Karen is an experienced consultant in internal and change communications with an established coaching career. She provides communications advice and planning to support change programmes and HR interventions at a senior level. With coaching clients ranging from unemployed PR managers to board level executives and Assistant Chief Constables, Karen helps her clients identify their ‘best selves’ and to minimise the issues which prevent them performing effectively. This is particularly important when clients are under pressure to deliver and advocate change to others at the same time as coping with change personally.
Coaching style
Helping clients gain new skills, new insights and new confidence, Karen’s style is challenging, but with support – she is always on your side. She’s keen to ensure that coaching doesn’t seem too ‘psycho-babble’ and as well as making transparent the techniques she uses, (e.g. GROW, Prochaska and DiClemente’s model of personal change, etc.), she’s pragmatic and practical. She’ll ask you to consider what actions you can take and urge you to try something different if what you’re doing isn’t working. She has used psychometrics and 360 degree feedback to give a ‘baseline’ to the coaching intervention which is especially helpful in organisational settings.
Background
Karen led the internal communications practice for Hill & Knowlton for 18 months, and previously worked with various PR agencies in London and Birmingham. She currently consults with two change communication agencies. Alongside her coaching and senior management development, Karen is an independent consultant and interim for an extensive range of clients in the pharmaceutical industry and Chaucer Insurance, KPMG, and Shell. Her coaching clients include International Nuclear Services (INS), the Imperial War Museum, the College of Policing, BP, GE, GSK, the Home Office and Comic Relief, as well as several smaller organisations.
Training and qualifications
Karen is a qualified senior level executive coach and professional member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. She is a certified assessor for Hogan, and NEO. Karen holds additional certification in the Team Conversational Norms Diagnostic (The Right Conversation) and BPA Level A and B from Birkbeck College, University of London. Karen studied English Literature at the University of Leeds and subsequently gained a Masters in Organisational Behaviour (with Merit) again from Birkbeck.
I have found working with Karen a refreshing and enriching experience. She has fast tracked my thinking about how I interact with my teams and colleagues, helping me find solutions far more quickly and effectively. Karen is warm, friendly and funny but is not afraid to ‘call it out’ when she suspects I’m not being honest with myself or if I’ve got myself into an entrenched position on an issue or a particular relationship.