FTSE 100 Leadership Teams · Olympic & Paralympic Sport Psychologist 2008–2024 · APECS Master Executive Coach
The situation
The most important conversations are often the ones that haven't happened yet.
Maybe it's a conversation you've been putting off — about performance, about something that needs to change but hasn't. You know it needs to happen. You're not sure how to approach it without making things worse.
Maybe it's your team. You can see what's going on — the silos, the private frustration passing as alignment, a dynamic everyone can feel but nobody's naming. That doesn't make it any easier to shift.
What these situations share: the conversations that would make the biggest difference haven't happened yet. I work with leaders, teams and coaches who are ready to have them.
I'm not a coach who uses psychology. I'm a psychologist who works through coaching. That difference shapes everything about how this work is done.
How I work
Three areas of practice
Each strand of my work emerges from the same foundation: presence, rigour and genuine interest in what's actually going on — not just what's on the surface.
Success vision
When the right conversations happen
Hover to explore
For a team
The shift shows up in the room. People say what they think. Decisions get made. The leader stops mediating and starts leading. The energy that was going into managing the dynamic goes into the work instead.
For a leader
A different kind of confidence. Not just the ability to handle difficult situations, but the sense that you can shape them. You move toward things rather than around them — and people experience you differently as a result.
The stakes
Left unaddressed, these situations don't stay still.
Hover to explore
For a team
It compounds. More silos, more duplication, more energy going into the dynamic rather than the work. And if it's a senior team, it doesn't stay in the room. It moves down through the organisation.
For a leader
The cost is slow and cumulative. You end up working around the situation rather than through it. Doing more yourself. Delegating less. Quietly, the gap between how you want to lead and how you're actually leading begins to widen.
What clients say
"We brought William in to work with the players in 2015. He gained the players' trust and changed the players' mindset and mental approach very quickly. Since then, we became one of the most successful English Club sides in all formats of the game."
I've spent thirty years learning what it actually takes for people — individually and together — to do their best work. The answer almost always comes back to the same thing.
I came into this work as a psychologist, not a coach. That distinction matters more than it might sound. Most coaches learn psychological ideas and apply them. I trained clinically — in humanistic psychotherapy, from 1994 to 2006 — and then found that the coaching relationship was often where the deepest work happened. So I followed that.
What that background gives me is the capacity to work beneath the surface. I'm interested in what's actually happening in the room — the dynamics that shape how people behave, the patterns that repeat without anyone naming them, the conversations that keep not quite happening. That's where the real work is.
I work at three levels simultaneously: with the individual, within the team, and in the wider system around them. Those levels don't stay separate — what happens in one shows up in the others. Being able to move between them is, I think, the most useful thing I do.
The work
Where I've been tested
High-performance environments leave little room for vagueness. I've worked with Olympic squads preparing for medal events — Team GB, GB Rowing, GB Canoeing across four Games — and with FTSE 100 leadership teams navigating major organisational transitions. In both, the challenge is the same: how do you create the conditions for skilful communication under pressure?
Working with Essex Cricket during their most successful period, or sitting in the boardroom of a professional services firm the day before a significant restructure, you learn quickly what actually shifts things and what doesn't. Frameworks help. Credentials help. But neither substitutes for being genuinely curious about the person in front of you.
I don't arrive with a fixed model and work through it. I arrive curious, and I stay that way. The most useful thing I bring to any engagement isn't a framework — it's the capacity to pay close attention to what's actually going on, and the willingness to say what I notice.
That means I'm sometimes direct in ways that feel unusual. I'll name the thing in the room that everyone can feel but no one's said. Not to be provocative — because that's usually where the work is.
The space I create is genuinely confidential and genuinely honest. I'll challenge you when it's useful, and I'll sit with difficulty when that's what's needed. What I won't do is tell you what you want to hear.
"Sharp. Warm. Grounded. Assured." — the four words people who know my work tend to reach for.
Accreditations
APECS Master Executive Coach
The highest level of accreditation from the Association for Professional Executive Coaching and Supervision.
APECS Accredited Master Supervisor
Accredited coaching supervisor — working with coaches individually and in groups since 2017.
Lumina Spark Practitioner
Using personality frameworks as a tool for greater self-awareness and team development.
What clients say
"Stepping up to Managing Director required more than performance — it demanded self-awareness, resilience and staying true to my values. William helped me discover and refine these, enabling me to 'be myself, just better'."
— Sabry Salman, Managing Director
Curious whether this might be relevant to you?
I'm glad to have an initial conversation — no obligation, no pitch.
Most leaders who arrive at coaching are already performing well. What brings them isn't struggle — it's something specific: a gap between the impact they want to have and the impact they're actually having, or a situation they can see clearly but can't quite move.
Even in a supportive environment, there are things you can't quite think through with the people around you. Not because the relationships aren't good, but because everyone has a stake in how things go. What's often missing is a genuinely confidential space with someone who can help you make real progress, and unlock your own blind spots.
