About Us / Our people
Our trainers have professional qualifications and considerable professional experience, or a relevant business background. They also have dual qualifications and expertise in their training area.
Our team includes the following:
Stella Styllis
LLB (Hons) (Exon), Solicitor (now non-practising), University of Cambridge CELTA
Managing director of Axia Training
Stella practised as a solicitor for over 20 years, both in-house and in private practice, before devoting her time fully to training. She held senior legal positions with the Cyprus Development Bank, Amoco U.K. Limited, and (for 10 years) the Rank Group (then a multinational leisure group and global owner of the Hard Rock Cafe). She subsequently also ran her own private practice.
Her areas of legal work have included M&A, commercial (including IT), gaming, holiday law, managing major US and UK litigation, loan and security documentation, and special projects.
Stella has been delivering skills and language training to practising lawyers and business people from the UK and from all over the world since 2003.
Emma Rush
MA. Hons in English (Cantab),
Solicitor (now non-practising)
Business Coach, qualified with the Meyler Campbell Programme (the only such UK programme to be accredited by the World Association of Business Coaching)
Qualified with the British Psychological Society to Level B, and experienced in the interpretation and use of ability tests and personality profiling including SHL's OPQ32 and MBTI Steps I and II
Emma is a freelance trainer and training consultant. She originally qualified and practised as a solicitor with Osborne Clark and then lectured and created exams in Law for accountancy courses at BPP. She has since successfully established and developed the training function at two London legal firms: at Taylor Wessing (over eight years) and most recently at Finers Stephens Innocent.
Emma has added to her qualifications by becoming a business coach and also a Level B+ administrator of psychometric instruments for the recruitment, development and promotion of individuals.
Emma’s rare combination of qualifications, skills and experience equip her to design and deliver high quality, innovative training, coaching, management and development solutions at all levels of legal practice and business.
Alan Simmons
LLB (Hons in Law and French),LLM (International Human Rights), RSA CTEFLA
New York Bar exams
Alan studied law at Leicester University, at Strasbourg University and at the European University Institute in Florence. He trained as a solicitor at Linklaters & Paines and then practised as a commercial solicitor for some years at two other firms. Alan has also recently passed the New York Bar exams, and his application for admission to the New York Bar is pending.
Alan is interested in human rights law and has represented individuals before the European Court of Human Rights. He has also trained lawyers and judges in Central and Eastern Europe on international human rights law.
Since 1996, Alan has been delivering legal skills and language training to lawyers, other professionals and business people from all over the world, with a particular emphasis on writing.
Rosemarie Byrne
LLB (Hons) (King’s London) Barrister then Solicitor (now non-practising)
Rosemarie is a freelance trainer, specialising in legal writing for litigation, and in advocacy.
She started out in practice at the Common Law Bar and after three years cross qualified to become a solicitor. She then spent 15 years practising as a commercial litigation solicitor with London City firms (Taylor Garrett and Richards Butler , as they then were), during which she completed short secondments with the Civil Aviation Authority and the BBC.
For an academic year following her time in professional practice, Rosemarie was a full-time tutor with BPP on the Bar Vocational Course and specialised in opinion writing and drafting, and advocacy.
Rosemarie returned to private practice as the sole litigation professional support lawyer at Macfarlanes, where for three years she ran the training programme for the department, devising and delivering much of the content.
Barbara Judkins
BA (Hons) in Law (Dunelm), practising solicitor, TEFL
Barbara is a practising solicitor and currently works as a consultant with a firm based near Cambridge, specialising in property litigation and property development work. She qualified in London over 25 years ago and has since practised in a variety of areas of law.
Barbara’s teaching experience covers several years of part-time and full-time lecturing in law to degree level, as well as teaching English to adults abroad, mainly in Italy.
Barbara has a strong background and interest in languages and is fluent in Italian.
Cameron Stewart
BA (Hons) Drama and American Studies, Acting training at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
Founder member of the Professional Speakers Association
Certified NLP practitioner
Cameron has pursued simultaneous careers in the corporate world - including production of training films and working and lecturing in sales, teamwork, communication and presentation skills - and as an actor, with a successful career in film, television, theatre and radio.
Since 1993 he has been designing and delivering interactive training seminars on presentational skills, teamwork and other interpersonal skills. Recent corporate clients include Shell, Marconi, Ericsson, Xebec McGraw-Hill, AMEC, Gulf Air, Sequoia, Sage, Kent and Canterbury Hospital, the British Film Commission, KPMG, Robson Rhodes, De La Rue International, Temple, Liverpool Victoria Building Society, Lloyds Bank.
He has worked extensively for National Power, and designed, delivered and structured much of their celebrated 2-year Teamwork 2000 course initiative. He also specialises in individual, one-to-one work with lawyers, doctors and other professionals.