Joan O’Connor
Head of Leadership Practice / Executive Coach and Facilitator
Call us today on 0207 9528 699
10% of your team will be highly talented: you need to spot them and help them to grow.
10% might be struggling or leaving: we can help them transition.
And as for the other 80%: they’re the bedrock of the business – we can increase their engagement (and as a result, your organisational effectiveness)
Based in the UK, we’re a team of coaches, facilitators and leadership consultants -and we work with our clients to build plans tailored to their organisation and goals.
Joan, Head of Leadership Practice, is a highly experienced executive coach, facilitator, team coach and consultant and has worked in global commercial environments since the mid-90s.
She enables individuals to make a positive difference for themselves through one-to-one coaching, team effectiveness and team coaching work. In her leadership coaching, she helps people work out what being a leader means to them, and how to become the best possible leader.
You could describe Joan as a vinyasa flow yoga practitioner, a lover of ballroom and latin dancing, who wants to learn the Argentinian tango, ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ addict (who even watches ‘It Takes Two’), musical theatre fan, frequent concert goer and convert to the Latin American rhythms of Santana after Carlos’ guitar solos sparked a musical epiphany.
She adores amethysts and is obsessed with the colour purple (not the book/film) which, you may have noticed, has heavily influenced 10Eighty’s branding…
Rob is the Business Development Executive for 10Eighty and has joined the team to help develop the companies outreach for Executive Coaching services. Rob has extensive sales and business development experience, having held UK sales director positions and International Business Development roles with the fitness industry over 23 years.
He is passionate about working with business leaders to uncover the issues at hand and working with them to develop a plan of action going forward, using industry insights, experience and his natural desire to understand.
Rob’s Why in life?, is to travel and experience the many cultures & wildlife from around the world as possible. Rob is also a keen open water swimmer and collects whisky.
Shannon is our Business Support Manager and holds a degree in Education Studies and a PGCE in Primary School Teaching. After teaching Years 1 and 3, she wiped the whiteboard clean for the last time in the summer of 2017.
Post-teaching her career journey arced towards administration and HR, from recruitment company and local education department working on Education, Health & Care Plans, to 10Eighty where she hopes to “grow with the business”.
When not working Shannon enjoys exploring local sands and beauty spots with her husband Tom.
Indoors you’ll find Shannon working on home interior projects and relaxing with a good thriller novel.
Rose provides the concierge service to our Platinum clients, runs our events programme and and also provides EA support for the team.
Prior to 10Eighty Rose worked at Drax, an executive search firm who specialise in supporting Private Equity and growth capital journeys, for 4 years. Here she ran the events practice and was EA to two of the founding partners. Rose’s career began in retail at Jigsaw, a luxury ladies clothing company, and she believes that learning customer service values early on gave her a strong foundation for the polished service that she is able to bring to clients today.
Rose has a Masters in Business Management and a Degree in Advertising. She is about to start an evening course in silversmithing and stone setting so watch this space! When not working Rose enjoys country sports, baking (for the 10Eighty team) and horse racing.
Helen is stepping in for Rose whilst she is on maternity leave, providing the concierge service to our Platinum clients. Helen also runs our events programme and and provides EA support for the team.
Before joining 10Eighty, Helen has worked across Business Support and Talent based roles, helping first time Founders to build their businesses, with a specialism in everything people- finding and keeping the right teammates.
Helen’s passion is working in high growth start-ups and scale-ups, with people who care deeply about their people and culture.
Helen is a keen runner and CrossFitter having run the London Marathon, several Tough Mudders, and she has just started competing in Amateur CrossFit competitions.
However, as life is all about balance, she also loves to cook and bake, and has begun a quest to ‘bake’ the perfect Aperol Spritz!
Her life also wonderfully revolves around her 5 year old pug, Arnold, who accompanies her almost everywhere,
Lacey is an experienced Graphic Designer and has worked for busy sales teams, enhancing the products on offer. She specialises in layout and page design and has worked on a vast number of tenders and projects from across the Business and Industry sectors from pharmaceutical companies, and international law firms, to the world’s largest advertising company. She also has vast experience in the education sector, from nurseries to universities and everything in between. Yet she also has the versatility to create internal communications, employee brands, logos, illustrations, invitations and more.
She has a degree in Fashion Production and Design and has utilised these design and creative skills throughout her career and all aspects of her life. Most recently she has applied these skills throughout her garden and is awaiting seeds for next years’ garden plan. She’s also hoping to create a Christmas tea towel!
