Leadership Coaching

Gary is a qualified leadership coach and an EMCC Accredited Coach at Senior Practitioner level.  He provides leadership and executive coaching, career coaching, and hiking and coaching, Gary has developed The Leadership Tree model of authentic leadership to support his work.

Gary has over 25 years’ experience in Higher Education, both as a published management academic and Director of Research at Loughborough University Business School; Director of Research, Business & Innovation at Aberystwyth University; and most recently with The Leadership Foundation, and consequently Advance HE, as Director of Membership (Wales). Gary is experienced in leading strategic partnerships between universities and industry, and he has worked with Welsh Government, HEFCW, Universities Wales, and higher education institutions supporting Leadership, Management, Governance, Learning & Teaching, and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Gary’s earlier career included 7 years in the telecommunications industry and experience as a school teacher and Further Education College lecturer

Gary has experience leading a team of fifty people; merging two departments; and managing Aberystwyth University’s REF2014 submission. He was appointed to the REF2021 Equality & Diversity Advisory Panel, and was an external examiner at Loughborough University School of Business & Economics and the Limerick Institute of Technology. Gary is passionate about wellbeing and equality

Gary has been designing and facilitating leadership and management programmes for over 25 years, and has experience lecturing in Further Education and at Loughborough University where he was Programme Leader on three post graduate management programmes.  Most recently Gary was Programme Director for Advance HE’s Strategic Leadership Programme and the Wales Further & Higher Education Executive Leaders Programme. Gary is an Associate of Advance HE and Vitae.

I have worked with Gary throughout my senior leadership journey and genuinely believe that his approach and guidance have enabled me to significantly advance my career.  Leadership is a continual journey and working with Gary has unlocked my potential and allowed me to adapt my approach and style, as my roles have changed and developed.  His approach is always focussed on me as an individual and I constantly apply the concepts that form the basis of his coaching style, both in my professional and personal life. Integrity is at the core of Gary’s coaching and this aligns with my own personal tenets, allowing us to work together from a shared set of beliefs that are grounded in an authentic, compassionate and honest approach.  I know that working with Gary has been an essential component to my career development and has allowed me to take advantage of many opportunities. I would highly recommend Gary to anyone wishing to advance their leadership journey and career.

Professor Paul Davies, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Wrexham University.

I have had the immense pleasure to work with Gary over the past 5 years in his capacity as leadership coach. During our coaching sessions, I have been able to gain valuable insights into my leadership style and identify areas for improvement. Gary has helped me develop specific strategies to overcome obstacles and achieve my goals. As a result of Gary’s outstanding coaching, I have experienced significant growth, effectiveness, and impact as a leader. 

The strengths of Gary’s coaching lies in his ability to listen attentively, provide thoughtful feedback, and tailor his approach to meet my unique needs as someone working across clinical and academic domains. Gary has a deep understanding of individual, team and organizational dynamics, which is critical for leaders seeking to navigate and lead complex environments and systems. 

What I particularly like about working with Gary is his professional, authentic, personable and supportive demeanour. I feel comfortable working through my vulnerabilities/challenges with Gary and he provides constructive, supportive and solution focused feedback/approaches in a non- judgmental way. 

In summary, Gary is an expert leadership coach. He brings his wealth of expertise and experience to every session, and ensures that the encounter is insightful and generative. I have no hesitation in recommending Gary to anyone seeking to develop their leadership skills, increase their self- awareness, and build effectiveness across healthcare and academic contexts. 

Professor Joseph C. Manning, MBE

Professor of Nursing and Child Health

School of Healthcare, College of Life Sciences, University of Leicester. 

Nottingham Children’s Hospital | Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

The coaching sessions with Gary have enabled me to gain my confidence back with an even deeper understanding of who I am, and the strength in being authentically me. Gary provides a safe space - insightful tools and guidance, and knows how to best approach who he is speaking too. I cannot thank him enough for giving me the strength to continue and the skills to turn something difficult into something positive. 

Kathryn Hague, Wellbeing and Early Intervention team leader, Student Life, University of South Wales

First of all, Gary is a fantastic career coach!

I found interaction and engagement with Gary really insightful and tremendously helpful.

Gary provides useful, practical, strategic advice and most importantly inspiring mentoring. He is knowledgeable, helpful, supportive and clear on not only providing but also elaborating and digging deep into all the up-to-date information on various aspects of the career journey.

What I loved is his approach on perceiving the career as a manifold. That was so clear from the very start – even from the preliminary material shared with me including the work and questionnaires to be completed before our first session. I was really amazed by this!

Gary is so passionate about coaching. He is really gifted in identifying the issues that might be troubling us at the specific point in our career and can forge a strong connection by employing what I would characterise as a novel Socratic method building trust and fostering critical thinking on the multiple fronts of your career path and journey as well as your personality.

I would not change anything in future sessions. They worked fantastically well for me and I am so happy to share that after having these sessions with Gary I managed to secure a permanent post in my field within less than a year. I recommended Gary to my colleagues and I can still recall how better I performed in interviews following the sessions with Gary!

Dr. Dimitris Kalogiros (he/him), Lecturer in Data Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Queen Mary University of London

It sounds strange to say that working with Gary through difficult and private struggles has been easy; but it has: the process has felt very natural and comfortable. Gary takes care to know and understand his coachee, and his perception points him to the right questions at the right times. He pitches our work with a balance of inquiry and support that makes even difficult topics easy to confront and explore. His follow-up is fantastic too; sharing useful resources and a genuine interest and support. He’s a keeper.

Tania Deitch, Head of Portfolio Delivery, Companies House

Gary really helped build my confidence and appreciate and nurture the strengths I already possessed, while transitioning into a leadership role. He provided a safe space to explore and discuss challenges and I felt I could always be open and honest with him. I now have a toolbox of useful strategies and resources Gary shared with me, which I will continue to use for the rest of my career. Our sessions have been invaluable and I cannot thank him enough.

Dr Felcity Gibbons, Principal Clinical Psychologist in Cancer Services, Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Leadership Coaching with Gary has helped me to rediscover my strengths, and not just my skills and knowledge but my character. It has helped me to discover I can belong at an executive level and that what I might experience in one place negatively can equally be experienced positively in other environments.

Alexander Crawford, Deputy Director of Planning and Programmes, NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee