I’m Alex, and this is the long version of my story. If you’re looking for more concise information about my professional background, you can find my LinkedIn profile here. Otherwise, read on…

I was born in Toronto, but have lived in the UK for most of my life and in London for 20 years. The experience of growing up in two countries has had a big impact on my life and work. After two very internationally focused degrees, I started my career with a research internship at the Institute for Public Policy Research, a leading UK think tank, where I worked on a diverse range of research and policy projects.

I currently work at Nesta, a UK-based innovation foundation. Over the past seven years there I have held research, strategy and management positions. My current role involves supporting governments around the world to design and implement innovation policies in creative and experimental ways.

I’ve learned a huge amount from work in research organisations, and am grateful for the opportunities my career has given me so far to grow and develop my skills. But until a few years ago, it still felt like something was missing.

Whenever I thought about the work that I was most proud of and that got to the core of who I was, my research wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. Instead it was experiences like the mentoring I did through the 50 Foot Women programme, and the voluntary work I do for the homeless charity Crisis.

Prompted by a great question from a friend in the summer of 2016, I realised that I do my best work when I am partnering with people in a way that supports them to achieve their goals. At that time a series of nudges from the universe led me to the Coaching School, and from 2016-17 I took their Foundation Course. This gave me the tools and the confidence to start working as a freelance coach.

Since then, I have continued to invest in my professional development as a coach. I have received accreditation as an Associate Certified Coach from the International Coaching Federation (ICF), and have done further training with Tara Mohr, a leading coach and author of Playing Big.

I am currently training as a systems psychodynamic coach with the Tavistock Institute (2021/22), developing my skills in supporting people to maximise their performance and their potential at work through consideration of what’s going on for them both internally and externally. You can find out more about my work in this space here.

I now divide my life into ‘before coaching’ and ‘after coaching’. Training as a coach prompted me to make some big changes in my own life, including reducing my hours at Nesta to create space for coaching and other projects I wanted to pursue, such as co-founding a community storytelling project called Odyssey Stories in 2018.

It has opened me up to other exciting potential future paths, and overturned a lot of assumptions and beliefs I held about myself which turned out to either be unhelpful or untrue. I love operating from this space of possibility.

I know firsthand how important it is to have structured support when making these kinds of changes, which is why I am passionate about sharing this approach with others and accompanying them on their journey. For more about my coaching, click here.