AXA Coach Panel - June 2021

Alison is an executive coach with expertise in helping senior leaders develop strong personal impact and influence, develop agility and flexibility in their relationships and get the very best out of their teams. She also has expertise in supporting clients to develop career strategies and transition to new roles effectively. She is known for her drive, energy and empathy and she facilitates rapid and significant behavioural transition using the latest neuroscience strategies. She brings a wealth of global commercial experience to her work, having held senior Human Resources roles at Goldman Sachs and other organisations in the global financial services sector.

Over the last 10 years, she has coached senior leaders in many different industries across the world. She has also has worked extensively supporting women across the world to advance their careers, including leading ‘Women In Leadership’ initiatives in Saudi Arabia. She is a qualified executive coach and accredited to PCC Level with the International Coaching Federation, a NLP Practitioner and is also a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development (FCIPD).

Alli is an international award winning executive coach and specialises in executive coaching and career performance management. Her breadth of business experience, together with her coaching and facilitation expertise, enables her to enhance leadership capability and personal impact, whilst understanding the demands of the commercial and organisational environment. Her commitment to her own continual personal development and investment in top-level supervision supports Alli to continually grow and remain at the top of her game. Her clients describe her coaching style as direct, challenging, empathetic and intuitive; she “gets under your hood” focuses on goals and delivers results. She has a divers client base, and works to support senior leaders across a number of industry sectors including Financial Services, FMCG, Charities, Health, Pharmaceutical and Retail

Atholl is an experienced boardroom leader who has now become a powerful and game changing coach. He is the Chair of UK Coaching; the Chair of performance improvement and technology business Black Isle Group; and the Chair of Salmon Scotland – which is the UK’s largest food exporter. He is a past Chair of the British Horseracing Authority. He specialises in coaching CEOs, Chairs and emerging leaders on how to maximise their performance and influence at the top level in business. He also advises boards on their effectiveness and helps them with challenging group dynamics and handling conflicts. He is an expert in personal presence and specialises in presentation and communications training to help leaders become more inspirational, motivational and memorable. His recent coaching assignments range from a senior leader in one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds to executives in financial services, insurance and the drinks industry. He spends much of his time working internationally, most recently with several clients in the Middle East. Atholl is the author of the bestselling business book “Leaders in Lockdown” which captures insights from 28 global business leaders during the COVID-19 crisis and was shortlisted for “Business Book of the Year” in 2021.

Carol Stewart of Abounding Solutions is an Executive and Career Coach with a specialism in introverted women leaders. She coaches clients to be great leaders who lead with influence and impact. She also delivers workshops/webinars and talks. Named a Britain’s Top 50 Business Adviser in 2015; in 2018 she won a We Are The City, Rising Star Champion award for her work helping women to progress as leaders; in 2017, 2018 and 2019 she was named a LinkedIn Top Voice UK. Carol’s book Quietly Visible: Leading with Influence and Impact as an Introverted Woman was listed as one of the 10 best self-development books written by women to read during lockdown.

Douglas is a seasoned leadership, coaching and organisation development practitioner, with significant experience of global level assignments, providing support at Executive and Board level. Douglas has conducted leadership and coaching projects with senior Executives and senior Managers across both the private and public sectors. He has published a number of articles on coaching, has a PhD in Psychology, is an elected member of the British Psychology Committee on Coaching, and won 1st prize in 2006 from the Institute of Group Analysis for his work on group analytic approaches.

As a Chartered Fellow of the Institute of Personnel Development (FCIPD), Felicia Agyeman is a highly experienced Executive and Career Development Coach with first class people management skills and extensive leadership experience acquired over 20 years in corporate business. Felicia’s experience has been gained in complex and diverse organisations, most recently as a board level HR specialist, before setting up as an Independent Coach.

As a senior leader, Felicia has extensive experience of providing coaching to support individuals to navigate their way through their careers. Felicia has provided hundreds of hours of coaching expertise, working with professionals to enhance and develop careers, raise profiles, develop leadership capability and build self-confidence. Felicia has a real passion for helping people to realise their full potential and in-depth knowledge and understanding of the issues and challenges faced by many professionals, combining everyday lives with careers. As an Executive Coach, Felicia has a particular (but not exclusive) interest in supporting professional women and those from under represented groups to navigate the challenges faced in business. Felicia’s expertise in this area, lies in assisting people to connect to the important things in life, whilst maintaining a strong business focus and has coached extensively at all levels in this area.

Jay drives programmes that improve learning and development for a range of multi-national, blue-chip corporations with over 17 years of experience and expertise in how to maximise the value of people development initiatives. Using proven and creative techniques, in working with executives, management, leadership and HR Teams; he leaves no stone unturned to find the key formulas for sustainable and long-term future success. Jay’s style will leave a positive energy and an enthusiasm to achieve, whilst also driving thought leadership and challenging those who he partners with to reach even greater heights.

