Before I became a coach, I spent 17 years as a recruitment consultant — partnering with organisations from startups to multinationals on their most important hiring decisions.

I interviewed thousands of leaders. Sat across from people at every level of seniority. And over time I became a student of human behaviour without even realising it.

I saw the real reasons people left organisations — and it was rarely about money. I saw what made cultures magnetic and what made them toxic. I saw unnecessary turnover coming a mile off — and I knew most of it was entirely avoidable.

After years of rejection, conflict resolution, and building trust under commercial pressure — influence and relationship building came as second nature. What I didn't realise at the time was that I was spending 17 years mastering the two things that make great leaders great.

I wasn't the perfect leader out of the box. Far from it. Early on I was task focused, not people focused — and I learned more from what I got wrong than what I got right. The shift came when I stopped driving results through activity and started truly prioritising the people responsible for them, an Executive Coach and some uncomfortably accurate feedback opened my eyes to the blind spots I was obvious to.

The moment that crystallised it was sitting in a boardroom running a training session for my team. I looked around the room and thought — this is it. This is what I'm here to do.

Develop people. Help them see what they're truly capable of so it becomes more enjoyable.

Because I genuinely cannot stand people being unnecessarily unhappy — especially when the solution is right there, waiting to be unlocked.

That realisation became Optimise Talent Coaching — and the work I've been doing ever since.