For the past twenty years, I've worked in education as a senior leader in a busy inner-London primary school, supporting children, families and staff through some of life's most challenging moments. My career has given me experience in leadership, coaching and mentoring teams, setting and achieving targets, navigating change, managing people and making difficult decisions in an ever-changing educational landscape.

Alongside leading schools, I've worked closely with people from a wide range of backgrounds, many facing complex personal and professional challenges. Through this experience, I came to appreciate something that often gets overlooked: sometimes people don't need someone to give them the answers - they need the time, space and support to hear themselves think.

Over the years, I noticed that the conversations I valued most weren’t always about school. They were about people - their hopes, their worries, what mattered to them and the changes they wanted to make.

I know this work matters because I've lived it.

Like many people, I also bring my own lived experiences. I've experienced the pressures of leadership, balancing competing responsibilities, navigating uncertainty and questioning what's next. I’ve also experienced life’s curveballs - disappointments, unexpected turns, dark moments and the losses that can change your perspective. These things make you stop and think about what really matters.

None of it was easy. All of it has shaped the coach I am today.

Those experiences have taught me that we don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond and what we do next. I wanted to create that same space for people - a space to pause, think and work out what they really want for themselves.