aims to enable his clients to reach deeper levels of wellbeing  and use their own creativity to move forward in their life . He started the Bridge Coaching Partnership with Klaudia Bednárová to enable her business clients to qualify as coaches.  This  year long programme  has recently been described as  “offering a comprehensive programme of tools, methodologies and teaching methods that give participants a unique perspective on providing high quality and effective coaching and mentoring, enhanced by the opportunity to practice on external clients with real world challenges ” It has a dual purpose of improving the English and people skills of the participants. Outside of professional life, Mike lives in Brighton, has two sons and enjoys walking and contemplating the South Downs, writing poetry, watching the Seagulls (Brighton and Hove FC)  and is (healthily)obsessed with playing tennis.

Philip Kerr lives in Vienna, where he trains teachers and authors professional publications, methodological guides and English textbooks. His latest textbooks include Evolve (Cambridge University Press), Studio (Helbling), Straightforward (Macmillan) and Inside Out (Macmillan). He has significantly contributed to the research on using one’s native language in teaching foreign languages and has authored the prestigious award-winning book Translation and Own-Language Activities (Cambridge University Press). He was involved in the development of several language learning (predominantly vocabulary) mobile apps, regularly publishes in professional journals and writes a blog on technology in language learning at https://adaptivelearninginelt.wordpress.com/. He inspires us to keep getting better.

Rakesh Bhanot has been teaching English, training teachers and lecturing at conferences aimed at teaching English worldwide since 1972. He has been active as a teacher trainer all over the world, mainly however in the UK, Russia, Germany and Italy. He spent a large part of his career at a university …… and as an inspector of a language school network in Germany. Today, Rakesh volunteers as an English teacher and mentor to other teachers at state schools – in central Europe and Greece. He publishes extensively and is a member of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language IATEFL Publications Committee. Rakesh is one of the founding editors of several professional journals, including Language Issues – the National Association for Teaching English and Community Languages to Adults’ (NATECLA) journal.