Coaching helps organisations and individuals to thrive

For 40 years, we have been helping organisations develop their people and leadership teams; helping them adapt to change, improve their performance, and achieve greater success.

People need coaching for different reasons … you could be facing a challenge at work, or be uncertain about where your career is heading, or you might need help building resilience.

Coaching has been defined as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential, which is particularly important in today’s uncertain and complex environment. Coaches honour the client as the expert in his or her life and work and believe every client is creative, resourceful and whole.” (The International Coaching Federation)

As professional coaches, we align our approach with what you as either an individual or an organisation want to achieve.

You might need coaching to help with:

• Identifying your strengths, weaknesses, and leadership style
• Identifying and achieving organisational goals
• Navigating your departure from an organisation
• Onboarding with a new organisation
• Developing self-confidence and authenticity
• Improving interpersonal skills
• Developing stress management skills, personal resilience, and well-being
• Careers coaching: understanding past decisions, future options, and developing strategies including CV development, networking plans, and interview skills

Our Approach

We have an ability to listen, to ask relevant questions and perhaps help guide you to the solutions that you have within you. We do not have all the answers. Just as well because that is not what you should expect from a coach.

• We encourage you to be open to self-discovery

• We help you develop solutions and strategies

• We hold you responsible and accountable for execution and outcomes

This process has succeeded in improving clients’ outlook on career and life. It helps our clients hone their leadership skills and unveil their potential.

We offer a free 30-minute consultation to check whether your expectations align with our abilities to support you and to check that we are both happy with the chemistry between us. The coaching relationship is special, and it needs to feel right for both.

Should we proceed, we would agree how many sessions you would like during the consultation process. We are set up to coach via video facility and have found this to be very effective.

If you are interested in having a coach, please look at the profiles of our coaches and contact the coach you think will be most helpful to you.

Our Coaches

Our coaches have expertise in leadership, executive, transition & career coaching. As leaders within the Russam business, they are also at the coal face of working with executives across several industries.

Where appropriate we are also able to use validated assessment tools to identify strengths, weaknesses, and leadership style.

Cathy Kay

I am bold enough to claim that I know a bit about our relationship to work. 

I have spent many years guiding people on career matters, money and through periods of unemployment. I have worked with optimistic, bright, and international young talent in business schools, and people at the end of their careers looking for purpose and meaning as they move into a portfolio and board careers.  I have found great opportunities for ambitious people and in some cases, their lives have been changed as they have set upon paths that have given them wealth and happiness.  I have sat with professionals who have cried about debt, unemployment, bullying and harassment. 

I trained as a counsellor and then a career guidance professional to help me ensure that time spent with people would be helpful and make a difference.  This training made me face my own truths and privilege.  A great humbling experience and I will forever be in debt to my tutors at London Southbank University for the experience.

I conducted my counselling training at the University of West London and did my career coaching training at London Southbank University. I also have the Qualification in Career Guidance (QCG) awarded by the Career Development Institute.

Contact Cathy for:

• Careers coaching
• Executive coaching
• Workshops on CV writing, networking, transition support, interview skills, branding, and reputation management

“Cathy’s breadth of experience and deep expertise are apparent in every interaction. Either in a coaching, mentoring or executive search capacity, her unique insights and relationship skills are a must, for any business or individual.” – Senior Executive, Google

“Cathy was pivotal in my career search.  She took the time to truly understand my aspirations and remained realistic when helping to set my goals.  She supported and guided me through many key decisions and remained my “rock” when I needed it most.  My current career success is directly attributable to the coaching of Cathy.  After 10+ years in Technology Consulting in North America, I achieved my desired career switch and am now a Principal Designer at the Samsung Electronics HQ in Seoul, S. Korea.” – ANON, Samsung Electronics

Contact: cathy.kay@russam.co.uk

Ian Joseph

I have had a varied career including being a church minister, a non-profit CEO, the Managing Director of Russam, and serving on numerous boards including currently chairing the national children’s charity Kidscape.

I have been mentoring and coaching people throughout my life and have found that my broad experience gives me the ability to understand the issues people face. This experience includes helping senior leaders from organisations such as EY, Google and Barclays transition into non-executive roles.

I take an integrative approach to coaching, drawing on the paradigms most appropriate at the time. I am equally comfortable working with someone on leadership challenges, at inflexion points in their careers, or more broadly with life issues which of course seep into everything.

I have been married for almost 25 years and have three wonderful sons. I’ve made lots of mistakes along the way, in business and as a person, but I’m grateful that I have been able to learn and grow through them.

I have completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Coaching Psychology from the Department of Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London and am a member of the Special Interest Group in Coaching Psychology at The British Psychological Society, and as a Fellow of The RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) part of the RSA Coaching Network.

