Anna Meller, MSc, BSc, Chartered FCIPD
 For the past twenty years I've been making work-life balance my business. As an acknowledged expert and thought leader, I've provided consultancy support to a wide range of employers, conducted ground breaking research and written extensively on the topic. Whatever I'm doing my greatest joy is collaborating with others to develop new possibilities for balanced working.
1992 found me at a crossroads in my career. I'd spent the previous decade in increasingly senior line HR roles in multinational organisations where long hours and a pressure culture were the norm. Convinced the only basis for sustainable organisations lay in "people friendly" employment practices, I became a trustee of the campaigning charity PARENTS AT WORK and began my new freelance career.
During the 1990s I ran workshops, coached women returners, wrote books and articles and talked to the media about the need for more family friendly working practices. I became a trustee of New Ways to Work - a pioneering research charity that developed information about alternative and more flexible ways of working. At the turn of the century I began to hear the phrase "work-life balance" replace the notion of "family friendly" in conversations about the place of work in the broader structure of our lives.
From 1999 to 2004 I was an accredited consultant to the Labour government's Work-Life Balance Challenge Fund. Since then I've continued to work as a freelance consultant and researcher specialising in this complex area. I prefer to take a pragmatic and evidence-based approach to my work, combining practical experience with theoretical knowledge from my social sciences education and my research. I'm a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and an affiliate member of the British Psychological Society. Since 2009 I've been an active member of the Division of Occupational Psychology's Working Group on Work-Life Balance.
My spare time is spent on Iyengar Yoga and supporting the Women's Environmental Network - the coolest charity on the planet.
Page updated April 2012
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