Sparta Global’s Director Of Innovation And Education Richard Gurney On Bridging The Gap Between AI And L&D

How did you begin your journey in learning and education, and what led you to Sparta Global and the role you’re in today?

I had a slightly different route into the learning world. I was actually a professional golfer for ten years. I wasn’t in tech, learning, or education at all. I left school after A-levels and decided to play golf full-time as an amateur and then as a professional. 

At that point, I’d stepped away from formal education entirely, which is interesting considering what I do now. My mindset was always that I could come back to education later if I needed to. I focused fully on golf until I got injured in 2015.

At that point, I had no job and no formal qualifications beyond school, but I did have my golf career and some self-taught coding skills. I’d learned to code myself and could build websites. So I thought, what can I do with that? How can I get into tech?

I enrolled in a 12-week bootcamp at General Assembly. That was my first real experience back in education. I didn’t fully know what I wanted to do, but I jumped in and loved it straight away.

After that, I worked for General Assembly as a teaching assistant. That was my first proper role in learning and education. Around the same time, I also worked as a front-end developer in a DevOps company, building dashboards and working on their platform. 

Then I got a call from someone I’d worked with at General Assembly. They’d moved to Sparta Global around 2016 or 2017 and told me there was an opportunity to become a trainer. They said I’d learn a lot more tech. I’d never trained before and didn’t know if I’d be any good at it, but I decided to go for it.

I remember my first day at Sparta in Richmond. There were 18 people sitting there waiting to be taught web development. I genuinely didn’t know if I could do it. But within a week or two, I realised I loved it and I was good at it. I think I brought a lot from golf into training. Coaching in sport translates well into coaching in tech. That was really the starting point for me at Sparta.

At the time, we were quite small, maybe 40 or 50 people on site. Then we went through a big scaling phase. Within a year, we were up to 200–250 people on site. We were training a lot of people.

I figured out how to train people properly, how to understand what they needed, where they were coming from, and where they needed to get to. The technical training was important, but I realised I was good at the people side too. I could combine technical capability with understanding someone’s journey and helping them succeed.

My first two or three cohorts were fully placed before the end of the course. That’s when people started asking how I was getting those results.

Over the next few years, I moved through several roles: trainer lead, managing other trainers and instilling that philosophy across the team. At that point, we were running 30–40 courses a year. I then became an L&D lead, looking more broadly at how we trained, our philosophy, what we were training, and building new programmes.

Eventually, I became Head of Training Services. All training in the business came through me. We were training around 100 people at a time, year-round before COVID. By then, the company had grown to around 400 people.

I left to become COO of another company in a similar space, leading globally across multiple regions. After a couple of years, I took a short break and then came back to Sparta at the start of last year.

So I’ve gone full circle. From hands-on training to C-suite leadership and back into a senior leadership role in training and education. Teaching and learning were my entry point into this world, and it’s been a great journey.

Staying with the golfing analogy, what crossover lessons have you brought from professional sport into learning and training design?

In professional golf, every week is a new tournament, a new course, a new challenge. You’re constantly solving new problems. That mindset translates directly into tech and learning.

Technology evolves constantly. AI is advancing rapidly. There’s always a new problem to solve. I was comfortable with that fast-paced, moving target because I’d experienced it in sport.

Golf also teaches you to break things down: here’s the problem, here’s the goal, how do we get from A to B? That’s exactly what learning design is. How do we get someone skilled up to be a Java developer? What are the milestones?

Golf is also very process-driven with it being one shot at a time. You focus on what’s in front of you and execute well. That meticulous, goal-oriented approach carries across into delivery and programme design.

On Sparta’s website, there’s a powerful statement that says “millions of people remain unemployed or underemployed - not because they lack potential, but because traditional education pathways are failing to deliver accessible, relevant training. This mismatch leaves countless motivated individuals eager to work but unable to acquire the digital skills employers need.”

Why do you think traditional pathways are falling, and what needs to change?

From the beginning at Sparta, we were good at identifying what businesses actually needed from people in tech roles. Traditional education often provides strong theoretical understanding and academic knowledge. But it doesn’t always deliver the practical, hands-on capabilities employers require.

We bridge that gap. We understand client needs and design training to deliver those specific skills. It’s very delivery-focused and practical. We simulate real environments so that when someone joins a client project, they’re ready.

We saw people coming in with first-class computer science degrees but lacking practical application skills. They had knowledge but couldn’t quite do what clients needed.

That’s the mismatch we solve. We work closely with clients in areas like AI, data, DevOps, and continuously reshape our programmes around evolving capability requirements.

How are you leveraging AI and learning technologies to improve engagement and skills mastery?

We take a skills-first approach. Capability comes first. AI is layered on top of that.

