Sweet Spots
Feedback matters to me. I actively seek it — from clients and from people I've yet to work with.
After my last newsletter, someone got in touch with a really helpful comment. They'd noticed something:
"Tony, you write a great deal about different facets of leadership, inclusion and coaching — but I don't see much about your actual work. I'd like to know more about specific cases."
Around the same time, a client asked me to define what many people refer to as my 'sweet spots': the areas of coaching where I do my best work.
I've sat with both of those challenges. Welcomed them, actually.
It seems to me that there's a temptation in professional services: advertise everything you can do and have done. I fell for it myself when I set up my coaching practice in 2013, by which point I was already over a decade into my coaching career.
Over the years since, as I narrowed my focus, something interesting happened: I won much more work. That's worth noting for anyone considering going out on their own.
Last year I became more selective still. That decision shaped the rebrand you may have noticed, most visibly perhaps on this website.
So. Challenges accepted.
Here's what I want to say:
My sweetspots – in 100 words
I work with successful people: high performers charting their next breakthrough or defining a new chapter of success.
I help leaders, experienced or emerging, grapple with what it means to lead and how to be at their absolute best.
I work cross-sector, with considerable depth in law firms, professional services & management consultancies, and have coached extensively in insurance & not-for-profits.
Transition coaching - into a new role, organisation or reality - is a particular specialism.
I’ve coached countless candidates for partnership & equity partnership, and leaders pursuing high-level promotion across various industries.
I mentor/coach CPOs & HRDs.
Stop reading here if you don’t feel the need for anything more.
Current & recent executive coaching assignments
Global Practice Leader – international law firm. Leadership & transition coaching.
Managing Director – insurance brokers. Leadership and broader executive coaching.
HR Director – professional partnership. Coaching/mentoring including leadership coaching.
Partner – professional services. Preparation for equity partnership application. Confidence coaching.
Managing Director – renewable energy. Leadership and ‘navigating change’ coaching.
Director – management consultancy. Partnership promotion and leadership coaching.
Director of Fundraising – large charity. Transition coaching.
Equity partner – global law firm. Executive and performance* coaching.
Operations leader – benefits consultancy. Leadership & transition coaching.
Leader, European exec team member – insurance. Leadership and executive coaching.
Tax Director – professional services. Promotion and leadership coaching.
Typical executive coaching assignments over the years
Coachees include law firm partners and future partners, professional services partners and future partners, CEOs and senior executives, future leaders, and HR Directors (coaching/mentoring).
These days I tend to be asked to work with very senior people but I have always been a coach who is interested in working with people ‘on their way up’.
My coaching work with these players has covered:
Transition into new board/exec role or a new organisation
Building upon existing high performance
Defining and applying your leadership brand – for the first time or in new contexts
Promotion into partnership/equity partnership
Grappling with interference – personal or organisational.
Success, confidence and ‘imposter’ thinking
Performance coaching (which with me is “high performer looking to attain even higher level of performance for their business and themselves”)
inter alia