Nigel is a Non-Executive Director of 10Eighty. He has held Board level Group HR Director roles in FTSE250 and Fortune500 businesses and worked across seven sectors in his career. More recently he has worked in search for a leading Financial Services headhunter.
He is passionate about helping individuals and companies tap into their strengths and realise their potential. He has a particular interest in coaching, career pathing and neuro-diversity. As a qualified football coach he often looks to bring learnings from sports coaching into the world of work.
Outside of work, Nigel is on the executive team of a local West London club which is a feeder for Fulham FC. He also helps a dyslexic school with careers advice and internships.
Howard is an experienced HR professional. Over the last 12 years he has worked as an interim with C suite leaders giving advice on both business and HR strategy. He has worked with VTB Capital, Tungsten (AIM listed Fintech start up), London Metal Exchange and British Standards Institute.
Prior to his interim career, he was HRD at Cargill Investor Services and latterly co-led the joint venture of JP Morgan and Cargill to rebuild their commodities derivative business, growing top line revenues from £19 to £65 million in 30 months.
Howard says: “I am delighted to formalise my relationship with 10Eighty who I consider to be an agile and innovative HCM provider. I have known Michael and Liz for many years and admire their expertise, client focus and tenacity. They are a great business who I hope I can help get to the next stage of their growth and development. HCM is a tough and crowded space with some very big players, but I firmly believe 10Eighty have the capability and foresight to be a real innovator and challenger.”
Finance Director Nick has been ‘Chartered Accountanting’ for multinationals, startups and businesses in between since the 90s with a solid track record of helping young businesses get up and running. His forte is sorting out funding, investment, processes and creating reliable financial management reporting for stakeholders and investors.
You could describe Nick as The Singing Accountant with a penchant for water and snow sports.
He’s established six inclusive community choirs in Surrey – Vocality – and is part of a Barbershop Quartet/Octet. You may see Nick performing in pubs around Claygate or at renowned Thames Ditton folk venue, the Ram Club…
…and he’s organised an Oxford to Thames Ditton kayaking trip, is planning a ‘Three Men In A Boat’ style journey down the Thames in camping skiffs, and took part in a famous 90-kilometre cross country ski race in Sweden.
Sona, our Financial Controller and Fellow of The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales provides number-crunching support for a variety of businesses.
She gets a buzz from getting her figures spot on. Her ideal day is choc-a-block with completed tasks, challenges met, areas for improvement found and bottom lines increased. Working closely with Nick Lawson she ensures VAT returns and board meeting reports are executed on time.
You could describe Sona as a ‘veggie Nigella’ who prepares a mean aubergine curry and bakes a blinding banana and walnut loaf. She’s a seasoned traveller who adores a city break In New York or Venice, but truly loves London, especially the Globe Theatre end of the South Bank.
She volunteers weekends at a local hospice serving tea and biscuits to patients, which: “can be a bit overwhelming and requires considerable diplomacy but rewarding too as you’re a friendly face making a difference at a difficult time”
Michael is CEO and Founder of 10Eighty. He is passionate about helping people maximise their potential and believes everyone should have job satisfaction and a successful career. He helps organisations design jobs and career paths that maximise employee engagement.
Michael’s background is in Human Resources, having worked in the NHS and Financial Services sector. He has successfully run HR consultancies specialising in career management for the last 20 years.
As an avid reader/commentator on the world of work and sport, he regularly draws parallels between the two. Michael’s favourite scribe is Matthew Syed, Times sports correspondent.
Michael is CEO and Founder of 10Eighty. He is passionate about helping people maximise their potential and believes everyone should have job satisfaction and a successful career. He helps organisations design jobs and career paths that maximise employee engagement.
Liz is a Director and Co-founder of 10Eighty, and has provided HR solutions to a wide range of industries since 2005 working with numerous firms to understand their needs. She’s a great believer in the power and intelligence of networking. She’s always thinking about her next introduction and with 900+ Facebook friends and 2700+ LinkedIn connections the possibilities are endless.
She’s passionate about making a difference through her mentoring work for the CIPD. Making people happy in their career every day is her ultimate goal.
You could describe Liz as an art lover, tennis enthusiast (look out for her at the Hurlingham Club or at Wimbledon in June), hostess with the mostest, foodie à la France, and devoted mum of Orlando and Freddie who enjoys the perfect work-life balance.
Business Development Executive, Hannah is our succession planner (a 10Eighty bench strength) with a background in public sector outplacement support, successfully placing individuals with learning disabilities and autism.
She’s driven by helping others achieve and seeing others succeed, particularly when they don’t know they need career help…you may not be surprised to learn that she has championed 10Eighty’s CareerCENTRE™ from Day One.
A few of her favourite work things are problem solving, building business and personal relationships and making a difference whilst having fun because: “You can’t take yourself too seriously.”
You could describe Hannah as a ‘pedalhead’ often found cycling around Bushy Park, Hampton Court, and ‘part-time petrolhead’ who occasionally races around Brands Hatch in a souped-up Merc.
When wheel-free, Hannah spends QT with friends and family especially Alfie, her fun loving and determined little boy, juggles 10Eighty tasks with keeping Alfie entertained and supporting hubbie Bradley’s business.
Marc is an award-winning HR Senior Leader who has a legacy of sustained tangible results with the strategies he has developed and delivered.
Marc is an expert at deepening and increasing employee engagement to enable the delivery of these tangible results.
Marc is highly skilled at aligning engagement results with the delivery of leadership development solutions that build organisational capabilities.
With a huge experience working with large corporate organisations to retain, engage and develop their leaders, Alyson is business focused coach. Individuals who work with Alyson will be empowered to own their careers. Alyson prides herself on her ability to form long lasting relationships based on her values of trust and integrity. Values form a strong part of why she is a coach and are at the heart of her meaning and purpose.
Clare is an experienced career transition consultant, who draws on recruitment and talent management experience gained as an HR professional in the City. She combines this depth of understanding with a practical focus on helping clients to deliver their best.
David is a career coach supporting front and middle office professionals in achieving their career goals. He has over 25 years of business experience working predominantly in the financial services sector. He specialises in supporting financial services professionals (from buy and sell side institutions) as well as lawyers. Within private practice, he works with lawyers at all levels from Newly Qualifieds to Partner level. He also supports in-house lawyers at all levels and across all sectors.
Gill has many years of leadership and organisational development experience working in groups and on a one-to-one basis. mostly within large organisations.
The retail, insurance, health and hospitality sectors feature in Gill’s diverse portfolio. Caring for twin daughters took her down a lifelong learning and flexible freelancing career path and work with several large consultancies.
She favours projects that involve partnering because “You’re supporting people to move forward, and when creativity and collaboration play a part you can really make a difference”.
You could describe Gill as a classic car fan with a ‘Norfolk Mustard’ Lotus Elan in the driveway, a seasoned traveller with a particular fondness for Mornington Peninsular in Victoria, Australia, a lifelong jazz modern and tap dancer, an ex-school governor of 10+ years, a regular gym goer, a linguaphile who enjoys a chat in French or Spanish, events coordinator for her local CIPD committee and author of the Women’s Careers White Paper.
Executive coach and facilitator Emma is a People Development professional with 2 decades plus experience of training and coaching business professionals from many sectors.
Her focus is developing people and maximising their potential for leadership through coaching and training facilitation “My MO Is helping people do the right thing at the right time with support from emotional intelligence insights”.
You could describe Emma as a wellie-clad country girl, enthusiastic about animals and maintaining the beautiful English countryside who loves nothing more than walking her dog Jake in rural Sussex.
Indoors you’ll find Emma cooking Italian cuisine for her family with fresh local produce washed down with wine, champagne or prosecco, watching procedural cop shows like CSI, enjoying her village’s local music festival or rocking out to the Kaiser Chiefs in Brighton.
Trevor has 15 years’ experience as a journalist with spells as deputy editor on Management Today and editor/editor-in-chief at Human Resources magazine.
As a content creator, he loves to drag the best ideas out of people and as a ‘Collaboration Advocate’ he argues we must kick down silos and pop learning bubbles to work better together.
You could describe Trevor as a team player who’s fascinated with patterns in football (and elsewhere) particularly those his team, Watford FC, make at Vicarage Road. He’s ludicrously proud of coaching a football team of 9 to 10 year olds and helping them develop as people and players.
Trevor factoids: back in the day he was area fencing champion and played the French Horn to Grade 8, he’s currently a presenter on St Albans-based Radio Veralum and is a big fan of Catalan band, Sense Sal. Ole!
Sarah is an experienced career coach and works with clients from a wide ranging background. She is 10Eighty’s LinkedIn expert and spends time with clients helping them to gain the right attention to their profiles. Sarah also works with organisations on staff engagement surveys.
David has developed a portfolio of activities which derive principally from 25 years of commercial and investment banking expertise with HSBC and Deutsche Bank. He helps existing and aspiring entrepreneurs, providing one-to-one and group mentoring. He is a recognised expert in his field, regularly speaking at conferences and running seminars and workshops. He also works in Executive Education at Cass Business School. Topics delivered include Entrepreneurship, Corporate Entrepreneurship, Managing Strategic Change, Leadership and Building High-Performance Teams. David has published 8 books on different aspects of starting and developing your own business.
Jo has gained extensive experience in career transition programmes, working on a one-to-one basis with individuals of all levels of seniority from a variety of industries.
David believes that challenge and support can go hand in hand. His personal aim is to help people understand and realise their potential and to play to their strengths.
His professional career started at Bradford and Bingley as Assistant Manager before becoming Branch Manager at Nationwide which helps bring pragmatic experience to his coaching.
Peter is highly experienced and has worked for more than 20 years in career management, including career change. In particular, he has worked with individuals taking control of their career for the first time and determining the appropriate course of action to enable them to fulfill their personal goals.
Peter provides assessment of career options, helps develop targeted CVs and provides interview training. He has extensive experience working with senior clients across a broad range of job roles and sectors.
Liz has worked internationally, coaching and training individuals, teams and organisations around the world. She has a breadth of experience working with clients and learners across a range of sectors from children up to Director level. Liz specialises in visual mapping techniques and works closely with clients to unlock their power to think differently.
Flicka is an Executive Career Coach with extensive experience in providing mentoring, coaching and transition services to all employees including Executives and Directors both in the Private and Public Sectors. A results’ driven, commercial, practical and pragmatic coach with empathy when facing challenges and solving problems. With the ability to mentor colleagues in leadership competencies and management strategy. Flicka has a passion for developing others to achieve their maximum output. A positive, flexible, creative and hard-working coach with strong interpersonal skills, who delivers high-quality services, displays empathy and is reliable.
Judith is an experienced career and leadership coach who supports clients at all levels, across multiple sectors. She has worked for over 20 years in corporate talent management roles, wearing many hats including coach, people manager and strategic business partner. She has successfully helped organisations develop leaders, engage teams and nurture talent; building capability and driving performance, to deliver results.
Kimberly has mentored at all levels within an organisation. She has experience of both HR and business leadership so understands the skills and knowledge required for both. As a business leader Kimberly understands the full range of knowledge and skills required to build a successful business and has experience of each of the key areas of business such as finance, sales, marketing, client relationships, people management and products or services.
Kris is a career coach with 10 years experience guiding individuals through changes to their role or transitioning into new roles due to business transformation. She has also coached individuals to start a new business or portfolio career and find more work/life balance. Kris combines this business background with her own experience of making successful career changes in the US and UK to empower clients to build their careers and reach their goals and aspirations.
Michaela’s passion is helping individuals, teams and organisations discover and then achieve their true potential. She is an experienced and values led Facilitator, Executive Coach, Consultant and Mentor, coupled with a unique blend of extensive operational Transformational Change, HR, and Finance experience gained in multinational companies of size and scale. This operational experience gives her a real empathy and depth of understanding of challenges facing leaders and managers today.
Mike, Executive Coach, has worked in the financial services sector since the 80s. After a decade or so as a Senior Executive in Lloyds Banking Group, he yearned for a new challenge and embarked on a career as a coach.
Applying his business and behavioural expertise – he has a Masters in Executive Coaching from Ashridge Business School – Mike has worked with senior leaders and teams across the sector working with established names, challenger banks and startups. In a sector that’s working hard to rebuild its reputation, he leads the delivery of ethics and integrity programmes in the UK and abroad.
Keen to give something back, he gives his time as a trainee psychotherapist to those who find themselves excluded and is completing a Masters in Psychotherapy at the Metanoia Institute.
You could describe Mike as a dyed-in-the-wool Gooner – ex-owner of a flat on Highbury North Bank where he stood as a boy, and an AFC season ticket holder who saw his team beat Inter Milan 5-1 on his 40th – a fan of off-West End theatre, especially the intimate and edgy productions at Islington’s Almeida, and proud owner of a ‘no bells or whistles’ Morgan, ‘perfect for weekend poodling’.
Urvashi is an experienced executive coach with a track record of working with large organisations, start-ups and global matrix to retain, engage and develop leaders. Urvashi’s strength derives from her business background and her focus on offering commercial, creative and effective coaching for individuals and teams. Clients who work with Urvashi will be empowered to manage their career path effectively. Drawing on her diverse experience in business, client management, human resource management and leadership development, Urvashi adds real value for clients, helping to develop clarity, connection, and confidence in their professional and personal lives, to realise their full potential and develop the emotional resilience to achieve their dreams.
Stuart has substantial experience of managing change (pre Covid!) including downsizing, restructuring, IPOs and M&A – all of which created talent and career management issues and opportunities. He is now focussing on supporting the transition from corporate life to the next stage of the journey including career shift, new life goals and retirement.
Nicky is an accredited Leadership Coach and Facilitator. She has a background in professional services and the advantage of having worked for blue chip organisations, as well as having set up and run a successful business. Using Cognitive Behavioural coaching techniques, typical topics covered in sessions include raising visibility, developing critical leadership capabilities, increasing resilience, managing upwards, imposter syndrome and building confidence. Supporting her coaching Nicky runs workshops on managing stress, raising awareness around mental health and mindfulness.
Sue is an influential, commercial and pragmatic HR leader, with 30 years’ experience in HR she has led and developed HR functions and was a keen member of numerous business leadership teams. She has worked within the manufacturing and financial services sectors, for global companies with different nationalities of ownership and types of organisational cultures. She has worked extensively with executive and senior teams as organisations go through significant change, following merger, acquisition or strategic change initiatives. Her background has helped Sue develop a strong insight into how to navigate change at an individual, team and organisational level.
Alison is a business mentor and coach who enjoys the variety and challenge of coaching at all levels. Her leadership style is nurturing, and she enjoys passing on her skills by mentoring. She has developed these skills further by taking on mentoring and coaching assignments from CEOs to paralegals. Until recently, she ran a very successful law firm navigating many challenges. This makes her well equipped to support clients facing fundamental transformational change, as well as working in our ever fast paced and changing landscape to make the most of opportunities. She believes the key to success in any business is personal resilience, empathy and excellent, honest communication skills.
Andrew is passionate about working with leaders who are prepared to practice self-leadership to become the best possible version of themselves. He works with a broad range of leaders who make a positive impact on their businesses and enjoys seeing them fufill their potential as human beings.
Chris has some 30 years odd helping individuals and organisations manage change management and personal development. He has worked across a variety of sectors both Public and Private. In addition to his coaching practice he designs and runs assessment and development centres and trains interviewers. He helps clients understand their unique skills and shares his knowledge to help them succeed in their career particularly in interviews or selection processes.
Julia is an Executive Coach with over 20 years’ experience of leadership and coaching roles in the professional services sector. She is passionate about helping her clients achieve their full potential and enjoys seeing them develop and flourish. Julia believes that the power of coaching lies in giving an individual the confidence to take action, move forward and become the best that they can be. Julia feels fortunate to have combined a successful career with raising two wonderful sons so she knows what it is like to juggle parenthood with a career.
Paul is an author, speaker, facilitator and coach specialising in leadership and mindset who now works with leaders across a variety of organisations to build leadership capability to enhance performance, build confidence and develop their careers.
Fiona is a Leadership Development Specialist and qualified Executive Coach. During her career, Fiona has worked across businesses and sectors including, financial services, food and media retailing, telecommunications, education, insurance, and professional services.
Quentin supports Senior Executives to excel in ambitious, growth-oriented businesses. Typically accountable for championing the firm’s competitive vision, his clients face strategic, operational and people-related difficulties. They must themselves adapt in order to enhance their organisations. Quentin challenges leaders to achieve distinction by empowering themselves to stay ahead of fast-moving market demands.
Nigel is an experienced Executive and team Coach and helps leaders to build their capability and transform their performance. He has successfully coached in a wide variety of business sectors and his coaching is informed by his own extensive senior international leadership experience.
Inspired by the Gandhi quote, ‘be the change you want to see in the world’, Snéha values supporting managers and leaders in their personal, professional and organisational development. She is an experienced facilitator, executive coach and provides consultancy support to leaders specifically in relation to developing and implementing values, demonstrated in organisational culture, code of conduct and behaviours.
Ian is a Senior Executive Coach; his experience has been gained in the delivery of Coaching and Team Programmes to major blue-chip organisations in London, Singapore, Thailand, Tokyo, Malaysia, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Nigeria and South Africa.
Lucy believes you know what to do, and that you can do it. She will ask you questions, listen to you and hear you, she will support you and critically, challenge you. Lucy offers you a safe space to clear the mental load and the internal voices that get in the way of you being able to do what everyone knows you can do, but that you doubt from time to time. Lucy understands what it feels like to be new to a role, with huge expectations of yourself, whilst also balancing multiple demands at home and at work. Working with her will allow you to get out of the day-to-day drama and self-doubt and focus on doing what you want and need to do.
If you’d like to know more about what we do, leave your details below and we’ll call you to chat.