frequently asked questions
How did I get into coaching?
I am lucky enough to have started my career with a decade in the creative industries. I wrote for the Guardian, the Independent, the Times and the Financial Times, interviewing everyone from Ed Sheeran to Kevin Keegan. I appeared on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 3, BBC 6 Music, the BBC World Service and CNN. And, after a period as a session musician with Passenger, I released four acclaimed albums and performed at the Pompidou Centre and Royal Albert Hall as one half of Grasscut.
I went into higher education to help others have similarly rewarding experiences and avoid some of the mistakes I'd made myself. I soon realised that I loved helping people to learn. But I also realised that Oscar Wilde was at least half-right when he declared that nothing worth knowing can be taught. Over time, I came to understand that my role wasn't to give answers - it was to create the conditions in which people could find out answers for themselves. At some point, I realised I was coaching.
Why is coaching effective?
In one sense, coaching is strikingly simple. Coaches help clients define goals and break them into manageable steps. And they hold them accountable for actually taking those steps. That's it.
The results, however, can be spectacular.
I have experienced this as a client: I am lucky enough to have been coached by Jonathan Passmore, and the results were transformative.
I'm happy to say I've seen it in clients too.
What sort of clients do I work with?
Coaching, unlike mentoring, is not domain specific.
I do some work with people who want to improve in a current role or get promoted. For instance, I have helped:
• a director at an edtech company move into a managing director role;
• a professor become Associate Head of School;
• a COO scale a start-up from eight people to 40.
More typically, I help people who are tired of their jobs work out what they want to do instead and identify the steps required to get there. For instance, I helped:
• a former Director of Communications for the UK Government develop a climate change start-up;
• a managing director from the music industry move into education;
• the managing director an independent music venue develop a coaching business
• a physiotherapist become managing director of a healthcare equipment company
• a manager at BT develop a food and beverage venture.
What makes me different?
Many coaches come from the corporate world, typically from HR. I come, instead, from the creative industries and higher education. I'm currently Director of the Design, Arts and Creative Practice Knowledge Exchange and Research Institute at Kingston University.
I specialise in what I call creative leadership, referring both to leaders in the creative industries and to leaders in any sector of the economy keen to develop a leadership style fit for an unpredictable world.
I have spent more than a decade teaching and researching creativity and innovation and associated concepts like leadership, management and entrepreneurship. As well as supporting creative and digital businesses in the UK, I've trained creative hub leaders in Ghana, music industry leaders in Jordan and cultural leaders from Mexico. I have also led incubation start-up programmes. And I’ve distilled the most key concepts into actionable tools and insights.
What are my credentials?
I have a PhD in collaborative creativity from Middlesex University; an MBA from the Open University; a PG Cert in executive coaching from the Institute of Leadership and Management; and a PG Cert in team coaching from Aston University. I'm also a member of the Association for Coaching.
This is in addition to over 20 years of leadership experience as a magazine editor, music manager, associate dean and institute director - doing everything from negotiating sync deals with HSBC and Google to running projects with organisations including Netflix, Nike and the NHS.
I have written books on creativity and innovation, including Different every time: the authorised biography of Robert Wyatt (Serpent’s Tail 2014), a Radio 4 book of the week, and Distributed creativity: how blockchain will transform the creative economy (Palgrave 2018).
I have also given talks on these subjects around the world from Thompson Reuters in New York to the King Fahed Cultural Centre in Riyadh.
I am a non-executive director of Enterprise Educators UK, the UK's leading membership network for enterprise educators, and the Featured Artists Coalition trade body - where fellow directors past and present include members of Blur, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Primal Scream and The Fall.