Catrina Holme

Executive coach to inspiring leaders

Drawing on her own extensive Board-level experience, Catrina works with clients to achieve ambitious professional success with sustainable personal balance

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It’s lonely at the top

Leaders know how to succeed. They have demonstrated that. But what then?

Where do the very best leaders find the balance of support and challenge they need to be more resourceful, creative and truly excel?

Demands on leaders are growing and shifting. In a busy schedule, how can you make a meaningful change in your professional success whilst preserving some personal balance?

How might you optimise returns or engage with complex stakeholder groups or develop strategic thinking whilst maintaining employee engagement?

Working together, I can help you to win your way. To identify the issues and develop the opportunities – and bring clarity as to how to pragmatically achieve that success.

Coaching is a conversation like no other​

Coaching with me is a blend of high support and high challenge in the same conversation. A conversation that is non-judgemental and non-directive, a space where you be intellectually curious, open to challenge and ambitious for professional – and personal – success.

Coaching is all about you

The sole item on the agenda is you. My role is to bring clarity and a sense of purpose to whatever or wherever you would like to see change and to help you construct a clear, pragmatic plan to make it happen.

More than Mentoring

Coaching is more effective than mentoring. I won’t tell you what I think the answer is, but I am very good at getting you to answer your own question, to believe in your capacity to find a better one. My observations as a Non-Executive Director have shown that ambitious change is delivered sustainably and at pace where there is true ownership of the plan.

Win Your Way - Whatever your destination

My goal is for you to be more successful – on your terms. You may want to transform your own or your business’ performance, you may wish to consider a step up to the Board or an entire career rethink or perhaps you are looking for how to succeed whilst preserving some personal balance. Whatever it is, coaching can effect meaningful and sustainable change.

A Coach with Lived Experience

I’ve had a long and successful career in business. I have held many board-level positions and know the experience of sitting round a board table, and the pressure of leadership. A coaching conversation with me is a conversation with someone who truly understands the demanding environments in which you operate.

Good coaching is life-changing – and fun

Coaching with me is challenging, but it’s also fun and liberating and delivers results. For many clients it is the first time they have allowed themselves the luxury of re-imagining their business and personal goals and writing their own strategic plan for success. Clients talk of coaching with me as life-changing.

Good coaching is life-changing – and fun

Coaching with me is challenging, but it’s also fun and liberating and delivers results. For many clients it is the first time they have allowed themselves the luxury of re-imagining their business and personal goals and writing their own strategic plan for success. Clients talk of coaching with me as life-changing.

Services

Work with me

I coach Board-level executives, and senior executives stepping up to the Board, on a one-to-one basis to help them achieve their professional and personal ambitions. Those clients may come to me directly or through one of several corporate sponsors.

Winning your way

For board-level executives and inspiring leaders.

Discover your personal vision of success and create a clear, actionable plan to achieve it. This programme focuses on making meaningful changes to your professional success and personal balance.

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Bridging the conversation

For Private equity and portfolio companies, and family offices.

Navigate complex shareholder demands, manage conflicts of interest, and refine executive leadership skills. You’ll gain a more collaborative decision-making environment and optimised returns.

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Stepping up

For major corporates and headhunters.

Support executive succession planning and professional development for high performers, including non-executive roles. Drive employee engagement and invest in your key competitive asset.

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WHY ME?

Straightforward excellence

However complex your situation is, I can assure you I can help.

I walked the walk

I have sat round the Board table for more than 25 years as a Partner in a leading European Private Equity firm, as a Co-Founder of a successful Environmental business, and as a Chair and Non-Executive Director for many high-growth and multi-billion-pound organisations.

I’ve experienced the highs and lows. I know the challenges you face. I also know how to help you to overcome them and discover new levels of success.

The knowledge that I bring into the coaching conversation from that broad experience, gives me particular empathy for the challenges faced by my clients – and an unparalleled depth to our coaching conversations.

I am ambitious for you – and genuinely care

Many coaches like to take a detached approach. I am direct and straightforward and ambitious for my clients. I bring that pace to our sessions to deliver results fast. I have a natural level of care and empathy that is rare to find alongside senior business experience and will go above and beyond to help you get results.

I find personal fulfilment in supporting management to flourish – both personally and professionally – and seeing the way business performance follows. I particularly love the energy and creativity of founders and executives with an entrepreneurial mindset, which aligns with my own straightforward and positive approach.

