We are standing at the crossroads of a huge opportunity as a global society. We have the technological and scientific means to positively change our world on a massive scale, yet to make this happen, we must also redefine how we develop our humanity, both individually and collectively. This brings us face to face with our individual and team edge – where we move from the comfortable to the uncomfortable; the familiar to unfamiliar, the certain to the uncertain. Learning how to navigate a complex world means expanding our individual and collective edge. Organisations, in this sense, provide the context to enable every individual to flourish and unleash their full potential to create futures that change the world. Mental fitness, peak performance, diversity, leadership, consciousness, and culture are not individual pursuits, they are part of one interconnected journey of continuous learning and growth.
Who Am I?
I am a change specialist with a high-profile leadership background in Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. My focus is to help individuals like you, expand their capacity to lead, work, and learn in a work of constant change. I help leaders, teams and organisations expand their ‘edge’ by moving from the comfortable to the uncomfortable, the known to the unknown, the impossible to the possible. I bring the experience of working firsthand in a highly entrepreneurial, customer-centric context together with over 25 years of extensive research, study, and coaching, consulting experience with organisations like Virgin, Deloitte, Ernst and Young, Delta Airlines, ABSA/Barclays.
My journey to expand my personal edge started with my own hands-on leadership experience. Like many leaders I work with today, I believed that being a good leader meant being the expert, staying in control, and staying one step ahead of everyone else. I learned, the hard way, this is a recipe for disaster in a disruptive, business. Things are simply moving too fast for one person to have all the answers. It had dramatic consequences for me but also created a rich learning path that helped me become a better leader, communicator, and coach. I share the results of this journey today, with leaders and their teams to help them create the results they want while bringing authenticity, connection, meaning and value into the organisational context. Unleashing human potential is not a warm, fuzzy process of being nice, ignoring problems and hoping for the best – it is a focussed, structured approach founded in axiomatic (self-evident) intelligence. The invisible laws of great performance are available to anyone who wants to find a better, more productive, sustainable way to lead, learn, live and perform while building a team and company structure that continuously facilitates change to ensure relevance and profitability in the future.
My background is truly diverse and international. I’m half English and half Irish and I’ve lived and worked in diverse global cultural settings including the UK, Europe, South Africa, The African Continent, New Zealand, USA, and India.
From speaking on stage at conferences and events to working with leaders, and their teams, in groups, one on one, virtually or face to face, and researching and writing books and articles, I help you create your own version of what I call the Virgin Experience by supporting you to:
- Develop inspiring ‘conscious’ leaders who know how to galvanise purposeful action ‘on the court’
- Build resilient and mentally fit teams who connect to what matters while outperforming their results again and again
- Build structurally sound, future-fit entrepreneurial cultures that remain fresh, relevant, change-ready and self-sustaining in both the short and the long term (Efficient and effective)
Who I work with
I work with leaders and professionals who want better results for themselves and the people they work with. These individuals are typically on edge about the future. They recognise that change is a constant feature, but they are unsure how to gear up their teams and organisations to embrace it. They want a culture and team environment that is alive with innovation and entrepreneurialism, yet they are unsure how to bring it about. They want their leadership to stand for more than just a paycheque or executive bonus, yet they are not sure how to replace the burnout work ethic with greater value, satisfaction and meaning. In short, the leaders and organisations who work with me, imagine a different future than the one they have and hire me to help them turn it into a reality.
Through my global affiliations and partnerships, I work with companies of 20 people up to 50,000 people to help them achieve their change objectives. I typically work with the following:
- CEO’s who are focused on keeping their organisations innovative, relevant, entrepreneurial, effective, efficient and change-ready in both the short and long term.
- Directors and executive teams who want to inject an entrepreneurial spirit into a tired culture
- Leaders who want to be more inspiring, authentic leaders of change
- HR directors who want to simplify complexity and drive change accountability and ownership of culture into the organisation’s leadership.
- Entrepreneurs / Founders who want to move out of their business and hand over to a new generation of leader
- Teams who want to reduce conflict and increase resilience and performance
- Business professionals with leadership aspirations / New leaders who want to shoot for the stars!
- Women in leadership who want to increase their impact
- Mental Health Prevention Institutions who want authentic, actionable, practical solutions to tackling mental health problems ad stress in the workplace
- Conference organisers who need an authentic, impactful speaker on leadership and change mindset,
Why I do what I do?
We are all committed to something in life whether we know it or not. For some its status, certainty comfort and being right, for me, it’s about learning, growth, adventure and contribution, (and occasionally being right!).
I want to live in a world where people love what they do and love to help others along the way in the name of a purpose or cause. I know what it’s like to be inspired at work and have fun in the process. And I know from hands-on experience, success and failure, what it takes to make this happen.
We are at a pivotal time in history. It’s an invigorating time to be alive – technology, competition, COVID-19 and a plethora of other socio-economic and political factors are forcing us to rethink who we are and how we lead and work into the future. Where do you want to be?
I am committed to helping people develop the eyes to see their world differently, to find possibilities they never imagined, while building the capacity to work together with passion, focus and aliveness. I know this is possible – I’ve been there. Business can indeed be an adventure if we have the right insight and tools.
I take my work into the world in the following ways:
