What’s your background?
Originally from New Zealand, I grew up travelling the world and London has been my home since 1998. Being transplanted and immersed in new cultures from an early age shaped my view of the world and sparked a lifelong curiosity about the differences between people and their cultures and perspectives.
Before changing careers and retraining as a coach in 2013, I worked for 18 years at the intersection of creativity and technology – in television, interactive media, software, film and advertising post-production and visual effects. My experiences working in global organisations, public broadcasters, SMEs and startups gave me insight into a range of different organisational cultures and I learned first hand about the challenges of thriving in a creative, dynamic and highly competitive environment.
I’ve held a series of leadership roles, with responsibility for teams of up to 60 people across international sites. I was always fascinated by the impact that leaders have on the culture and success of their teams and this is what led me into coaching as my next career. I wanted to learn more about how to help people do better work and have a better time doing it.
Since I started my coaching practice in 2013, I’ve coached over 900 hours, mostly working with people in the creative and technology sectors, some in startups and scaleups, some in more established companies. My coaching work has covered many different topics including managing teams and relationships and helping people understand themselves better and make choices about their careers and their personal lives.
What would you like people to know about your coaching?
For me, coaching is about making the invisible visible – finding words and ideas to make sense of your experience, whether that’s in your relationship with yourself and your internal world or in your interactions with other people and the external world – so that you can navigate your life more skilfully.
What’s really important to me in coaching is that the coach and client are collaborators in a coaching relationship and we create it together – the coach isn’t in charge. The client is responsible for direction and outcomes and the coach is responsible for holding the process and bringing tools for the task at hand. I adapt my coaching approach to suit the person in front of me, with sensitivity to your specific goals, work/life context and preferences.
One of the things I’m really interested in is helping people to find their own leadership style, enabling them to lead in a way that uses their strengths and is fun and energising for them. Often we don’t see ourselves reflected in the established leadership conventions, and there are always amazing leaders at every level of an organisation that maybe don’t see themselves as leaders yet. I believe that we all have the capacity to demonstrate leadership from wherever we are, regardless of our role, title or experience. I’m always paying attention to how resourceful and powerful my clients are in ways that they might not be noticing.
Based on my study of somatics – our body-mind connection, neuroscience and stress physiology, I often invite awareness of the body in coaching sessions to help clients manage how they respond to pressure, change and complex situations and the impact of their personal presence on others.
Clients often say that they feel much clearer after a session with me and this helps them to feel more confident. They also appreciate my dynamic and creative coaching style and how I encourage them to stay focused on what’s important. People comment on my calm, grounded presence.
I’m an ICF Accredited Professional Certified Coach (PCC), a Certified Professional CoActive Coach (CPCC), a Firework Career Coach, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and I’ve trained in Organisation and Relationship Systems Coaching (ORSC). I’m always learning and my practice is informed by everything from the psychology of human development and leadership to systems and change theories, philosophy, neuroscience, spirituality, somatics, natural horsemanship and my own creative projects.