After 21 years at the helm of Intuitive Thinking Skills (ITS), founder and Managing Director Peter Bentley is stepping down from his role, marking not an end, but the beginning of an exciting new chapter for the organisation he built from the ground up.
For Peter, this moment is one of pride, reflection, and above all celebration: a chance to look back at a journey that began with one individual determined to do things differently, and grew into a thriving, values-led organisation now recognised as a major influence across the health, recovery, employability and wellbeing sectors.
“It’s been a privilege,” Peter says simply. “To have any part in helping people positively change their lives, that’s always meant more than anything on a balance sheet.”
From personal turning point to sector disruptor
Peter’s story, and the story of ITS, begins in November 2003, at a pivotal moment in his life.
While England celebrated winning the Rugby World Cup, Peter found himself in an alcohol detox unit in Manchester, having reached a point where continuing life as it was had become impossible.
He remembers paying a small contribution towards his treatment, £124; and still keeps the cheque stub to this day.
“I consider it one of the best investments I ever made,” he reflects. “If we think about returns, £124 and look where we are now – it’s not bad.”
Following his detox, and as he began attending local support services, Peter was struck by something that would shape the rest of his career: the system, he felt, was built to keep people in, not help them get free from their addiction, happily abstinent.
“I felt there were absolutely no doors out,” he recalls. “The advice was to limit your life, avoid so-called high-risk situations and places, rather than to re-engaged with life, happily and on your own terms, with a simple plan to never use again.”
Instead of accepting the relapsing model, Peter became determined to create a new model, one rooted in empowerment, self-belief and the idea that people could change their lives through shifting their own thinking.
The birth of Intuitive Recovery
That determination became the foundation of what would eventually become ITS.
Drawing inspiration from emerging self-recovery movements, Peter began developing the Intuitive Recovery course, trialling it locally in Manchester with partners and services.
The reaction was immediate.
Many in the sector were sceptical. Traditional systems resisted the approach. But the people attending? They understood it instantly.
“They were walking out saying, ‘This makes perfect sense… I can actually sort this, can’t I?”
In April 2005, ITS formally began as a business, powered by a disruptive but deeply human idea: recovery and change were possible, and people deserved more than harm reduction alone. They deserved hope. Commissioners in The Wirral, Salford and Wigan were all early adopters of the model, recognising the potential early and offering ITS the chance to grow.
“There’s nothing like that first commission,” Peter remembers. “That first proof that something valuable is there.”
Growth, partnership, and a reputation built on trust
As Intuitive grew, so did its impact.
Peter describes the organisation as part of a wider shift, a movement that helped reframe substance misuse services towards recovery, aspiration and meaningful lives. Over time, ITS became known not just as a provider, but as a methodology in its own right.
“If you asked commissioners how people recover, you’d hear: Fellowships, SMART Recovery… or Intuitive Recovery.”
When funding cuts hit the sector in 2012, ITS adapted, expanding into employability, skills, domestic abuse support, and young people’s services.
A standout milestone for Peter came around 2016, when ITS was commissioned to pilot domestic abuse work in Derbyshire. The impact was striking reduced police callouts, improved family stability, real change.
Another was our inclusion in the national trial of IPS Employability services embedded into drug and alcohol treatment services, and again it was in Derbyshire that we first were able to demonstrate the efficacy of our approach.
A founder’s proud legacy: People
Ask Peter what he is proudest of, and he doesn’t point first to contracts, growth or scale. He points to people. One of ITS’s defining commitments has been employing individuals with lived experience, people who once came through ITS programmes themselves.
From Zack Haider, who joined in 2007 and remains a driving force within the business, to Phil Reynolds, Matt Wilson, and Jade Flynn who have risen from Apprenticeships into senior leadership roles, Peter describes this as the heart of ITS.
“To hand the business over to those people… I am immensely proud of that.”
He speaks warmly, and often hilariously, about his colleagues, from unforgettable job interviews to Zack’s legendary inability to rest (“falling sleeping resting on a washing line” remains one of Peter’s favourite stories).
But beneath the humour is something deeper: ITS has always believed that people are not problems to manage, they are individuals with strength, resilience and untapped potential.
“Being unemployed or using drugs is hard work,” Peter says. “We recognise there are real skills in so-called negative behaviours, and we are here to simply help people use those skills in a more positive manner.
Joining AKG, protecting the core
In 2022, ITS joined the AKG group, a move Peter says he did not consider lightly.
For a business built so carefully on trust, lived experience, and doing things differently, the idea of becoming part of a wider group needed to feel right, both commercially and culturally. But from the outset, Peter says the approach was clear: this was not about changing what ITS was, it was about strengthening it.
AKG is a group of purpose-led organisations working across employability, health, skills and social impact, supporting people to overcome barriers, build resilience, and access meaningful opportunities. With a shared commitment to outcomes that genuinely improve lives, the partnership offered ITS the ability to grow while staying rooted in the values that have always defined it.
For Peter, that alignment mattered.
Rather than diluting ITS’s identity, joining AKG has provided the support, stability and platform to extend its influence, allowing its specialist thinking-skills approach to reach new communities, sectors and national programmes.
The partnership has already opened new opportunities for ITS to contribute to wider systems of change, including initiatives such as Connect to Work and the expansion of Individual Placement and Support (IPS), strengthening ITS’s ability to bring its values-led approach to new areas of delivery.
It’s a step forward that reflects what Peter has always wanted for ITS: sustainable growth, meaningful impact, and a future built on people, purpose and possibility.
The Future: Energy, Youth, and Resilience
As Peter steps back from the MD role, leadership within ITS continues with strength and continuity. Phil Reynolds has been promoted to Operations Director, taking a key role in guiding the organisation forward, alongside founding director Zack Haider and the wider senior team.
For Peter, the future is about energy, about giving the next generation of ITS leaders the freedom to build. He speaks passionately about young people, mental health, and the urgent challenges facing society today.
“Our young people have got an awful deal today,” he says. “We need to arm them with resilience, real internal head skills that will serve them for life.” His hope is that ITS can continue evolving while never losing its soul:
“I just want people to really care about what they do when they turn up at work each day.”
A bookend, not a goodbye
Stepping down does not mean stepping away.
Peter will return to teaching Intuitive Recovery once a month, returning to the classroom where the journey began. “I cannot wait,” he says. “It’s a really nice bookend to the story.”
After two decades of leadership, Peter Bentley leaves ITS not as a departing founder, but as a lasting presence, his legacy embedded in the organisation’s culture, people, and purpose.
From a moment of personal transformation in 2003, to a nationally respected organisation changing lives every day, ITS stands today as proof of what can happen when someone decides that systems can be better, and that people deserve the opportunity to gain independence from those services, happily free to build their own, better lives.
And as the reins pass to a thriving new leadership team, Initiative’s next chapter promises to be as bold, human, and impactful as the first.
ITS continues to support individuals, communities and services to create lasting change through its unique thinking-skills approach.
To find out more about ITS and its work, visit www.intuitivethinkingskills.co.uk
