I began coaching in the early 1990s — before Life Coaching was a formally recognised profession and before the worldwide web existed

My starting point was organisations, not individuals. With fifteen years of experience as a business analyst in the financial industry and several years at IBM in the tech support and training areas plus my own experience running a small business while raising a child, I was well placed to help small businesses operate more effectively and navigate significant transitions.

Over time, I noticed something consistent: the common denominator in most organisational challenges was the mindset and the patterns of the person leading them. As I began helping those individuals with their personal development, the organisations often improved as well. My work gradually and naturally shifted from the organisational to the individual.

This led me to study a wide range of tools that could help me support people more effectively. I became fascinated by what shapes a person’s perception of themselves and their capabilities, and how these perceptions can shift in ways that allow them to become more confident and more able to create a satisfying life and career.

Over the years I studied and explored many different approaches, including NLP, hypnotherapy, somatics, psychodynamics, art therapy, and CBT. I also read extensively in the personal development field and followed the growing body of research emerging from neuroscience and neuroplasticity. Increasingly, my work naturally developed into a combination of coaching and counselling, helping clients address emotional patterns that were limiting their sense of possibility.

As coaching became more formally recognised as a profession, I chose to obtain formal training. In 2008 I enrolled at the South African College of Applied Psychology, where I obtained my coaching diploma in 2010. I also studied Transactional Analysis for several years with Karen Pratt of TA Matters, an international coach trainer. I found Transactional Analysis to be a particularly valuable framework for mapping the issues of self-worth, confidence, and personal responsibility that often underlie many life challenges.

My practice initially developed in Cape Town, South Africa, before moving to Johannesburg in 2012. As clients relocated internationally, I began working with them remotely — so I was already experienced in online coaching long before it became mainstream.

Since relocating to the UK in 2021, my practice has become almost entirely international. Through referrals from existing clients, I have the privilege of working with people across five continents.

I was born in Vancouver, Canada to parents who had emigrated from South Africa. I have lived on three continents, in widely varying circumstances, and have experienced both financial difficulty and financial comfort at different points in my life.

I have lived many different roles: daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother. I have been single, married, divorced, widowed, and a single parent. I have been a corporate executive, a stay-at-home parent, and a small business owner.

I have experienced periods of excellent health and times of serious illness — including a major accident that required me to relearn how to walk. I have supported close family members through severe health challenges and end-of-life care. I have started over more than once.

Over the course of my life I have watched the extraordinary development of the internet and the world wide web, which has transformed both everyday life and the way I work with clients. Information that was difficult to obtain when I was young can now be accessed within minutes, and I feel fortunate to live in an increasingly connected world that has allowed me to now work online with people from many different cultures and countries.

In short, I have lived a varied life, and those experiences have taught me a great deal about the complexity of being human.

Perhaps most importantly, my own life experiences sparked a deep curiosity about what shapes human behaviour—what drives people forward and what holds them back. Growing up in a deeply dysfunctional family led me to work hard on my own personal development, and that process ignited a lifelong interest in understanding how people heal and grow and has became the foundation of everything I have gone on to offer others.

Since my late teens I have studied human behaviour extensively. I have read widely across many different approaches to psychological and emotional development and have explored both formal and informal paths of learning. Although I studied psychology formally at intervals, I ultimately found that coaching offers a frame that is more aligned with my value system.

Always keen to expand my knowledge, I continue to this day to read and explore various topics and tools that could impact on a person’s wellbeing, such as neuroscience, nutritional health, perceptual reframing, Internal Family Systems theory and much more.

Coaching & Counselling:

• Life coaching since the early 1990s
• Diploma in Coaching — South African College of Applied Psychology (2008–2010)
• Transactional Analysis — studied with Karen Pratt, TA Matters (international coach trainer)
• NLP, hypnotherapy, CBT, psychodynamics, somatics, art therapy
• Internal Family Systems (IFS)
• Neuroscience and neuroplasticity (ongoing study)
• 12-Step recovery coaching (AA, NA, CoDA, Al-Anon, NarAnon and others)
• ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) service work

Somatics & Bodywork:

• Massage therapist, trained 1993
• Reiki master, qualified 2002
• Alexander Technique teacher, qualified 2003
• TRE practitioner, trained by David Bercelli 2011
• Bowen therapist, qualified 2013

Nutrition:

• Keto, low carb, sugar-free and gluten-free approaches
• Author of a published recipe book (2013)

Previous Career:

• 15 years as a business analyst in the financial industry
• 5 years as a professional trainer, including at IBM
• Small business coaching and organisational transition work
• Non-profit sector coaching