My Story
I didn’t start out in HR.
My first career was as a data analyst in the Royal Air Force, where I learned quickly how to perform in a male-dominated environment. It gave me discipline, perspective, and the ability to find my voice.
In my early twenties, my dad was killed in a bike accident. That loss shaped me deeply. Just a few years later, at 27, I became a mum to a child with lifelong special needs — at a time when I didn’t even know the basics of caring for a child, let alone one with additional challenges.
With no family nearby, I spent eight years running on three or four hours of sleep a night. Those years taught me stamina, grit, and the importance of finding your own way when the map doesn’t exist.
In my early thirties, I began my HR journey. With no experience, I enrolled in a post-graduate programme in HRM, volunteered for work experience, and within weeks was offered a paid role. Soon after, I joined a management consultancy, where I absorbed the principle that’s still central to my work today: start with what the business needs.
That ethos guided me through a series of rapid steps: HR Manager at The Gadget Shop, HR Director roles, and eventually SVP HR for Claire’s Accessories in Europe.
At Claire’s, I was balancing company expansion with the most difficult senior leader relationship of my career that became my “best worst experience.” I came close to burnout, but it was also where I first experienced coaching — a turning point that ultimately opened the door to the work I do now.
It was also during this time that my mum was killed in a car accident, another profound loss that shaped how I view resilience and perspective.
In 2011, I became VP HR at Bombardier Services, responsible for HR in an international division of 6,000 people. I had no background in rail or engineering, but that’s where I truly learned what it means to be an HR business partner — building organisational capability, rolling this out across my team all while learning a complex industry from the ground up.
In 2012, I began formal training in coaching, and the development has continued ever since. When you work in this space, you soon realise it’s a continuous journey!
By 2016, I had launched Qi Performance, bringing together all those threads: leadership, resilience, adaptability, performance, growth, business pragmatism, and behavioural science.
And in 2023, I married Laurent. It was a life-changing moment in a different way — the start of a partnership that defines every part of my life now. We live by our couple values of Love, Harmony, and Care, and those values run through both our relationship and our work. We don’t just share a home — we share a vision, and a way of working with leaders and teams that’s deeply grounded in partnership.
Today, I work with CEOs and senior teams across the UK, Europe, North America, and China. What drives me is the same principle that’s run through my whole career: leadership makes or breaks performance and people.
Get it right, and it unlocks energy, trust, and results. Get it wrong, and it can catastrophically erode performance, culture, and belief — and everyone feels it.
“What matters most to me is impact. I’m here to help leaders show up where it counts — to navigate complexity, lead with positive energy and intent, and grow in ways that create lasting, positive change for their business.”