When did your life become a ‘could have’ requirement?

What I do

Still performing, past caring? 

Somewhere between the status calls, the RAG reports and the next go-live, the part of you that loved this work went quiet. Not gone. Quiet. You don't quite know why, you don't quite know when and you definitely don't know how to get it back.

You're still putting in the hours.  Still delivering. People still rely on you, and you still care about the team. But doing work you're perfectly capable of feels harder than it should. This version of you feels uncomfortable. You know it's affecting how you show up, and people at home and work are starting to notice.

That's the problem I work on.

I help jaded programme managers in financial services get excited about their careers again, so they can feel engaged at work and present at home. Not with a new leadership model or a five-point plan. You don't need more theory, and you've probably read the books. I give you the time, the structure and the honest questions to point the experience you already have at your own career.

What changes

Here's what that looks like when you do the work.

• You know what's actually wrong, instead of carrying a vague sense that something's off.
• You make a decision instead of drifting: stay on different terms, change the role, or move. And you can name what you turned down.
• You care about the work again, not just about the people depending on you to do it.
• You stop rehearsing Monday on a Sunday evening, and you're in the room at home instead of still in the SteerCo.

This isn't wellbeing tips, a pep talk or a push to quit. It's a decision you can defend, made the way you'd make any other big call: with evidence, options, a credible plan, milestones and a set of risk mitigations.

Why me

I've done the job you're doing.

For 31 years I worked in project, programme and delivery leadership: programme manager, head of delivery, management consultant, permanent and contract roles. I've seen the job from every angle and know how to get the best from the people you depend on.

I know the SteerCo, the Friday pack, the issue that blows up on a Friday afternoon and can't wait until Monday, the supplier who's late again, and being the one who has to communicate bad news and come up with a plan to fix it. I built multinational call centres in the 90s, digital platforms in the noughties, and spent the last 18 years dealing with the non-stop change wrought by the financial crash, PPI, Brexit, Covid and everything in between. 

I was good at the job, loved building high-performing teams, working with them to do difficult things and helping individuals overcome challenges and realise their potential. That last part was always my favourite, so I decided to make it my career.  

Why now

That quiet between deliveries isn't coming.

The trouble with ‘I'll deal with it after go-live’ is that there's always another go-live. That's never been truer than today. Meanwhile the cost stays invisible. You implement workarounds and those workarounds become tech debt for your life.

Fixing it properly requires time and space. If your life was a programme, you'd run a discovery, work up the options and test the risky ones before committing. That's the work we do together.

It starts with a free, confidential conversation.

Book a free 30-minute discovery call

Not your responsibility it became this. Still your accountability to face it. 

How I work

No generic five-point plan. No telling you to quit.

You know the details of your life; I don't. My job is to ask the questions you've been too busy to ask yourself, help you see the options clearly, and hold you to what you decide.

Changing course

I took ten years to change course, on purpose.

I'd wanted to do this work for the best part of twenty-five years, and talked myself out of it for most of them.

In 2015 I started volunteering as a Samaritans listener, and I still do. It taught me how long it can take someone to say the real thing. It also taught me something less comfortable: the good shifts made the bad weeks at work survivable, and survivable is a long way from good.

So I got my own coaching, funded by my employer as leadership development, qualified as an ICF-accredited coach, and in 2026 left corporate life to do this full time.

It cost real money: income, pension, a few luxuries. Years earlier I'd bought an expensive car to look like a successful programme manager, and I'm not even into cars. These days the money goes on good food and the Lake District instead.

Nobody drifts in one direction for a decade. It was a direction, taken at a pace I could afford.

You don't have to do it suddenly. You do have to get clear on what ‘it’ is. And you have to mean it.

Sound like the work you need?

Book a free, confidential 30-minute discovery call about the challenges you're facing. No obligation.