A Bit About Me

Our work together will be entirely about you, not me. But if I'm doing my job well you'll be confident in sharing with me, and to give you some confidence right now, I wanted to share something of myself with you too in advance. The fit between us is central to the success of our professional partnership, so I encourage you to get in touch if any of this resonates with you or inspires you, or if you want to find out more.

My Core Values:

Respect

• I respect the whole of you as you are

• I respect your confidentiality and the boundaries of our professional relationship

• I respect your time, and our time together

Integrity

• I will only work with you if I feel I can help

• I am a qualified Accredited Transformative Coach with a Diploma in Transformative Coaching from Animas Centre for Coaching

• I chose this route as it equips me to work in depth and is accredited by all three professional coaching standards bodies: the ICF, the EMCC, and the Association for Coaching, and I follow their codes of ethics and standards

Service

• I work in service of you and the things you want to achieve, change, or create

• I engage in continuous professional development and supervision in order to expand and deepen my service to you. Currently I'm taking a post qualification course in best practice, ethics and approaches around mental health in coaching

• I believe everyone should find coaching approachable and accessible

• I offer tiered rates which represent fair access and fair valuing of our time together

• I have a "pay it forward" option for those who can afford to and wish to, so that those who cannot afford to pay anything are able to grow too. There is no pressure or expectation around this, and I also gift sessions myself

My Background

Qualifications

Growing up, I felt a number of expectations of what and how I "should" be. Being bullied at school also gave me a sense of other people's expectations about what I "couldn't" or "shouldn't" be. I'm fascinated by our incredible human ability to question narratives which shape our beliefs in ourselves and others, and to re-purpose them into powerful tools to help us be and do what we want. I'm excited by how much more quickly and effectively we can do that when we explore them together with someone we can trust.

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+.

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.

Throughout, I have loved helping people to develop their skills, to learn about themselves, and to achieve the things which are important to them. I decided to qualify as a coach so I could help more people do that.

• Accredited Diploma in Transformative Coaching, Animas Centre for Coaching.

  Accredited by the International Coaching Federation, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, and the Association for Coaching

• Mental Health and Coaching: Integrative Approaches, Ethics, and Best Practice, Animas Centre for Coaching Specialist Programme for Coaches (in progress)

• PTTLS+ Qualified Trainer

• Diploma in Management Studies, with emphasis on Change Management, Birkbeck College, University of London

• Diplomas in Law and in Legal Practice,

  The College of Law, London

• BA (Hons) English & History of Art

  Goldsmiths' College, University of London

I offer a complimentary thirty minute call so I can explore what you are looking for, and see how we might be able to help you through working together. This is an opportunity for us to see whether we fit together in a way which will allow us to work in partnership to serve you. It's also an opportunity for us to explore your preferences and for me to answer any questions you might have.

If we agree to work together, I will send you a contract for your review and signature. Following that, we will arrange your first session. I work mainly on Zoom, so provided you are in a time zone which is compatible with GMT, we can work together this way wherever you are. If you prefer to see me in person, I am open to that if we can make the travel work for both of us. I'm based on the Kent coast, in reach of London.

If we are going to be meeting on Zoom, I will send you a client exclusive booking link to my calendar so you can choose the available times and dates which work for you.

I usually suggest that people book a block of six sessions as that is what most people find most effective.

Lots of people like to have sessions which last for an hour. I can offer forty-five minute sessions too.

Spacing sessions fortnightly (or weekly in some cases) allows for a good balance of thinking and doing or being between sessions, whilst keeping the momentum going. I'm happy to discuss what would best serve you.

For each session I will ensure you have time to land, time to talk and to think, time to harness your insights and to decide what to do as a result of them, and time to prepare to emerge grounded into the rest of your day.

We will most likely have a sense of the overall direction of our work from our initial exploratory call and from our previous sessions; I'll check in with you on direction and we can make any adjustments necessary.

To get the maximum benefit from your time with me, I recommend you think about what you want to focus your thinking on before you arrive in the session - but if that's unclear, don't worry - come as you are and we will create the space for you to untangle anything which feels a bit messy.

During the sessions I'll listen to you deeply and thoroughly, and use a mixture of skills, questions and techniques in order to help you.

Equity

How I Work

My Qualifications