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Testimonials

Hear directly from my clients

‘I now feel more naturally confident and position myself at my true value.’

I started my sessions feeling negative about the job search process. Catrina has an ability to switch this around and I always leave our sessions feeling positive, open to change, and with clear actions.

Cat is an exceptionally good listener and refers back to previous conversations, which is really useful.
Senior Designer, Luxury Brands
‘Remarkable empathy, energy, intelligence and insight.’

Being coached by Catrina has been an incredibly worthwhile experience. She is always able to identify patterns, break down problems into their constituent parts and establish realistic goals.

I never failed to come out of our sessions feeling calmer and more focused. I can’t recommend Catrina highly enough.
Chief Leader Writer, National Broadsheet
‘It was incredible to feel listened to.’

Catrina is an excellent listener. I felt like I could talk anything out - and feel so listened to. I could never wait for our next session.

I went in with some very clear problems to address. I emerged feeling totally empowered with said problems solved.

Whatever Catrina is doing, it works. I now feel like the train is moving forward - and I’m driving it!
Author
‘Catrina always went above and beyond with understanding and compassion.’

I had become increasingly frustrated at work and wanted to refocus on the actions I could control to achieve my desired outcomes.

Catrina helped me better appreciate my own values and aspirations, manage my internal frustrations and question assumptions that I’d spent my life falsely taking for granted. I enjoyed the level of challenge, assertive but never combative. For me, that’s the mark of a great coach.
Sales director, ESG Research
‘To talk openly and honestly to someone who listens and understands is invaluable.’

Before coaching with Catrina, I felt somewhat rudderless and confused about my direction of travel.

Today, I feel emboldened and have greater confidence in my convictions. While everything isn’t perfect, I understand my options and what I need to do to improve things. Catrina provides this clarity of thought.
Director, Family Office
‘Catrina is a great listener.’

Catrina is very good at getting you to answer your own questions - questions you didn’t previously know the answer to!
Catrina was able to draw out my muddled thoughts and make sense of them. She doesn’t shy away from difficult conversations and challenged me to justify my thinking. But when I came out of our sessions, I always had a clarity of purpose and direction.
Director, Family Office
‘Catrina helped me find the answers inside me.’

I have a strong sense of purpose and vision, but lack self-discipline. And I know I have some self-limiting beliefs. I decided to work with a coach to help me stay focused and accountable so I could deliver on my dreams.

I don’t mean to overstate this, but my sessions with Catrina were nothing less than life-changing. Who knows what’s next? Catrina is an absolute natural, a brilliant coach.
Filmmaker
‘I came away with a greater understanding of the values that a fundamental to my version of success.’

Catrina has a natural, warm, trusting and friendly nature, creating a safe space for engagement and positive rapport from the outside. She is direct in her communication style, but prefaces hard-hitting truths with softer rhetoric.

Above all, I felt a strong sense of understanding and compassion from Catrina.
Sales Director, ESG Research
‘Natural intelligence’

I enjoyed the level of challenge – assertive but non-combative and without any underlying judgement. These are characteristics I’ve tried to emulate in my own life moving forward, and have refined my approach with rewarding results.

I would highly recommend Catrina as a coach, not because her natural intelligence makes her a great sounding board for ideas, nor because she has ‘walked the walk’ in the corporate world, but for the genuine level of care and empathy she shows in making a meaningful change in someone’s life.
Sales Director, ESG Research
‘With Catrina’s help, I started to develop a plan.’

Catrina challenged me to justify my thinking so that when I came out of our coaching sessions, I always had a clarity of purpose and direction.

I really enjoyed our sessions. At times emotive, Catrina is supportive. She really helped me identify the issues and opportunities - and what I might do about them.

I now have a much greater clarity of how I would like my future to look and how to achieve it.
Director, Family Office
‘With the help of her coaching, I found that I was enjoying my role enormously.’

I worked with Catrina following a third round of PE funding, looking for clarity on how best I could support the business in its new phase of growth. The clearest benefit for the business was improved Investor understanding of the future strategy and with that my own confidence and relationship with the Board.

With the help of her coaching, I found that I was enjoying my role enormously; by reorganising my priorities I found time to focus on long lost habits that I had previously found rewarding and stimulating, and which brought the most benefit to the organisation.

Director - PE backed portfolio company

Contact

Get in touch to explore how coaching can help you

Get in touch