Testimonials
What people say about working with me
Paula has been providing executive coaching both to me personally, and to my leadership team, for the last 10 years. I have gained a huge amount from her input which has helped me enormously with my transition to CEO in a difficult macro environment. I am very happy to recommend her.
Paul Williams
CEO – Derwent London
My sessions with Paula always leave me energised, clearer and more motivated. I would not miss them.
Jenny Geary, Entrepreneur
Author of How to be a Chief Operating Officer: 16 Disciplines for Success
I have had a few coaches over the years but none were as effective as Paula. She has a unique style that sees her obtain an in-depth understanding of you as a person as well as an executive, allowing her to tailor her approach to you as an individual. She comfortably moves between providing encouragement/advice as well as some “tough-love” when that is appropriate.
Steve Weston,
CEO and Co-founder VOLT Bank
I have been coached by Paula for a number of years now and her support has been at the heart of both my personal and professional development. Whilst helping me on many aspects of my development, Paula has helped me with a number of difficult situations which have always resulted with me achieving better outcomes than I would have done without her support. In terms of style and approach, Paula finds a great balance of challenging me and my thinking, keeping sessions light hearted and fun and balancing the short and long term goals I have. I would thoroughly recommend Paula as a coach, she’s made an incredible difference to me.
Simon Collier,
Partner, PA Consulting
I had the privilege of working with Paula at a key point in my career, when I was transitioning from a leader into an Executive in a FTSE 100 Bank.
The sessions with Paula were some of the best hours I have ever spent investing in myself. Paula supported me in pivoting my leadership approach to operate as an Executive, by truly challenging some of my behaviours, mindset and thinking. Not only did this enhance my ability to think strategically, but I also became a more influential leader, impacting on broader cross functional business challenges.
Paula has a fantastic coaching approach – challenging, whilst being supportive. I was always impressed by Paula’s ability to ask the most simple but hugely powerful questions – forcing you to really level up and exercise inner muscles you didn’t know you had!
Paula has had a lasting impact on who I have become, and what I have been able to achieve in my life and in my career to date.
Payal Jain,
Chair of Women In Data UK, Managing Director JCURV Agile
Paula is a profound mentor and coach. She worked with me during an ‘interesting’ time in my career. From our very first meeting Paula helped me to re-evaluate and assess things from several different perspectives. Through her very clever, searching, sometimes difficult to answer questioning techniques, she helped me to crystalise both my professional and personal purpose. Now five years after our first meeting, and several sessions later, she continues to give me the self-belief I need, encouraging me to listen to and go with my instincts. I am now in a place that I previously thought would be impossible to achieve, thanks to her.
Karl Havard,
Managing Director, Taiga Cloud part of The Northern Data Group
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with Paula for the past 7 years, both as a course facilitator and coach during my time at BP and at Barclays. She’s worked at multiple levels in the organisation, and I particularly relied on her with our most senior leaders. As an example, she coached the CEO of one of our major business areas through a difficult transition process for him personally and for the organisation as a whole.
I find that Paula has two particularly strong qualities as a senior level coach: first she’s highly flexible and adaptive to the environment, and able to strongly link with the business context and reality, and second she’s very honest and direct, with high levels of empathy.
It has been a pleasure working with Paula and I highly recommend her as a coach to senior leaders.
Celia Berenguer,
Head of Global Learning & Development, Chanel
I have experience of working with Paula from my time at the Private Bank at Barclays, both with executive coaching for members of the leadership team as well as in cross-cultural leadership group settings. Her in-depth understanding of the business, culture & environment enabled rapid and tangible progress to be made, something often missing in terms of demonstrable ROI from such activity. Her executive coaching skills were of immense value to those she coached, rapidly building levels of trust and supporting senior leaders through significant business transitions and challenges. In the team environment, Paula is able to go beyond facilitation to push executive teams to a higher bar for high performance, both in terms of their own behaviours as well as for their broader teams. Much of this is achieved through encouraging leadership teams to find their own workable solutions, but some is achieved through Paula’s direct style and ‘radical candour’.
Imogen Scott,
Global HR Director, HSBC
I have worked with Paula for a number of years across different organisations. Her skill as a facilitator and coach, both working with senior teams and with senior individuals, has never failed to impress me and she delivers results time after time. Her ability to connect through her own authenticity and to create the right environment for the necessary tough conversations to flow is a hallmark of her work. It is also at the heart of why she has proved an invaluable sounding board to me personally over the years.
Mark Chapman,
General Counsel, Nationwide Building Society
Paula has a wealth of experience across a diverse set of industries and client groups. She is able to respond in the moment and be flexible to the needs of the client, drawing on that wealth of experience. She is thought provoking and challenging in a respectful and appropriate way that enables leaders and HR partners to really stretch and develop their capabilities. A true partner, she works with you to find solutions and brings lots of ideas to the table.
