In Your Career

We spend an average of 84,365 hours at work over our lifetimes, and think about changing career entirely ten times a year, according to a survey by the Association of Accounting Technicians. You don't need to be an accountant to see it's important to make the time to understand how to best make work work for you and your overall life and wellbeing.

I can support you in your career choices by helping you focus on what you really need to flourish in and enjoy your work. You might be at a crossroads in your career and want help to figure out where to go next. Maybe you are looking to progress your career and want to invest in yourself to make that next move. Perhaps you've landed a new management or senior role and you want to make your mark quickly, confidently and impactfully. As a trustworthy confidential confidante I can provide the thinking space you need with informed and insightful challenge to help you hone and execute your plans.

I was lucky to study subjects I loved at University, and to then do the academic training for a career in law. While I was waiting to start my training contract to become a solicitor I worked in housing advice in a charity. I loved being able to help people by working with them holistically - so much so that as the start of my training contract drew nearer, I took a long hard look at myself, my drivers, and the lifestyle I wanted. It was clear to me that I felt more aligned helping people with lots of aspects of their lives, not only the legal ones.

This early career review and reset resulted in me staying in the charity sector, where I have since worked in homelessness, complex needs, LGBT+ community projects, social care, housing and support, and violence against women and girls. I've been responsible for service design and development, operations management, staff development and training, strategy, continuous improvement and organisational learning, quality and regulatory compliance, organisational change programmes, and complex stakeholder relationships amongst various other things.

Over the past 28+ years I've held multiple roles, starting at the frontline and then in team management. I have led organisations as a Director and as a long-serving Trustee and Chair of Committee. My senior leadership experience also includes roles as Head of Department and Assistant Director in organisations with turnovers of £50M+. Tapping into my deep experience and understanding of leadership, management and organisations means we can quickly get to the heart of your challenge and find solutions through my listening deeply and asking you insightful and relevant questions.

If you're a leader looking for support in your role click here to learn more:

Having brought a compassionately commercial mindset to my charity roles, I have also brought a compassionate service oriented mindset to my commercial roles, which has supported me to establish and run my own businesses providing training, consultancy, and coaching and mentoring services - all grist to the mill in supporting you, whether you are transitioning into or away from commercial roles or self employment.

Or perhaps you've been through a bit of a career bump. Redundancy, overload, stress, impending burnout, workplace conflicts, and environments which seem unhealthy or which don't sit well with who you are can all make for hard going. Even harder going without someone to root you and ground you into your sense of self-belief, your values, your purpose and your life, and to strengthen your power, confidence and ability to create the reality you want. I offer you an approachable and informed non-judgemental partnership which allows us to do this and more, in order to serve you to bounce back stronger and happier.

Your wellbeing is key. From my experience of a number of high pressure senior roles and of mid-life redundancy, I know that coaching can make a world of difference to our emotions and effectiveness. It can prevent issues and help recover from them. That's led me to undertake additional training at Animas Centre for Coaching in Mental Health and Coaching: Integrative Approaches, Ethics and Best Practice. The programme included training on: Stress and Burnout, Understanding Workplace Mental Health as a Coach, and Stress Management.

The Health and Safety Executive estimates that in the UK, 875,000 workers were suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2002/23, resulting in a loss of 17.1 million working days, as well as the personal pain and cost to the people affected. There's a lot of stress around, and anyone can be affected: if your work or career are causing you discomfort please reach out to someone.

"I gained a deeper understanding of my career direction over the next year or so and feel more confident having bounced ideas and options that my path is truly the one I want to follow."

- Head of Community, Community Housing Association

"I really appreciated your neutral tone, and the judgement free space, alongside the framework for sessions which was useful to aid my thoughts, and I would certainly look to work with you again in the future."

- CEO, national organisation

"Great coach! Patient, fantastic listener and incredibly perceptive."

- Management Team Member

Ella's Kitchen

“I was once afraid of people saying ‘Who does she think she is?’ Now I have the courage to stand and say, ‘This is who I am.’”

—Oprah