selecting a coach
Choosing the right coach for you is a really personal thing. Getting the right chemistry is the cornerstone of trust that will help you to get the most from the coaching experience. All of our coaching team offer a free no-commitment discovery call via Zoom so you can ask questions to find out more about how we work.
Once you have decided on who you would like to have a Discovery Call with, let your organisational coordinator know and and we'll link you up to find a time that works for your diary.
Meet the coaching team
Executive Coach & NED
Gary Buxton MBE
Gary joined the coaching world following extensive executive leadership experience across commercial and public sector organisations. He has led numerous multimillion pound change programmes and mobilisations and has first hand experience of leading thousands of staff and designing large supply chains. He is a Non-Exec Director of the University of Manchester and an Enterprise Adviser for Greater Manchester Combined Authority. By combining emotional intelligence and pragmatism Gary supports his clients to lead change whilst keeping a performance focus.
Gary's has been published by the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, Association for Coaching, Institute of Directors and ACEVO. Gary is a registered Coach with the International Coaching Federation. With a love of tech, delivering online and walking based coaching, he's a great thinking partner for Covid times!
Gary's corporate clients are typically across IT, Legal, Outsourcing/Infrastructure and Finance sectors and his non-profit clients sit across Government Administration, Health, Education and Housing.
Executive Coach
Dr Dani White
Danielle supports people to develop clarity during periods of transition through research, workshops and executive coaching. All are underpinned by a coaching approach, enabling her clients to listen deeply to their current reality, the environment around them and opportunities for navigating and directing change.
With a background in the charity and higher education sectors, and a keen interest in enabling people to be the best version of themselves, Danielle has spent many years practically and theoretically exploring factors that shape and block people’s thinking in relation to actively planning and navigating their career. She holds a Doctorate in career transition where her focus has been to support the development of agency in decision making, particularly in spaces that are highly structured such as large bureaucratic or hierarchical organisations.
Danielle is a qualified Executive Coach and active member of the ICF (International Coaching Federation). She supports leaders from a variety of sectors including heads of school within the primary, secondary and University sectors, academics in research and teaching, and business leaders initiating, scaling or pivoting a project. Across her coaching Danielle is able to support the identification of priorities and how to navigate / put in place structures to achieve these, to cut through the confusion and focus with attention and motivation upon what is most important.
Executive Coach and HR Consultant
Jo Killgallon
A qualified Executive and Leadership Coach with a background in HR spanning over 25 years Jo has supported managers and leaders at the most senior levels in large organisations, across a range of industries to ensure that their businesses thrive.
Coaching line managers and leaders to think differently, tackle problems and issues in ways they hadn’t before has helped them to grow into authentic and Impactful leaders, helping the businesses in which they work be even more successful.
She balances a supportive yet challenging style, dependent upon the needs of the coachee. Understanding an individual’s strengths, development areas, but also values and motivation are at the core of Jo’s coaching. Those who understand who they are, and why they are like that, are best placed to make deliberate and effective decisions about their present and future actions.
Jo uses a range of techniques, theories and models adapted to suit the needs of the coachee, their needs and the situation.
Jo is a Chartered member of the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) and belongs to The ICF (International Coach Federation)
Executive Coach
Rachel Valentine
An executive coach, consultant and trainer with over 10 years’ experience of working in a Senior Learning and Development role in HE, supporting people to excel in their current role and prepare for their next.
Using a collaborative approach, Rachel supports clients to rediscover their strengths and values and understand how they may be holding themselves back. Her focus is on inspiring and empowering greatness; challenging clients to stop ‘going through the motions’ and focus instead on practical tools and solutions that will enable the real and permanent changes they want to achieve. Rachel takes a deeper psychological approach to her work, using a range of approaches such as Emotional Intelligence, Transactional Analysis, NLP and CBT, to help clients to get to the root of their challenges.
As well as a qualified Executive coach, Rachel is also a chartered Health & Safety Practitioner. An area of interest is the use of coaching to support good mental health and wellbeing, and the improvement of workplace cultures to promote higher levels of care and compassion as well as engagement and performance.
Why Coaching is right for your business right now...
The thing that you can control right now is you
Whilst there is great uncertainty in the world right now, how people choose to respond to it is within their power. Supporting people to build a strong mindset and resilience provides them with the tools to manage this uncertainty more effectively. When they feel this inner control they are more able to focus on challenges faced and can feel a sense of control in what otherwise feels like an uncontrollable world
Coaching helps you to process what is happening around you
The world as we knew it has changed and making sense of it is difficult. However there is a need to try and process what is happening right now so that we are best able to deal with it. Not doing so runs the risk of causing ourselves additional stress and anxiety which can have longer term health impacts. Through coaching, people are able to tune into their real feelings and concerns and are better able to regulate their energy and response to situations, meaning they are more able to cope with the what is happening now and how to move forward.
A relatively small investment in coaching now will give a return on that investment and more.
Those individuals and companies who are able to get through this time will be those who are able to manage the impact of the stress, are flexible and agile in their approach, and can approach challenges in a different way. Coaching can support leaders to do this more quickly and effectively than they would be able to on their own. Those who are able to do this will be better positioned to survive and thrive during this crisis.
A fixed versus a growth mindset
Being able to respond with flexibility and creativity, but applying that with thought and logic to real issues during times of difficulty will be the difference between surviving and thriving. Coaching can help people to identify limiting beliefs which can be inhibitive and move into more open and responsive mindsets to resolve issues and challenges more effectively.
Coaching managers and leaders has a positive impact on more than just the recipients.
Leaders can be a critical barometer of an organisation. Those that display positive emotional regulation tend to have a calming effect on others. The behaviour they exhibit is likely to be replicated by those around them. By supporting leaders to develop this emotional resilience it will have impact beyond those receiving the coaching.
Developing and retaining Top Talent
There will be a reliance on leaders to deal with difficult and challenging situations, possibly beyond that they have had to face before. Additionally time away from the workplace has given people the opportunity to reflect what they want their lives to look like moving forward. The need to develop talent, both to deliver business performance but also as a way of demonstrating commitment to them as individual’s is likely to lead to higher retention rates and more committed colleagues.