Thirty years in the rooms where businesses try to grow.

Cars, business and how markets work had my attention long before I had a career plan. A spell in Fiat UK's marketing department was followed by the family business, which became the largest UK stockist of Yamaha keyboards across thirteen shops.

The lesson from the shop floor has stayed with me: listen to the person in front of you, understand what they want to achieve, and show them a way forward.

I joined PA Consulting in 1983, the first employee there without a degree. They took a risk on me, and I spent six years headhunting across Europe.

I went on to help build a London search firm and founded InterSearch, a network of search firms I chaired for its first ten years. When I left it had around one hundred offices in thirty-five countries, built by working with local partners rather than around them. The UK firm was later bought by TMP Worldwide, and I became Vice President, European Business Development.

For eighteen years I worked with Miller Heiman on complex sales, billing between $500,000 and $1.2 million every year. The clients included Atos, Siemens for twelve years, EY, G4S, Vestas and IBA. At Atos, one of the people I trained closed a £45 million deal and held up his planning sheet to show how he had done it.

The work was always practical and always rooted in the client's world. It also taught me that the answer to a sales problem is often found somewhere else in the business.

Training only helps when people can put it into practice. That conviction led me to an MSc in Executive Coaching and then to systemic team coaching, working with whole leadership teams on how they work together.

Training delivers the What. Coaching delivers the How. Today I bring search, sales and coaching together for leadership teams who want to grow, starting with an honest look at what is really in the way.