About Sandra
From international marketing director to leadership coach — helping accomplished professionals discover authentic influence
Why I Do This Work
I've spent most of my career watching brilliant people struggle with something that shouldn't be so difficult: translating technical excellence into leadership influence.
After 30 years in international business—from marketing director roles across Central and Eastern Europe to building teams and launching brands—I kept seeing the same pattern. The most competent professionals would get promoted based on their expertise, then find themselves wrestling with challenges that had nothing to do with their technical knowledge.
The irony wasn't lost on me. I was experiencing it myself.
My Own Leadership Evolution
My journey from Marketing Director to leadership coach wasn't planned. It started during a particularly challenging period when I discovered, quite by accident, that my best thinking happened when I was walking outdoors.
Like most professionals, nobody had actually taught me how to lead teams, deal with challenging behaviours, or navigate organisational politics. I'd been promoted because I was good at marketing, not because anyone had assessed whether I could handle the complex human dynamics that came with senior responsibility. I was figuring it out as I went along, often feeling like I was missing some crucial manual that everyone else seemed to have.
What began as a way to clear my head during this challenging time became a profound understanding of how our environment shapes our internal experience. The real breakthrough came during a 100-mile trek across the Jordan desert in 2010. Walking for days through changing landscapes, I realised something fundamental: we're constantly responding to our external context, often without realising it. But equally important—we can learn to influence that context in return.
The Outside In Insight
The environments we choose, the way we position ourselves physically, even our breathing patterns—all of this influences how we think, feel, and ultimately how we show up as leaders.
Lessons from the Corporate World
During my corporate years — working with companies like Allied Domecq, Highland Distillers, and Tesco across different countries and cultures — I learned that the most effective leaders weren't necessarily the most charismatic or naturally people-focused. They were the ones who understood how to work with their natural strengths whilst developing the additional interpersonal skills their broader roles required.
What These Leaders Actually Developed
The engineers who became excellent leaders learned to read the emotional undercurrents in meetings, recognising when resistance wasn't about the technical solution but about fear of change or loss of status. They developed skills for presenting complex technical decisions in terms of business impact and risk.
The finance leaders discovered how to have budget conversations that didn't trigger defensiveness. Instead of leading with spreadsheets, they learned to understand what each department was actually trying to achieve, then help them see financial constraints as problem-solving parameters rather than arbitrary limitations.
The marketing managers working across cultures developed patience for relationship-building that their task-focused nature didn't naturally incline them toward. They learned to read cultural cues, adapt their communication style to different business customs, and build trust through understanding local pressures.
None of them changed their fundamental nature. They just learned to work with it more skillfully while developing the interpersonal capabilities their roles demanded.
Why Traditional Leadership Development Often Misses the Mark
After retraining as a coaching professional and spending years designing and delivering coaching and development programmes for major clients - working with hundreds of leaders from organisations like Microsoft, BAE Systems, Cisco, NHS, and Salesforce - I've seen firsthand why generic leadership programmes often fail to stick.
Most approaches assume everyone learns the same way and responds to the same motivations. They focus on behaviours without exploring the underlying patterns that drive them. They treat leadership as a set of traits and techniques rather than an evolution of who you already are.
When you understand how your environment influences your thinking, when you recognise the patterns that either support or undermine your effectiveness, when you learn to work with your natural style rather than against it — leadership stops feeling like such hard work.
My Approach Today
After 20+ years of coaching and over 1,500 coaching hours, I've developed an approach that combines practical problem-solving with deeper understanding of what actually drives leadership effectiveness.
I'm certified in EQ-i 2.0 and EQ 360 assessments because data helps us understand patterns we might not notice otherwise. I've trained in trauma-informed coaching and become a Certified Attachment Theory Coach because the way we formed our earliest relationships profoundly influences how we navigate authority, conflict, and trust in professional settings.
I'm qualified as a Hill and Moorland Leader because I believe in creating both psychological and physical safety for people in deep developmental work.
I've also trained in Internal Family Systems because our past experiences shape current responses, and often leadership challenges are really about integrating different parts of ourselves that learned to survive in earlier contexts.
A Simple Purpose
All of this training serves one heartfelt goal: helping accomplished professionals discover how to lead authentically—so you can finally feel as confident and natural in your leadership as you do in your technical expertise, without having to pretend to be someone you're not.
What This Means for You
When we work together, we're not trying to turn you into someone else's version of a good leader. We're exploring how your existing strengths can become the foundation for these more sophisticated capabilities.
Your analytical mind becomes a tool for understanding stakeholder dynamics—learning to read the patterns in resistance, motivation, and team behavior with the same precision you apply to technical problems. Your high standards become a framework for building team excellence through creating psychological safety rather than pressure. Your preference for depth over superficial networking becomes an asset for having the difficult conversations that actually resolve issues.
The Skills You'll Develop
Reading emotional undercurrents in meetings and understanding what's really driving resistance or engagement
Having difficult conversations that strengthen relationships rather than damage them
Building genuine influence with people who don't think the way you do
Making confident decisions when data is incomplete but human factors are critical
Creating team dynamics where high standards inspire rather than intimidate
Navigating organizational politics without compromising your integrity
Me with my beloved cocker spaniel <3
Beyond the Professional
I live in Fife, a beautiful part of the United Kingdom, not far from Edinburgh and with easy access to cities, airports and the iconic Scottish Highlands. I'm an avid walker, a qigong practitioner and recently discovered the joy of pickleball — all these activities remind me daily about the importance of staying physically and mentally agile, present and connected.
I serve as a Board Trustee for Heids & Herts, a mental health charity, and provide pro bono coaching for charitable organisations. Having lived and worked across different countries and cultures, I appreciate how our backgrounds shape our perspectives while recognising that leadership challenges are remarkably universal.
My travel adventures continue to inform my understanding of resilience and adaptation. Whether it's navigating a challenging mountain route or helping a senior executive work through a difficult stakeholder relationship, the principles are surprisingly similar: stay grounded, read the terrain accurately, adapt your approach as conditions change, and trust your capability to handle whatever emerges.
What People Are Saying
“Sandra has a gift for getting to the heart of the matter quickly while creating a completely safe space for exploration. She helped me understand patterns I'd been repeating for years without realising it.”
— TECH BUSINESS OWNER
“I was intrigued but skeptical about the outdoor elements, but the walking sessions unlocked insights I never would have discovered sitting in an office. It's not gimmicky — it actually works.”
— SENIOR ENGINEERING DIRECTOR
“Sandra doesn't try to change your personality. She helps you work with who you are more skillfully. The results speak for themselves.”
— HEALTHCARE OPERATIONS MANAGER
Why I Work With a Limited Number of Clients
I've found that complex leadership challenges require sustained attention and genuine partnership. The kind of development we're talking about isn't something you can rush through in a few sessions — it takes time to understand your unique patterns, experiment with new approaches, and integrate changes in a way that feels authentic to you.
This is why I create a completely personalised coaching programme for each client. Rather than following a set curriculum, I tailor each session and suggest specific fieldwork based on exactly where you are and what you need to move to your next stage of development. Your challenges with stakeholder relationships will be different from someone else's team dynamics issues, so our work together reflects that reality.
Because of this individualised approach, I choose to work with a smaller number of clients each year rather than trying to help everyone. I'm drawn to people who value depth over quick tips, who are curious about not just what to do differently but why certain patterns keep showing up, and who are genuinely committed to developing their own authentic leadership style rather than copying someone else's.
If that sounds like you, I'd love to explore whether we might be a good fit for working together.
Leadership isn't about becoming someone else. It's about becoming more fully yourself—while developing the skills to translate that authenticity into influence that serves both you and the people around you.
Ready to Explore What's Possible?
The best place to begin is with a conversation. Every evolution starts with understanding where you are now and where you want to be. 30 minutes to discuss your situation and explore if we're a good match for this work