Our Team
John Keary
John is an APECS Accredited Executive Coach.
Relationships and getting things done are central to John's coaching. The relationship between client and coach "is special - it relies upon a dynamic mixture of support and robust challenge - knowing when to offer which is the bit that only experience can give you".
Relationships up, down, across and outside the organisation are a critical issue for many an executive. Time spent improving and prioritising these relationships has "enormous leverage - the more so, the higher you go".
As for getting things done, organisations are paying for results so it's not unreasonable for them to expect coaching - like any other business activity - to have objectives and defined outputs. For the client,"a tight, focused programme keeps performance issues to the fore and a real sense of achievement as targets are met and feedback becomes more and more positive". And, according to John, "you know it's all working when coach and client can talk about some non-work activities and share a laugh!"
John started his career with ICI and then spent over a decade with an engineering subsidiary of Dunlop in a variety of international positions including a period based in Tehran , culminating in the role of Marketing Director. After a full-time MBA he joined the Wilkinson Sword Group to start a management development function. This was followed by over decade with the Inchcape Group, as Management Development Director and as a divisional HR Director. "I've had two careers: one as a 'line' manager and the second as a developer of senior managers, internationally. Now that I've also had eight years experience of coaching, I know that coaching is the ultimate way to help senior people realise their potential - and immensely satisfying, too".
In his spare time, John co-authored, with a colleague from INSEAD, Managers and Mantras (2000), which Harvard called as "a superb contribution to contemporary business history" and which John describes as an "irreverent swipe at some of the fashions and fads of management".