The MyPeakPotential Team

The Team

The four founders of MyPeakPotential are Steve Jackson, Dave Bunting MBE, John Doyle MBE, and Leigh Woodhouse MBE. Steve Jackson was a Naval Captain and the others are serving or former members of the Army. John Doyle was awarded the MBE in 2000 and Dave Bunting in 2007 in recognition of their significant contributions to Service mountaineering and Leigh Woodhouse was similarly recognized in 2007. All four were members of the renowned Services Everest West Ridge expedition in spring 2006 (EWR06). EWR(06) was a great success with all 20 climbers reaching over 7500m; it was widely televised and was later subject of a very popular DVD entitled ‘Man versus Mountain’

Steve Jackson - Managing Director

Steve is a former Royal Navy Captain, who rose through the ranks and accumulated a wealth of practical experience in leading from the front. He has the ability to get to the root of a problem quickly, juggle requirements, manage changing situations and handle a crisis with style. He led the effort to get the Royal Navy’s Primary Casualty Receiving Ship up to the readiness required to take part in the second Gulf War despite significant engineering, personnel and resource shortfalls. Before founding MyPeakPotential he was in the Ministry of Defence where he was the author of the ‘Defence Health Strategy’ and had responsibility for setting in place a system to optimize fitness-for-task in the Armed Services. A huge task, which required him to address issues both down into the ‘weeds’ and up to the strategic level. He has led climbing expeditions all over the world - from Argentina to the Alps, from Peru to Pakistan, from Norway to Nepal. Ironically his working life began underground, as a Nottinghamshire miner. In 2006 he completed the MOD's senior officer Leadership and Management Development Course at the Ashridge Business School and in recent years he has concentrated on passing on this vast body of expertise to others.

John Doyle MBE – Director of Operations

A former Royal Marine Commando, member of the Parachute Regiment and of the UK Special Forces, John has been a passionate rock climber and mountaineer for over 25 years. He has led climbing expeditions on major peaks all over the world and in 2000 was awarded the MBE for his contribution to Services mountaineering. During this period John was given the opportunity to work along side fellow soldiers and civilians of the highest echelon and of varying nationalities often at the utmost strategic level. In recent years he has focused on delivering training and development packages through challenging activities within an outdoor environment at individual and corporate level. Equally at home in the board room, outdoors or teaching his children to ski, he has the interpersonal skills needed to work productively with people of very different backgrounds and nationalities as well as the ability to operate in some of the most challenging environments imaginable.

Dave Bunting MBE - Director of Training

Dave is a former Warrant Officer with the Army Physical Training Corps and a specialist in mountain leadership training. With extensive experience in delivering a variety of high-level courses and a huge passion for the mountains he has climbed worldwide including 10 expeditions to the Himalayas. Employed throughout his career in mountain training centres from Bavaria to Canada he has a wealth of knowledge in instructing all levels and ages as well as managing a variety of instructor teams and overseeing safe training. The highlight of Dave’s life and his most testing challenge yet was as the overall expedition leader of a team attempting to become the first Brit’s to climb the formidable West Ridge of Mount Everest, a project that took him 3 years to plan and prepare. At home Dave enjoys anything in the outdoors, from caving to climbing, skiing to walking.

Leigh Woodhouse MBE – Director of Marketing

Leigh’s ability to learn fast and respond quickly has enabled him to engineer a seamless transition from front-line Army service to the high-pressure world of commercial marketing. A qualified Army helicopter pilot at 21, he spent the next decade and a half balancing climbing expeditions to the Alps, Atlas Mountains and Himalayas with operational tours of duty in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Iraq. Very much a team player, his skills as a co-ordinator led to him being appointed sponsorship manager of the 2006 Everest West Ridge Expedition. His efforts in securing corporate backing made a huge contribution to its overall success.

Mark Woodhouse – Consultant Trainer

Mark is a specialist in Leadership and Management theory. He is ex Army PT Corps and has first class honours in Sport Science (Manchester Metropolitan University), a Diploma in Fitness Training & Sports Therapy (Dip FTST), is a certified trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), and holds a wide variety of fitness instruction, sports coaching and outdoor activity qualifications. He left the Army some 8 years ago and set up Performance Learning & Development Ltd (T/A Performance People) a specialist consultancy advising clients on improving the effectiveness of training using a multi-disciplinary approach employing components, theories and models from psychology, philosophy, education and management.

Graham Carter MM – Consultant Trainer

Graham provides consulting, training, coaching & mentoring in the areas of performance, learning, communication and change. Graham had a distinguished military career in the Parachute Regiment and the Army Physical Training Corps. During the course of that career he commanded the Joint Service Mountain Training Centre in Scotland and the Army Foundation College in Harrogate. He is a holder of the Military Medal. He gained a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Wales and spent two years as a Lecturer at Warwickshire College. He provides a wide range of solutions and services to help organisations unlock their people potential and maximise their people performance. Working within a number of business areas, with people at all levels, whilst developing long-term consulting relationships with a variety of clients.