Ten years ago, people used Stack Overflow for support. Now they use AI tools. So we’re reshaping how we approach that. We ensure people can do the work first, then we help them become AI-native by using AI effectively, safely, and appropriately.

We identify strong use cases within disciplines and sectors, and we train people in those specific AI applications. We’ve partnered with Udemy and use some of their tools behind the scenes to support learning pathways. But everything is grounded in client insight.

Our innovation labs create real environments where learners build deliverable work similar to what they’ll do on site. It’s about combining capability, AI literacy, real-world application, and structured learning.

With AI, there’s always the risk of cognitive bias or surface-level learning. What safeguards do you have in place?

We don’t create content by going “AI first.” All our content is created by our experts. We use tools where appropriate, but humans design the solution.

We gather insights, define the end goal, and build the solution ourselves. AI might support that process, but it doesn’t replace it. We also don’t rely on one tool or one source. There’s always a human-in-the-loop. Our experts make decisions.

We’re not worried about AI replacing what we do. It’s about using the right tools to enhance expert-led delivery.

Sparta has a strong focus on social mobility and EDI. How do you measure impact?

Yes, social mobility and impact have always been a big part of what we do. We produce formal impact reports that look at the measurable difference we’re making, both in terms of how we give back to the country and how the work we’re doing contributes to the wider economy.

Those reports look at where we’re operating, who we’re reaching, and what the outcomes are. It’s about how many people we train and about what happens next. Are they employed? Are they progressing? What does that mean economically and socially? That impact is formally measured and reported. It’s structured, and it’s something our clients care about as well. They want to understand the social value being created through their partnership with us.

We’re also always looking at how wide we can make the access point into our programmes. It’s about building as wide a portal as possible so that people from different backgrounds can come into this space.

A big part of that is Sparta Education, which is a newer area for us. That’s about opening more doors to people who might not come through a traditional full-time training route. Not everyone fits neatly into that pathway. So we’re looking at alternative entry points and ways to reduce barriers.

Ultimately, it’s about breaking down those barriers, whether they’re financial, informational, or confidence-based, and creating more routes into tech. Then we measure the impact of that through our reporting structures. That measurement piece is important, because it keeps us accountable and ensures that what we’re doing is genuinely having an effect rather than just sounding good on paper.

Through programmes like Sparta’s Athena Academy, are you seeing growing interest from women entering tech?

There’s definitely a growing appetite. The bigger challenge for us isn’t willingness but access and awareness.

One of the hardest things is that you can’t just rely on traditional recruitment channels like job adverts. If you do that, you’ll only ever reach a certain segment of people. That naturally limits diversity. So the real work is going beyond that by actively going out and finding people, raising awareness, and helping individuals understand what’s actually possible for them.

A lot of people simply don’t know what roles in tech look like or that they’re even viable options. That’s where our careers team plays a huge role. They work closely with individuals to explore their backgrounds, strengths, and interests, and then map that to what pathways are available. It’s not just about saying, “Here’s a job.” We help someone work out what the best route is for them and give them clarity on what’s possible.

In terms of what we’re seeing across programmes, some of our courses are very well balanced from a diversity perspective with genuinely strong representation. Other areas can still be challenging. And when that happens, it’s on us to do more work. It means we need to refine how we’re reaching people, how we’re communicating opportunities, and how we’re lowering perceived barriers.

The focus for us is continuing to open as many doors as possible, increasing awareness, and making sure access isn’t limited by how we advertise or position opportunities. That’s really where the effort goes.

Beyond AI, what trends do you see shaping L&D?

The pace of change is the biggest trend. Employers increasingly expect more from junior hires. Capabilities that used to sit at mid-level are shifting downward.

L&D has to adapt quickly to equip people with the right skills, faster. AI is one driver, but expectation shifts are just as significant.

If you could change one or two things about the L&D industry, what would they be?

Learning shouldn’t just be a tick-box exercise. There’s so much content available now. Platforms offer huge volumes of material, but that can overwhelm people.

The focus should be on tangible impact. If someone completes training, you should see measurable results. It’s about quality, not quantity. We focus heavily on making sure what we deliver has real impact.

What practices are you using to develop as a trainer?

I constantly listen to podcasts, radio, and industry discussions to stay current. The speed of change especially with AI is the biggest challenge. Even though I’m not delivering training directly anymore, my teams are. I encourage them to attend events, build relationships, and stay embedded in the industry.

Learning styles are evolving too. We have to adapt delivery approaches. For us, trainer-led learning still has the biggest impact. Self-paced learning and practical application are important, but expert-led sessions, whether face-to-face or hybrid, drive the strongest outcomes. That’s something we’ve consistently believed in and stuck with.