Wendy James
Leadership, Learning, Talent and Diversity Director, BT
Paula is a great listener and has real presence; her authenticity is both calming and reassuring. She works with the most senior, and often the most challenging clients – and has experience that extends across all levels. She has a rare ability to create genuine and honest relationships – not just to understand context but to really build a connection. As an L&D professional I feel genuinely cared about – I know whatever happens with the project or relationships, no matter how complex, she will be able to make it work. That really sets her apart.
Lida Da Sie
Leadership Development, London Stock Exchange
Amidst a hectic turn-around process Paula helped me to quickly identify a few critical areas for improvements, mainly, facilitating a relationship-driven journey with executives. She executed and analysed a very comprehensive 360 that not only substantiated initial assumptions, but helped to identify specific improvement areas, critical for my success.
She encouraged me to share survey results with wider executive team as an opportunity to open up and connect deeply with them. I very much appreciate Paula’s no-nonsense approach to identify head-on obstacles preventing me from being the best version of myself. Most importantly, I value Paula’s questioning technique, prompting long period of reflection and contemplation on big picture professional and personal goals.
I would sincerely recommend Paula to any executive who wishes to address their most important leadership challenges and embark on a journey to be the best version of themselves.
Mickey Schiller
CEO, Leumi UK
I have worked with Paula during one of the most critical stages of my career during which time COVID hit and we all lost any sense of stability and to some extent purpose. She has been my rock through the last few years and has taken me from a place of self-doubt to absolute self-efficacy and self-confidence. She has always enabled me to find my own answers but shown deep trust that I can and absolutely will find those answers. We have navigated many challenges together including questions and decisions on team, personal development, managing upwards and across, career to name a few whilst really helping me understand deeply my own self and my own triggers to be able to choose how to react. I truly feel she has helped me shape my future and be very conscious and choiceful on the way I impact others. I am very grateful for her continuous support and openness to any discussion and offering any kind of help that may be useful to me in the moment.
Carol Robert,
COO, Suntory Beverage & Foods
Working with Paula as a coach has been a game-changer! She didn’t just help me change my career path; she changed how I approach challenges and opportunities. One big lesson I learned was to focus on continuously improving rather than constantly proving myself. That shift in mindset, inspired by her work with other CEOs, gave me a much broader perspective.
Her knack for asking the right questions pushed me out of my comfort zone, urging me to think differently and get comfortable with uncomfortable situations.
But it wasn’t all serious stuff. Her guidance on storytelling, the power of your network and developing clear points of view was like a breath of fresh air.”
John O’ Beirne,
Executive Director, US Tech Multinational
Since working with Paula, I have sharpened key leadership skills, whilst gaining new perspectives and tools to manage through intense periods of change. I have particularly valued the C-suite peer management insight as well as building a stronger and trusted relationship with my CEO. Paula’s breadth of business experience is matched by her highly perceptive nature and super sharp intellect. Her deep insight on the dynamics of leadership, particularly recognizing the nuances of being a woman in a senior role, has been really valuable.
Philippa Charlton,
Chief Marketing Officer, Lloyd’s Register
Paula has been genuinely fundamental to helping me grow my business from start-up into an award-winning management consultancy. Her laser-sharp empathy, support and challenge has been so powerful helping me to build confidence, prioritise my time and deal with increasingly complex challenges.
Vikram Jain
Managing Director, JCURV
I’ve worked with Paula for the past 18 months. I found our discussions thought provoking and appropriately challenging. As you would expect, Paula brings different perspectives from other verticals and experiences. She has a natural way of bringing issues to the surface and gaining insight on underlying reasons. She has helped me in gaining better clarity around major career and leadership challenges / opportunities. In addition she has helped to provide champion challenge around significant strategic initiatives.Our conversations are always natural, honest and inspiring.
Marc Pettican
President, Barclaycard Payments
I found Paula to be an excellent sounding board. She is a great listener and her probing intuition helped me pinpoint areas which I needed to focus on. She helped me build resilience and confidence and her advice was invaluable as I settled into a new role and team…
Karena O’Sullivan
CFO and Executive Director, Davy Group
I have had the privilege of working with Paula as a Coach for many years, supporting teams and individuals as well as myself. Paula brings a sense of partnership to all of her coaching and uses her superb questioning and high quality listening skills to enable her clients to quite quickly shine a light of the problem they’re grappling with and ignite their thinking towards the outcome they’re seeking. Paula’s style emanates trust, interest and unconditional positive regard.
Sharron Pamplin
Chief People Officer, Lloyds Register
I’ve worked with Paula for 18 months and it has been such an incredibly positive experience. Paula is respectful but never afraid to challenge, and the quality of her feedback has been immensely impactful. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend working with her – you will be delighted with the results.
Steve Allen
Chief Operating Officer, Consumer Banking, Corporate Banking & Payments, Barclays