What this helps with
Leaders come to this work for different reasons…
You've been promoted into a role where the old habits no longer serve you — but you're not yet sure what the new ones should be.
There's a gap between how you intend to come across and how you actually land. People tell you what you want to hear.
Something in your team or organisation isn't working and you can't quite put your finger on why.
You're preparing for a significant step up and want to think it through before you're in it.
You want a genuinely independent thinking partner — someone with no stake in the outcome other than your development.
Something significant is happening in your work or your wider life, and you need proper space to think it through.
How the work happens
Built around one question
What needs to develop for you to lead at your best?
The work operates at three levels at once: how you relate to yourself, how you lead your team, and how you operate within your organisation. These aren't treated separately — they inform each other, and the most useful insights tend to sit at the intersection.
In practice: sessions are typically monthly, 90 minutes, in-person or virtual. Each session has its own arc. You bring what's live, and it usually connects to the broader themes you're developing in the coaching.
What changes
What shifts — and how it shows
What shifts is both internal and visible. Leaders describe greater confidence and impact, a sense of finally getting traction in the areas that used to catch them out. Their reputation grows, not through managing impressions, but through how they actually show up. Relationships become more genuine.
Over time, something more significant shifts. The leader stops being the person who has the answers and becomes the person who develops the people around them. That's a different kind of influence — and for the organisations that benefit from it, it's the difference that matters most.
The alternative is familiar to most leaders. The situations that needed addressing get worked around or put off. Impact plateaus. And the gap between how you want to lead and how you're actually leading becomes harder to close.
Credentials
APECS Master Executive Coach
William is an APECS accredited Master Executive Coach — the highest level of accreditation from the Association for Professional Executive Coaching and Supervision.
He has worked as an executive coach since 2006, with leaders across elite sport, professional services, defence, health and the public sector. He is also a Lumina Spark Practitioner, using personality frameworks as a tool for greater self-awareness and team development.
What clients say
"Stepping up to Managing Director required more than performance — it demanded self-awareness, resilience and staying true to my values. William helped me discover and refine these, enabling me to 'be myself, just better'."
— Sabry Salman, Managing Director
If you're ready to explore what it will take to lead more effectively, let's start with a conversation.
High-performing teams aren't conflict-free. They're honest.
Most team problems aren't about structure, process or strategy. They're about what's not being said. I work with teams at every level to build cultures where the right conversations actually happen.
You can see what's happening. Capable people who aren't working well together. Dynamics that are visible to everyone but named by no one. The costs are real — in energy, in output, in what the team could be but isn't. And the usual approaches haven't got to the root of it.
If you're the leader in the middle of it: the exasperation of mediating the same tensions, repeatedly. At some point the realisation that absorbing this indefinitely isn't a strategy.
If the team is newly formed, the pressure is different: a determination to build something right from the start, and not repeat the patterns of last time.
What this helps with
Team coaching with William is relevant when:
The team is capable individually but isn't functioning collectively — decisions are slow, accountability is patchy, or meetings feel like a performance.
There's conflict that isn't being addressed, or a surface politeness that masks real tension.
Trust has been damaged — by a reorganisation, a departure, a merger, or just accumulated frustration that nobody has aired.
The team needs a shared understanding of what it's here to do, who's responsible for what, and how it's going to work together.
You want to build something deliberately: a team culture you're genuinely proud of — not one that just happened.
You're preparing for a period of significant change and want the team to navigate it well, not just survive it.
Typical engagements
Four ways we can work together
Team launch
Every team needs a moment to get genuinely aligned — on purpose, on ways of working, and on each other. A well-designed launch creates the foundation that makes everything else easier.
Team offsite
More than an away-day. A structured intervention that helps the team reconnect with what matters, address what's been building, and leave with more clarity and energy than they arrived with.
Lumina Spark day
Understanding how your team thinks and operates, at its best and under pressure, does more than give people a language for their differences. It helps them genuinely appreciate what each person brings.
Longer-term engagement
For teams that want sustained development. Regular sessions, individual coaching where needed, and a consistent thread of reflection and honest review.
Experience
Teams at every level, since 2006
William has worked with teams at every level since 2006 — from Olympic squads preparing for medal events to FTSE 100 leadership teams navigating major transitions.
The common thread is always the same: the teams that perform are the ones willing to be honest with themselves and each other.
FTSE 100 Leadership Teams
C-suite and senior leadership teams across financial services, professional services, defence, health and environmental sectors.
Olympics & Paralympics 2008–2024
Performance psychology and team coaching across four Olympic & Paralympic Games. Team GB, GB Rowing, and GB Canoeing.
Essex Cricket
Helped reshape team culture and mental approach during multi-trophy winning years.
A recent example
What this looks like in practice
Professional services firm, newly formed leadership team. High individual capability but struggling with collective decision-making and role clarity. Each member was excellent in their own right. Together they were slow, deferential and occasionally corrosive.
Six-month engagement combining monthly team sessions with individual coaching for each team member. The work focused on surfacing what was really going on in the room — the assumptions, the avoidances, the unspoken hierarchy.
