Caroline
Thompson
Associates
Leadership & Resilience Coach/Career Coach
Think Better, Do Better, Feel Better
Business Owners, Senior Leaders/Managers
Professional Women & Entrepreneurs
An accredited professional coach, I help people in leadership/business roles to be more successful - to lead with resilience and effectiveness, to accelerate their progress up the career ladder, to forge new career pathways, and to derive greater satisfaction from their work and lifestyle.
I love enabling bright people achieve their amazing dreams.
Bringing all my experience as a skilled qualitative researcher into the world of career management and executive leadership support, I create a unique coaching approach that unearths new personal truths and inspiration for my clients - bringing transformative change in people's lives, increased success, resilience and performance.
I believe in taking small steps to achieve significant and meaningful changes for the better. I help you find those small meaningful steps.
My work is results oriented. A key test is what my clients are capable of now that they weren’t before we worked together. Everyone's goals are different, and programmes are tailored to individual needs.
I've worked with senior leaders to improve their performance at board level; supported executives to achieve sought after promotions and senior corporate positions; helped executives to believe in their own capabilities in new business development scenarios and be successful; helped entrepreneurs set meaningful goals and strategies to 'fast track' their progress; and supported executives to navigate their way successfully through challenging situations in the work-place.
Please do get in touch to have an initial conversation about how I can help you. I'm always happy to talk about how coaching works, without obligation. I look forward to hearing from you. Fees available on application.
Testimonials
Director, Public Sector
“Caroline provided me a number of career coaching sessions to help me understand what kind of career experience I want and what my motivators are. She helped me crystallise the personal strengths and skills I can bring as a candidate and identify the blockers that were limiting me being my best. I have had a number of careers coaches over the years and I found Caroline’s sessions the most useful careers coaching sessions I have ever had.
I would put this down to Caroline’s excellent transferable skills, her many years as a qualitative researcher, her ability to listen and ask powerful questions to make people come up with their own thoughts and solutions. My sessions enabled me to learn more about myself, identify my fears and identify tangible actions such as preparation for interviews and networking opportunities.
I would thoroughly recommend Caroline. She is very personable and I found it very easy to open up to her. I thoroughly enjoyed my sessions and felt more confident and energised after every session”
Business Development Manager, Software Industry
"Coming from a Professional Recruitment background and personally being quite career focussed I was probably an obscure use-case for Caroline. I aspired to transition my skillset in Recruitment into a Business Development role, something that I had considered for some time prior to meeting Caroline.
I had previously used Friends/Family as informal mentors or sounding boards which helped me evaluate my own thinking. However, I felt there were blockers preventing me from either being in the right mindset or possessing the right skillset to transition into an appropriate role.
Caroline's style of active listening allowed me to elaborate on my thoughts and to re-evaluate them in a constructive manner. This helped me to identify smaller, tangible steps to take me closer towards my goal. One of the points that has resonated with me was Caroline's coaching to help me reframe advice I give to my own candidates and identifying that I should take my own advice 'Do the Job before you're actually doing the Job'. This led me to approach a Local Entrepreneurship Competition in which I formed a business with complete strangers, we won £10k of seed funding and I am performing the role of COO/Sales Director (Which will be a side-project for now!). In this period, I accepted a new role as a Business Development Manager for a Software Start-up and am delighted to start on a new journey.
Caroline's coaching was instrumental to my success, and I will be eternally grateful."
Senior Manager, Leading Professional Services Firm
"Caroline has been a fantastic coach to me during a time of high stress while applying for a promotion - which I got! I have no doubt that the time spent with Caroline had a direct impact on my ability to articulate confidently why I deserve a promotion, and ultimately helped me to convince others of this as well.
Caroline provided the space and right questions to enable me to explore my own motivations, helping me to realise the underlying causes of the pressure I felt I was under. This had a hugely beneficial impact on my mental health and attitude towards my promotion prospects. As a result of the coaching I was able to understand my mind set and get some distance from my feelings, enabling me to think more clearly and logically about my situation and get a better perspective.
I have not only found the sessions with Caroline to be really helpful professionally and personally, I have really enjoyed speaking with her and the challenge and insight that comes with coaching. I have found Caroline to be a friendly, warm presence, who creates a safe and supportive environment. I would highly recommend anyone thinking of coaching to get in touch with Caroline, she's brilliant."
Research Manager, Pharma Consultancy
“I really enjoyed working with Caroline, she put me at ease and made it really easy to share thoughts and open up - something that does not usually come naturally to me. The coaching conversations helped me to look at my situation from new different perspectives. They built my confidence , so that I secured a new role at a higher level. I feel like I am in a different place with more clarity regarding the opportunities ahead of me and more motivation.”
Background
Having led her own business in Qualitative Research Consulting for the last 25 years, Caroline has worked extensively with with C-suite executives, Senior Leaders, Marketing & Insight Teams, Business Stakeholders, and Consumers. I marry a strong intuitive instinct for people, with a curious and empathetic approach, to create inspiration and a background in real life business management.
Caroline Thompson is a graduate of the Academy of Executive Coaching's Practitioner Diploma and accredited with the AoEC, approved by the International Coach Federation (ICF) and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC).
She has a BA in Economics and Business Studies (2.1) from Trinity College Dublin.