About Jo
Hello, I'm Jo
A former headteacher and schools inspector, now a coach. I have spent a career learning what helps people grow, and what quietly gets in the way. I bring both to this work.
For over two decades I led in education, as a teacher, a headteacher, a governor and a trustee, and later as an accredited schools inspector. I am now an accredited coach and a Level 3 personal trainer. That work took me into hundreds of schools and countless leadership teams, and it taught me something I now build my coaching on: I know what works, and I know what blocks resilience and confidence before people even notice it happening.
I also learned it from the inside. I came through burnout myself, and out the other side with a clearer sense of purpose and a determination to help other people get there with a little less struggle. Neurodivergence I know from two directions: from my own family, and from years of working with pupils whose minds were not what the system was built for. My mission is to remove the stigma around it, and to build acceptance, one person at a time.
The biggest lesson from all those years is the one I now build everything on: a healthy body and a healthy mind make a healthy mindset. They are not separate projects. How you move, sleep, eat and recover shapes how you think, cope and show up, and mindset in turn shapes the body. That is why I trained as a Level 3 personal trainer alongside my coaching, so I can help you work with the whole system rather than just talk about it. This is about energy and resilience, not appearance.
Away from work, I am mum to three sons, which keeps me honest, busy and well practised at untangling knots of every kind. I live and work in Eastcote, in north west London, and I try to bring the same energy and kindness to my own days that I hope to help others find in theirs.
The studio
Where the other half of the work happens
Training people is not a sideline to the coaching, it is the same conviction in a different room. I have a private studio at home in Eastcote, which means no gym floor, no queue for the equipment and no audience, which for a lot of the people I work with is the whole point.
Sessions are one to one and 45 minutes, and they are about energy, strength and what your body needs to carry you through the years ahead.
The belief underneath it
Success is not the upward ladder. It is growth, and the ability to thrive.
My approach
How I work, and why
I believe people are not problems to be fixed. They are whole, and usually far more capable than they feel in the moment. My job is to help you see that clearly, and to give you practical ways to act on it.
Whole person, not just the presenting problem
We look at mind and body together, because how you sleep, eat and move shapes how you think and cope. Nothing sits in isolation.
Honest, and kind with it
Warm, but never soft. I hold unconditional positive regard alongside the directness that makes coaching actually move you forward.
Practical, not just insightful
Understanding is only half of it. You leave with tools you can use, so change holds up long after our work together ends.
Coaching should leave you feeling heard, known and accepted, and better equipped than when you arrived.
What I bring
Experience you can lean on
- A leader's eye. Over two decades leading and inspecting schools means I coach with real authority on leadership, resilience and what genuinely lasts, not from theory.
- What helps, and what hinders. I can see the barriers to confidence and resilience early, often before they take hold, and I know the practical ways through them.
- Whole-person health. A Level 3 personal trainer as well as a coach, I work with body and mind together, because a healthy body and mind make a healthy mindset, and physiology shapes how we feel and cope.
- Neurodivergence, close up. I have supported neurodivergent pupils through school and I know it within my own family, so the work is honest, practical and free of judgement.
In her words
As a senior leader and HR professional for two decades, I knew all about the difficulty of retaining women in their forties and fifties. Then I became one of them. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD, after a long stretch of feeling unable to cope with work and life, and Jo has been pivotal in my move into a new career. She really sees me, and through her kindness and support I feel brighter about my future, and certain that I still have a great deal to offer. Thank you Jo, for the tools you keep helping me build, for practical advice that sticks, and for believing in me.
If any of this sounds like where you are, let's talk.