Key Players
John Miers, Chairman
Throughout a varied and challenging career in the Royal Navy, in which he rose to submarine command, John developed an incredible understanding of human communication.
Frequently a Royal Navy media spokesman and having been part of the production team during a major TV series, John founded Black Isle in 1990 in order to share his experiences and understanding in order to develop effective communication within a business environment.
John's approach disagrees with a great deal of conventional wisdom concerning presentation and personal impact. He builds on the uniqueness of personality and helps people perform at their natural best in any situation.
This highly individual and successful approach has allowed John to expand Black Isle across four continents and to seven offices around the world. As well as coaching numerous politicians in North America and Europe, John has helped many senior executives and public figures perform more effectively in high profile appointments.
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John Gray, Media Consultant
Born in Toronto; educated at the University of Toronto and the London School of Economics
Most of his working life has been with various newspapers in Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa, including 16 years in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. The exception to newspaper work was a brief stint in television public affairs and several years for United Press International in London, England. His work has covered the gamut of daily journalism - hard news and features, crime and politics, sports and war.
The longest stretch with any newspaper was with The Globe and Mail, which he joined in 1980 and left in 2001. For The Globe he was variously Ottawa bureau chief, National Editor, Foreign Editor, European correspondent, Moscow correspondent, and then returned to Canada as a national correspondent.
He won three national newspaper awards for articles in The Globe on Northern Ireland, the Palestinians, and Russia after the collapse of communism.
Since he left the Globe he has been working as a freelance journalist, including a biography of Paul Martin. Most recently he has been contributing to the online service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, cbc.ca.
Damir Andrei, Senior Consultant
Damir has over twenty-five years of experience working as a director, producer, actor, writer, dramaturge and teacher. His work has taken him across Canada and to the U.S. and Europe, working in a multitude of disciplines - televison, film, theatre and radio- where communications skills are always paramount.
With Black Isle he has returned to his first love, teaching, with which he began his career. He has been training Black Isle clients for over a decade.
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Case Everaert, Director
Case Everaert enjoyed a Dutch upbringing that exposed him to many languages from an early age. His English is more than fluent and he speaks German, French and Japanese to various degrees.
Case's strengths are in cross-cultural communication. He first attended Nyenrode Business University in The Netherlands which boasted a distinct international focused curriculum and where he became the proud recipient of the Student Orator Award.
Thunderbird, American Graduate School of International Management became a logical choice for Case to continue his education and obtain his Master's degree. This degree is highly dependent on proficiency in cross-cultural communication skills.
Case embarked on a successful international career in finance in London, Tokyo and Hong Kong, where he became vice president Global Trading for one of Mizuho Financial Group's subsidiaries.
While in Hong Kong he cut his teeth in education by being involved at director level in the set-up of English language kindergartens in China, a venture that is rapidly expanding.
Case is an individual whose optimistic approach to life instills enthusiasm in all he works with, regardless of borders or culture.
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Karen Koh, Media Consultant, Asia
Karen Koh is founder of Intermedia, a company specialized in media training. Karen brings with her an enormous amount of media expertise. She has worked with many major television news organizations as producer and presenter.
Before founding Intermedia Karen anchored Asia Tonight and Bizasia for CNN International in Hong Kong, anchored a wide range of programs for CNBC in Singapore and became its bureau chief in Hong Kong, anchored the Far Eastern Economic Review on Air, anchored Breakthrough for Channel News Asia and was one of the initial anchors for BBC World Service Television.
Through Intermedia Karen has provided training for numerous corporate clients independently and in conjunction with other companies throughout Asia.
Karen's skills are her ability to conduct live one on one interviews, lead panel discussions covering a wide range of topics, produce and present in field and studio, scriptwriting, editing and story selection.
Karen's talents are often put to good use when moderating events and awards ceremonies, ranging from Sing Tao Leader of the Year Awards to the Hong Kong International School annual ball.
Karen studied for a Master of Arts degree in Australia-Asia Relations at Griffith University, QLD, Australia and got her Bachelor of Economics degree from Sydney University, NSW, Australia.
Diane Vallée
Diane Vallée is a Senior Consultant with Black Isle in Montreal. After obtaining her B.A. from the University of Ottawa, majoring in History and Political Science, Diane's career started as Private and Social Secretary for the President of the Canadian Senate. She then administered the office of the Right Honorable Jean Chrétien when he was the Minister of Justice.
After living three years in Singapore, and moving back to Montreal, she was employed as Executive Director of the Canadian Club of Montreal.
Diane has acquired a vast experience in public relations, communications and administration in a number of fields such as politics, private industry and non-profit organizations. Over the past 20 years, she has been active in a number of non-profit groups raising money from both corporate and private sources and organizing fund-raising events.
Vivian Kan
Ms. Vivian Kan is a consultant in Black Isle Consultants, in Beijing . In the past few years, she has successfully conducted senior-level executive search projects, focusing on the industrial, energy, finance and life sciences sectors.
Prior to joining Future Career, she worked in the Korn/Ferry International Beijing office, focusing on energy, finance and real estate sectors.
Vivian has been a senior consultant in Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management. She was in charge of MBA students’ career consulting and provided campus recruiting service for hundreds of companies.
Before this, she lived in the UK for a few years, where she finished her Masters degree in HRM. Ms. Kan obtained her B.S. in Economics from the University of International business and economics.