Outcome: Clear governance framework, measurable improvement in trust, faster strategic decisions. Team now operating independently with quarterly check-ins.
What changes
Something shifts — and it shows in the room
People say what they think. Different perspectives are genuinely explored. Decisions get made. The leader stops mediating and starts leading.
The energy that was going into managing the dynamic goes into the work instead. For a senior team, that difference moves through the organisation.
Left unaddressed
Team problems don't resolve themselves.
Capable people disengage and leave. Silos deepen. And the energy that should be going into the work goes into managing the dynamic instead. For a senior team, the effect doesn't stay in the room — it moves down and through the organisation. A new culture takes root, and it's not a good one.
What clients say
"We brought William in to work with the players in 2015. He gained the players' trust and changed the players' mindset and mental approach very quickly. Since then, we became one of the most successful English Club sides in all formats of the game."
— Ronni Irani, Essex Cricket
Tell me what's going on with your team. I'll tell you how I can help.
The most important thinking about your practice doesn't happen in sessions. It happens here.
Coaching supervision with William is not a box to tick. It's a dedicated space to think deeply about your work, the clients who stretch you, the dynamics you carry, and the practitioner you're becoming.
Why coaches come
Most coaches arrive at supervision carrying something. Sometimes it's a client situation they haven't quite got a handle on, too much going on, an approach that isn't landing, uncertainty about how to move things forward.
Sometimes it's less easy to name. A client who evokes a response in the coach that feels disproportionate. Something stirred that doesn't belong to the client's material alone. Or a quieter doubt: whether their approach, however well-developed, is quite enough for what this particular client needs.
That kind of uncertainty doesn't mean something is wrong. It's a sign of a coach who is paying close attention.
And sometimes nothing is wrong at all. Coaches also come to supervision because they're committed to being as good as they can be — not because they're struggling, but because that's what taking the work seriously looks like.
What supervision helps you do
01
Go deeper with clients
Increase your impact with clients and their stakeholders. Develop the capacity to work with more complex and challenging situations.
02
Know yourself better
Build genuine reflexivity — the ability to notice what you bring into the room. Understand your professional strengths and your blind spots.
03
Become more resourceful
Build your capacity to supervise yourself, navigate ethical dimensions of the work, and be less reliant on any single approach.
What we explore
Sessions shaped by what you bring
There is no fixed agenda. Common themes include:
Working with complex or challenging client situations — including clients who seem stuck, resistant, or who bring material that stays with you after the session.
Recognising and working with relational dynamics, parallel process, and your own responses in the room.
Developing your one-to-one and team coaching practice — particularly as you move into less familiar territory.
Navigating boundaries and ethical considerations, including role complexity when working across a system.
Exploring the wider context: the dynamics between you, your clients, their organisations, and your own professional development.
My approach
APECS Accredited Master Supervisor
My approach draws on long experience across psychotherapy, executive coaching and performance psychology. I'm interested in both the practical challenges you're navigating and the deeper patterns at play.
The work is tailored to where you are in your development and what you most need from supervision. The space is yours to use as you need it. I will be honest with you, and I will stay curious about what's really going on.
1994–2006
Humanistic psychotherapy training and practice
2000–present
Performance psychology — Olympic & Paralympic sport
2006–present
Executive and Team coaching
2017–present
Coaching supervision
How it works
Individual and group supervision
1-to-1 Supervision
Duration: 60 or 90 minutes Frequency: Every 6–8 weeks Format: In-person or virtual
Group Supervision
Duration: 2–3 hours Frequency: Every 6–8 weeks Format: In-person or virtual Group size: 4–5 coaches Current group for experienced coaches meeting since 2018.
What changes
A clearer sense of who you are as a practitioner
What coaches consistently describe from this work is more clarity about what's actually happening in their client relationships. More options when they feel stuck. More courage to name what they sense; the pattern, the parallel process, the thing that's been sitting in the room unnamed.
And something more personal. A clearer sense of who they are as a practitioner — what their practice is built on, and how it connects to them. Not a collection of models and approaches, but a coherent way of working that is genuinely their own.
That self-knowledge goes with them into every client relationship. Into every difficult conversation they now feel better equipped to have.
Workshop
Building Reflexivity in Coaching Practice
A one-day workshop exploring how to develop deeper self-awareness and reflexive capacity in your coaching work. Practical, thought-provoking, and genuinely useful.
"What a super day of reflexivity and building connections… I came with curiosity and left with so much more!"
"A really interesting, thought-provoking, connecting and practice-enhancing day."
Participant feedback, Building Reflexivity workshop 2025
What people say
"Invaluable. William facilitates the group supervision sessions with a highly supportive style, curiosity and deep insight. He has helped to create a high trust, high impact supervision space where we are each able to explore challenges, gain new perspectives and improve our skills."
— Dr Maggi Evans, Chartered Occupational Psychologist
Let's talk about what you need.
Whether you're looking for 1-to-1 supervision, a group, or the workshop — start with a conversation.
