BIO

I am a facilitator, teacher, speaker, executive coach, researcher and author dedicated to exploring and finding ways to improve the way we interact with one another in the workplace.

My passion and curiosity centres around the quality of how we meet, see, hear, speak, learn with and encounter one another in organisational systems and how we might encourage dialogue which is more humane and which enables us, our colleagues and our society to flourish.

Working at the intersection of leadership, change, dialogue and mindfulness, I have presented my research to audiences throughout the world and I am ranked as one of the top 50 management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50 and on the 2023 HR Most Influential list of Thinkers.

My recent research with John Higgins on ‘Speaking truth to Power’ – examining how perceptions of power enable and silence others – has been featured in five articles in Harvard Business Review. It is the subject of two TED talks, one on employee activism which has been viewed 1.5 million times and one on how power silences.  Our book, Speak Up: Say what needs to be said and hear what needs to be heard, with Financial Times Publishing, was shortlisted for the CMI Management Book of the Year 2020 and the second edition, Speak Out, Listen Up is out in Spring 2024.

With Michael Chaskalson I have been examining mindful leadership and our research has been published by Harvard Business Review (Nov, Dec 2016 and Aug 2020), featured in Forbes Magazine and our book, Mind Time: How Ten Mindful Minutes can enhance your work, health and happiness, (Harper Thorsons, 2018). I am also the author of Dialogue in Organizations; Developing Relational Leadership (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

As well as running my own business, I am Associate Fellow, Saïd Business School, Oxford University and Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Dialogue at Hult International Business School. I have supervised students undertaking their PhD and I also teach on a wide range of open and custom programmes. My particular interest is in action inquiry based research – research which is participatory and dedicated to initiating generative change through cycles of action, inquiry and reflection – however, my own research includes a broad range of methodological approaches.

Previous to my work with Oxford and Hult, I was a consultant with Deloitte; surfed the dot-com boom with boo.com; and worked in strategy consulting for The Kalchas Group, now the strategic arm of Computer Science Corporation.

I was educated at Cambridge University gaining an MA in Land Economy. I received a Masters in Change Agent Skills and Strategies at Surrey University and a Masters in Research at Cranfield School of Management where I was also awarded my PhD.

I am an accredited executive coach with Ashridge and The School of Coaching and I am qualified with the British Psychological Society to deliver and feedback a range of psychometric instruments. As a mindfulness teacher, I have studied with Bangor University’s Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice and I am an Associate at Mindfulness Works with Michael Chaskalson.

I am mother to two wonderful daughters who test me regularly on my powers of mindfulness and dialogue. My favourite pastimes are to hike in beautiful countryside with my family and to cycle through the forest at Ashridge.