Pictured from left: Sheffield directors Mike Stenhouse, Ian Taylor, and Christien Winter with Norman Godden, Tony Forsyth, John Sinton, John Martins, and Simon Hart.

Over the past 50 years, Sheffield has benefited from outstanding leadership within the firm. Five of those leaders were recognised at a special celebration in November. The first of those, Norman Godden, was given the title Founding Partner. Four others who have made significant contributions were given the title Emeritus Partner: Tony Forsyth, Simon Hart, John Martins and John Sinton.

Norman Godden
Norman joined Sheffield in 1965 and led the business for 30-plus years. His commitment to client service, standards of quality, and staying ahead of our markets are our enduring foundations.
 
Norman had enormous influence on the careers of our best and brightest business leaders and the careers of Sheffield consultants. He truly understood the link between great people and commercial success, and was tireless in his dedication to developing the firm and its services with that focus. We recognised this contribution on his retirement from the firm in 2004, when he was officially named our Founding Partner. It’s very fitting that we now have a more public opportunity to acknowledge his place in our history.
 
Tony Forsyth
Tony was one of Norman’s ‘young guns’. He joined the firm as a graduate in the early 1970s and was given responsibility to grow its practice in banking and finance. This he did very successfully, and was drawn to the world’s financial centre, London, to further develop himself as a Search specialist in this area. He returned to Sheffield and became part of our fabric, indeed one of the golden threads. Like the wines he now loves to grow, Tony kept on improving as a business performer, becoming first the Auckland manager and then taking over as Managing Director when Norman retired. He saw in a new era in Sheffield’s ownership structure that enabled us to realise our vision to be a “one firm firm”, fully integrating our three regional businesses.
 
We diversified successfully under Tony’s leadership to become a multi-faceted HR consultancy with a formal Organisational Development practice and a Remuneration practice, alongside Search and Selection.
 
Tony left the firm in 2000 -- after almost 30 years’ contribution -- to further develop what is now the highly successful Te Whau winery on Waiheke.

Simon Hart
Simon joined Sheffield in 1984 bringing with him experience in general management and in the IT sector, which was a new area of opportunity for the business.
 
While he was a very successful Search and Selection consultant, it is Simon’s contribution to our Remuneration and then our Organisational Performance offerings that are undoubtedly his legacy. His approach, combining intellectual rigour and real-world business experience, saw us involved in New Zealand’s large-scale change projects, and the start-up of many new businesses.
 
He helped shape and develop our governance practice and continues to contract to us in both the organisational change and governance spheres.

John Martins
John joined the business in 1976 and, as an engineer, for many years led our manufacturing /engineering practice. 
 
He actively coached younger people coming through the business and played a key role in inducting and developing the commercial knowledge and recruitment practice of many consultants. Like Norman, his people skills inside and outside the firm were an important part of our development.
 
John supported the growth of our Organisational Development practice, developing a climate survey methodology when such approaches were just emerging. He provided Sheffield with a results-driven approach that had both rigour and structure.
 
He remained an important leader in our selection practice until his retirement after over 30 years with the business. 
 
John Sinton
John joined the firm in 1976 after many years in the insurance sector where he held leadership roles. John was awarded the MBE (Military Division) in 1984. Like John Martins, John helped us to grow our practice and he was instrumental in establishing our profile and relationships in the public sector, where for many years he appointed Chief Executives to key government agencies working with State Services Commission, whilst retaining an active role in the private sector.
 
He was also responsible for identifying and developing the relationship with our first international search alliance partner, leading the partnership with InterSearch.  That development formed the foundation of our global reach through strategically selected global partner networks, a role now fulfilled by AltoPartners, a leading international network of search firms. John retired in 2001 from a full-time role but continued to work with us on contract for another four years.