Who is Kate?
You
Well, that's a good question. Who are any of us, anyway? But if that's too big a dilemma to start with, here's a short(ish) version of my story...
With a rich early life experience that involved living and schooling in the UK, Africa and the Middle East. I completed a BA (Hons) degree in modern languages before becoming a graduate trainee in the technology industry. After five years I moved to the UK's largest ISP and FTSE 100 Company and worked as Product Manager, overseeing the launch of the first residential, unlimited dial-up Internet service.
Having developed a steady yoga and meditation practice by this time, and finding I was called to explore this connection further, I took a year off to study and practice intensively in India and Europe. Soon after this my teacher suggested I cover some of her classes. Although it was unplanned, I soon realised that I loved working in a transformative way with people and never made it back to the technology industry. After five years teaching at London's top yoga centres I had to have surgery to remove part of my right foot, and this meant I could no longer teach full-time. I chose to move from personal into professional development (although I don't believe you can truly separate the two). From 2006-9, as the Training Manager for The Partnering Initiative, I helped pioneer a new kind of collaborative leadership that enabled cross-sectoral teams to deal with intractable problems that no one organisation could tackle on their own. Three years later I set up and delivered the first two School for Social Entrepreneurs programmes in Devon, delivering innovative, action-based learning programmes to help build the growing social enterprise sector.
In 2010 I received some extraordinary coaching myself, and realised that this was something I really wanted to do. So in 2011 I started up my own coaching and leadership development business. I'm now accredited at Senior Practitioner Level with the European Coaching and Mentoring Council (EMCC), a Certified Analytic-Network Coach and hold a PGDip with Merit in Coaching & Mentoring from Sheffield Business School. In 2015, after a period of ill health, I felt called to take my skills into the NHS, and since 2016 have worked part-time in a leadership and organisational development role.
Throughout this journey I've enjoyed writing, creating stories and making sense of my own life through words. Today my creative edge, which I am developing through a further postgraduate course, is attempting to write and embody new narratives that shift us as human beings, communities and organisations embedded within the wider ecosystem of our planet. You can see my latest work on the MA Poetics of Imagination student blog.
I live in the woods on Dartmoor, in Devon, with my husband Ben, an artist, and two somewhat disobedient dogs.
Well, that's a good question. Who are any of us, anyway? But if that's too big a dilemma to start with, here's a short(ish) version of my story...
With a rich early life experience that involved living and schooling in the UK, Africa and the Middle East. I completed a BA (Hons) degree in modern languages before becoming a graduate trainee in the technology industry. After five years I moved to the UK's largest ISP and FTSE 100 Company and worked as Product Manager, overseeing the launch of the first residential, unlimited dial-up Internet service.
Having developed a steady yoga and meditation practice by this time, and finding I was called to explore this connection further, I took a year off to study and practice intensively in India and Europe. Soon after this my teacher suggested I cover some of her classes. Although it was unplanned, I soon realised that I loved working in a transformative way with people and never made it back to the technology industry. After five years teaching at London's top yoga centres I had to have surgery to remove part of my right foot, and this meant I could no longer teach full-time. I chose to move from personal into professional development (although I don't believe you can truly separate the two). From 2006-9, as the Training Manager for The Partnering Initiative, I helped pioneer a new kind of collaborative leadership that enabled cross-sectoral teams to deal with intractable problems that no one organisation could tackle on their own. Three years later I set up and delivered the first two School for Social Entrepreneurs programmes in Devon, delivering innovative, action-based learning programmes to help build the growing social enterprise sector.
In 2010 I received some extraordinary coaching myself, and realised that this was something I really wanted to do. So in 2011 I started up my own coaching and leadership development business. I'm now accredited at Senior Practitioner Level with the European Coaching and Mentoring Council (EMCC), a Certified Analytic-Network Coach and hold a PGDip with Merit in Coaching & Mentoring from Sheffield Business School. In 2015, after a period of ill health, I felt called to take my skills into the NHS, and since 2016 have worked part-time in a leadership and organisational development role.
Throughout this journey I've enjoyed writing, creating stories and making sense of my own life through words. Today my creative edge, which I am developing through a further postgraduate course, is attempting to write and embody new narratives that shift us as human beings, communities and organisations embedded within the wider ecosystem of our planet. You can see my latest work on the MA Poetics of Imagination student blog.
I live in the woods on Dartmoor, in Devon, with my husband Ben, an artist, and two somewhat disobedient dogs.