Justine has a varied background in director level roles and has been coaching for the last 15 years. Justine has trained extensively in Gestalt coaching skills and neuroscience to complement and deepen an established individual and a systemic team coaching approach and believes in coaching the individual as a whole. She has a pragmatic flexible approach, regularly updating her coaching practice with new research and knowledge and is therefore able to adapt to a range of coaching requirements, dependent on the client’s need. She has a great deal of experience in dealing with clients transitioning into or operating within very senior roles, including the development of the coachee’s leadership capability, and the maximisation of their personal impact at an individual and group level.

Liz is a brilliant and resourceful Executive Coach, with a talent for creating the extraordinary conversations that change mindsets and unlock potential. Her trademark style is collaborative and non-judgemental. She brings innovative design and leading edge thinking to her work with teams and individuals and offers a unique perspective on how leaders and teams develop. Liz works across sectors with clients in senior roles that require high levels of capability in both leadership and management. She has a successful track record of one to one coaching assignments, team coaching, Board away days, and leadership and management development projects.

An economist-turned-executive coach, Maya combines a deep understanding of organisational life and psychology, accredited at the highest coaching level (EMCC Master), with an MSc in Positive Psychology. This enables clients to advance their careers with high impact, in line with their values and without burnout. Whilst maintaining a focus on Financial Services clients, Maya works across industries, drawing from diverse worlds for her coaching clients: start-ups, musicians, social workers, CEOs, Hedge Funds, Insurance & Private Equity companies, e.g. Sony Music, Google, KPMG, SAGE, L&G, TATA Consulting & Miele. Maya’s coaching programme tailors to each client:

1. Clarity: life + leadership vision
2. Social Capital, online & offline: influence, profile, managing challenging interactions and high-stakes meetings – optimising personal style and preferences
3. Energetics: mindset, confidence, time management, nervous system regulation.

This draws on her research with Harvard & LBS professors, her experience with 100s of leaders, and her own career. After graduating from Cambridge with a First, she worked in intense banking and consulting environments at Goldman Sachs, PwC and KPMG. The latter half has been in Leadership Development, directing LBS’s Leadership & Strategy portfolio. She shares insights on her podcast: ‘Life-Work with Maya’, a top 2.5% podcast globally.

Quentin enables senior executives to improve their performance and achieve distinction in their careers. In particular, he supports leaders keen to make a difference in politically complex, culturally diverse organisations where demands are fast moving and intense. His clients typically are accountable for driving the firm’s competitive vision and need to overcome strategic, operational and people-related challenges. Quentin’s work is informed by his own experience in senior leadership roles at HSBC, Jardine Fleming, Merrill Lynch and UBS, where he ran global initiatives to improve service, increase revenue and cut cost. He managed change-the-bank budgets of over US$120m, led global teams of up to 130 people, and orchestrated culture transformation across US$1bn organisations.

Sarah is an Executive and Leadership Coach with over fifteen years coaching experience and extensive senior management experience predominantly gained in global, blue chip organisations. In that time Sarah has coached hundreds of directors and senior managers to achieve their business, performance and career goals. Previously she has held a number of senior management roles with global responsibility for group strategy and service delivery, and played key roles in change initiatives to transform services. Sarah combines her management experience with in-depth psychological training to provide challenging, supportive and pragmatic coaching development to clients. Sarah is straightforward, open and confident in approach making coachees feel they are in good, trusted hands.

As a coach and advisor to individuals and organisations, Steven uses his deep and varied experience, across the commercial, cultural and charity sectors, to bring fresh and challenging perspectives to his clients, specifically around navigating complex eco-systems and managing stakeholders across geographies and functions. Steven is passionate about helping executives and, particularly women leaders, to navigate through change and growth. At times, we may be operating in unfamiliar ways or helping our organisations to change. He understands these challenges – he’s been there himself, at different levels and in complex environments and can help support his clients to shift behaviours and find new ways of working. Specifically, Steven worked with Standard Chartered from 1997 – 2004 and has experienced the idiosyncrasies of influencing others in such a diffuse, international organisation.

Thoby is a full time WABC Certified Business Coach™ (CBC™) and former investment banking director who works with ambitious executives who are clear on the areas for their self-development, and who seek to work with a thinking and accountability partner in order to catalyse their progress. He blends his own experience as a leader of high-performing teams with his coaching experience and education to work in all leadership areas such as assertiveness, problem solving, strategic thinking, vision and the presentation of these skills to peers and seniors.