Louise Ritson grew up in Cheshire, England, and for many years she was a successful businesswoman there. In her early thirties she became a company director, specializing in client relationships in advertising, marketing and PR, with major international clients.

Following a move to the Midlands she changed her career direction, undertaking extensive training to become a professional cognitive-behavioural therapist. She built up a private practice, ran programmes to help people recover from personal loss and separation, and went on to set up programmes for people with care responsibilities, working with the NHS and Social Services.

On joining the PPP healthcare group (now part of AXA), Louise implemented the first Care Support Service in the UK healthcare insurance industry. She created a national network of care specialists, developed a wide-ranging healthcare information system using computer database and network technology, and established her personal presence in the healthcare industry as a care expert and visionary. Within the group of companies she influenced strategy and business initiatives, and established a reputation as a therapist, a key management facilitator and personal mentor, and a primary instigator of business development.

Louise Ritson now combines her business skills and professional training in these ways:

• Bringing out the best in people by supporting, guiding and encouraging them.
• Maintaining strategic focus by thoroughly understanding people’s needs.
• Resolving organizational conflicts and crises by applying honesty, openness, and professional intervention skills.