Our people

Our people

Delivering apprenticeships that make a positive impact

Delivering apprenticeships that make a positive impact

Mark Norse - MBA, CMgr FCM – CEO & Founder

Untitled design 6As a senior leader for over 20 years in the training industry, Mark has developed a strong understanding of the key skills required to make a successful training organisation deliver consistently excellent results.

Mark believes NowSkills’ key to success has been recruiting, retaining, and developing a talented team who care about the success of the organisation and about each other. The team’s culture of fresh and positive thinking is the foundation for a sustainable and ethical organisation that enables employers and apprentices to progress and succeed.

Mark says that achievement of the NowSkills Vision is enabled by the organisational culture of teamwork: “From employer collaboration or impartial careers advice, to the delivery of engaging learning, the NowSkills family culture encourages us all to care and deliver a high-quality, sequenced programme of progression with high expectations for our learners.”

Mark has a keen interest in all things technology and in his spare time, when he’s not looking after his pet animals, he enjoys trying to keep fit, playing sports, catching up on current affairs, or doing a bit of DIY.

Daniel Wells - MSc, FInstLM, Assoc CIPD – Managing Director

Untitled design 4Working in the apprenticeships sector for over 10 years – starting as an apprentice and working in roles of apprentice recruitment, employer engagement, assessor, tutor, and training manager – Daniel has developed the skills and knowledge in delivering successful apprenticeship training.

Daniel is committed to ensuring an excellent quality of apprenticeship provision, understanding the challenges faced by the sector, and that developing quality is a continuous process – learning every day, just like our apprentices. At the heart of all this, an excellent, motivated team, working together, is what gets the job done.

Daniel believes strongly in the benefits of professional development, and thanks to work-based learning, he was able to complete an MSc Human Resource Management & Development degree in 2017, despite never going to University previously – he himself is a product of the sector.

When not studying something new, Daniel has a keen interest in travel, some of his favourite places being The Lake District, Switzerland, and Australia.

Katja Norse - BSc (Hons), PgCert, AVS – Founder & Director

Untitled design 7As the founder of NowSkills, it was Katja’s vision to build an ethical organisation that would enable young people to realise their dreams of a meaningful and rewarding IT career with committed local employers.

Katja has been a leading senior scientist for almost 20 years with the NHS and manages one of the UK’s biggest UKAS accredited vascular units where she is the CQC registered manager. She was also accepted as an NHS leadership fellow in 2013.

These days, Katja takes more of a supporting and advisory role at NowSkills but she is keen to ensure her vision to support apprentices and employers with well-planned, sequenced, training programmes delivered by an exceptional training team continues to be realised.

In her spare time, Katja enjoys 1990s euro-pop music, spinning classes, and taking good care of her pet chihuahuas.

John Sheehan - MBA, FFA, FIPA – Finance Director

JS 300John Sheehan is an MBA and Financial accountant. John has run several businesses and set up his first Business Advisory Centre over 25 years ago building up a wealth of business and financial/accounting knowledge across many businesses in this time, specialising in Corporate Finance.

John has worked with Mark Norse for many years and has built an in-depth understanding of commercial and apprenticeship training, especially apprenticeships having been an Engineering Apprentice himself back in the day!

John has spent half a lifetime training others and gaining his own qualifications and is a great believer in apprenticeships, where young people can gain direction and transferrable skills for life in a real environment, where decisions actually matter. John says that the great joy of training is in learning in return.

John is married to Jan, who has a successful career of her own in the NHS, and together they have two Daughters, with very successful careers of their own in the NHS and Law.

When John isn’t working his passion is music and he has sung and played guitar and bass in several groups. He often plays charity gigs for Cancer Research and you may have seen him “around town” with his fellow musicians.