Richard Tudor has been delivering training and education for over 30 years.  He has wide experience of working with Chinese, Germans, Americans and Russians, among others; this broad cultural exposure informs his work.  Currently, he is responsible for training groups of senior officers in the Royal Air Force (RAF) at the Defence Academy of the UK, which specialises in strategic leadership. 

Since 2019, he has also worked in the business sector, where he uses his long military experience to enhance the effectiveness of senior leadership teams.  He is particularly interested in enabling high-performing leaders to exploit their natural talents to best effect.  He feels that many of the lessons learnt by the military can be applied to the business sector.

Following A-levels, then a degree in German and Russian, Richard spent 6 illuminating years as an inspector in the Royal Hong Kong Police, during which time he improved his tactical leadership skills considerably.  Once he had learnt to speak Cantonese, he needed to understand the cultural priorities in order to motivate his personnel effectively.  In several different posts, he led teams of various sizes, after which he took on his first training roles at the Police Tactical Unit and the VIP Protection Unit.  He then became an instructor, which led him to reflect on this learning and extrapolate further.

He found training so rewarding that he joined the RAF as a Training Officer in 1990. After early domestic postings, he spent several years in Germany, where he deployed into the field on several occasions. On promotion, he moved into a training research job, before going on to lead Airmen’s Command Squadron (ACS), where he trained all non-commissioned personnel.  With 70 senior non-commissioned personnel under command, Richard also needed to demonstrate consistent operational leadership, while managing the training task efficiently.  He also spent short periods in the Balkans and the Gulf, while gaining 2 higher degrees in training-related subjects.

Serving in war zones assisted his own development as a linguist and a leader and helped him to understand where he could help others to realise their own potential.  It also enabled him to reflect on some of the prevalent theories and to appreciate writers such as Sun Tzu, who could express basic truths simply.  He stayed involved with coaching racket sports and martial arts in his spare time, which made clear to him the need to watch, listen and debrief trainees to extract the most learning out of an event. 

Richard left the RAF in 2006 to become a teacher, where he learnt to appreciate further cultural differences.  He applied his uniformed experience in a civilian context, teaching and leading in a number of different schools and developing his own communications skills further. After some fascinating jobs in and around London, he was asked to re-join the RAF in 2014 as a reservist in specific roles. He served at Central Training School, where he supervised leadership training for officers.  This led to a facilitation role at the Defence Academy.  He continues to learn about leadership and training at every opportunity, always looking for different approaches and greater knowledge.