Contact Ian for:

• Executive coaching
• Life coaching
• Career and transition coaching

“My coaching sessions with Ian were an incredible insight into the way my own thoughts work. By allowing me to explore ideas in detail, with a guiding hand, I was able to unpick some of the stranger and less logical thought patterns that had begun to dominate my psyche. Each week we tackled a new aspect of my life, from relationships, to work, from self-confidence to my health. These sessions allowed me to give voice to the thoughts that had become my guiding principles. Giving voice to those ideas, effectively disarmed their power and left room for a new positive way of thinking. Ian was a deft hand at allowing me the space to find what I wanted to say, whilst steering the conversation towards a direction that would produce positive results. This is not the sort of coaching for the weak of heart, if you really want to get stuck in, then Ian is your man.” – ANON, Teach First

Contact: ian.joseph@russam.co.uk

Melissa Baxter

I am a qualified and highly experienced executive leadership coach. For over 20 years I have supported senior executives, high potential managers, and leadership teams to aim for success and have a more rewarding professional life.

I have a strong intuition and empathy and I can build relationships with my clients so that they can allow matters to surface that perhaps hadn’t been considered previously and they are often surprised about. This allows people to focus and make meaningful change to achieve their true potential connecting their values and careers.

As an executive coach, I focus on my client’s career path and their ambitions. I like to use an online reflective tool that supports the coaching to identify where a client is now and where they are going. This helps to set goals and to develop ideas which previously have not been considered and highlight areas of strength. This further enhances professional abilities and enables individuals to take their careers to the next levels. At the same time, the use of the reflective tools helps in achieving self-awareness which is essential for growth and change in leadership.

I hold a practitioner diploma in Executive Coaching and am a full member of the Association of Coaching which is a leading independent and not-for-profit professional body dedicated to promoting best practice and raising awareness and standards of coaching worldwide. I am also a qualified psychometric assessor and a member of the British Psychological Society.

Contact Melissa for:

• Careers coaching
• Executive coaching
• CV writing, networking, transition support, interview skills, branding, and identity

“I knew that I needed to think about my communication skills and people’s negative perception of me was affecting my career advancement. Melissa was recommended to me and I have to say she was very good. Through her coaching, I’ve learned a completely different style of communication skills and now have a solid portfolio of new techniques which significantly improved my relationships with others. This has also been noticed by my CEO who has seen a positive difference in my daily interactions with my co-workers.” – Director within a UK based Charity

“Melissa’s coaching has helped me to enhance my leadership potential and be recognised by the senior leadership team and Board for the value I bring to the organisation.” – Director who is looking to progress to being a CEO within the Charity Sector

“I contacted Melissa to help increase my confidence and visibility. She has really helped me identify the things that were holding me back and we developed a strategy to work through this. As a result, I am much more confident and now often speak on behalf of the organisation internally and externally. I have been noticed by the senior leadership team and asked to work on a high-profile project which has helped to build my own profile, reputation and identify” – Director within the technology sector

Contact: melissa.baxter@russam.co.uk

KK Harris

KK hails from Los Angeles California and has lived in the UK for 20 years. She is a highly skilled and experienced qualified professional coach with over 4000 hours of coaching and facilitation experience in the private and public sector and has coached individuals at all levels of business. Her experience includes working with Fortune 50-300 companies.

During her executive coaching sessions, she employs a range of techniques to encourage self-reflection and a mindset shift. This enables transformation by using a psychodynamic coaching approach throughout. The aim is for the client to become self-aware and to develop a personal tool kit they can fall back on to continue to develop and perform at their best. KK is an engaging and deep listener allowing the client to have self-realization and the clearing away of any blocks the client is not aware of that may be affecting their performance. Business relevant goals are set and reviewed throughout and coaching ethics are always abided.

As a Career Transition consultant KK works with individuals who have been made redundant or are transitioning into a new role. She has a wealth of experience in helping to update client’s CV and LinkedIn profiles.

KK Harris is an author whose latest book, Rethinking Diversity Management will be published in December 2020.

Private Sector Client Engagements

Capgemini, Volvo, Bakkavor, Deluxe Entertainment, Spotify, Logitech, A&E Network, Lavazza and Chanel

Areas of Expertise:

• Resilience
• Being Strategic
• Decision Making
• Influence and Collaborate to drive results
• Build and lead accountable teams
• Plan for future growth
• Authentic leadership
• Women in leadership
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Developing self-belief
• Developing self-awareness in leadership context
• Returning to work
• Motivating teams to shift their mindsets for better performance
• Supporting growth of Emotional Intelligence
• Managing challenging emotions and behaviours

Client Types/Levels of Experience:Partners, Directors, Senior Executives, Middle management and Team Leaders

Industry/Functional Experience:Financial services, IT Consultancy, Legal, Entertainment, Food Manufacturing, Public sector, Social Media, Manufacturing and Tech

Cultural/Multi-National Experience:Individuals managing teams in APAC, EMEA and US

Training and Education:MSc Coaching Psychology 2021Coaching Qualification in Coaching PsychologyCertHe Psychoanalytic PsychologyDipHE Accounting & Finance

Anna Henderson manages the diary for KK Harris, please contact her on anna.henderson@russam.co.uk