YOUR EXECUTIVE COACH
ANNA BROWN
Your executive coach & supervisor
I understand what it feels like to juggle the challenges of work and life, having led teams in large and small organisations while a working parent and carer for elderly relatives. I have also studied while working and run my own business.
In a career of over 30 years, I held a range of leadership roles in executive education, heritage, hospitality, and not-for-profit settings. I have led large multi-disciplinary teams, been responsible for divisional P&L, service design, and delivery, sales, and marketing, and lived through various changes, in organisations such as Ashridge Business School and ActionAid.
The rich diversity of my client mix is enhanced by the coaching I provide as a member of the Executive Coaching Panel on the Warwick Business School Executive MBA and on the Executive Management Programme at Henley Business School.
I hold an Executive MBA from Ashridge Business School, a post-graduate Coaching qualification from Henley Business School, the Tavistock Certificate in Supervision for Coaches and Consultants.
My first degree of a BSc in Environmental Science from Manchester Metropolitan University serves as a foundation for my work with leaders and coaches, where I integrate nature into my practice. Whether the work is in person in nature, or online, you will always find some element of the natural world infused through our work together.
Bringing the 'Developmental Inquiry' vertical development methodology, I am trained as an Advanced Practitioner with Harthill Consulting and am authorised to use their psychometric instrument, the ‘Leadership Development Profile’. I am an Accredited Master Executive Coach with the Association for Professional Executive Coaches and Supervisors (APECS),
My voluntary work includes being a Board Director at APECS (responsible for the Supervision and the Sustainable Practice areas); co-founding and jointing coordinating the Nature Pod at the Climate Coaching Alliance; and providing pro bono executive coaching and facilitation at the Hospice of St Francis.
Born in the UK, I left at 18 months old to return 18 years later, having lived in Switzerland, Japan, and Hong Kong. “Shoya” is named after the village in Japan where I lived for seven years as a child and means “Fly High,” which beautifully captures the aspiration I have for all my clients.
I live in Hertfordshire and have two daughters. In my spare time, I love pottering in my wildlife-friendly garden, running networking walks for people developers and sampling the delights of the food in China Town.
TESTIMONIALS
“Anna has a wonderful balance of using spirituality and the natural world, and practical business and leadership knowledge. It’s a powerful combination of what some would seem as ‘hippy’ mixed with real commercial experience. It works extremely well and sets her apart from other coaches who tend to fall into one of the two extremes.”
Toby Roe, Co-Founder of Roe Communications, UK
"I believe Anna was able to help me because of her kindness, professional experience - both as a coach and a former senior charity executive - and her broad, holistic approach. Her warmth and kindness helped to give me the confidence to test long-held assumptions. Her professional experience made her coaching highly relevant and credible. And her holistic style enabled me to identify root problems, where a narrow approach might have resulted in more superficial changes to achieve immediate work outcomes."
CEO & Founder of Educational Foundation
“Anna's supervision is calm and very supportive, always full of gentle, nurturing enquiry. Anna seems to have an instinctive sense of what you might need in the moment. She co-partners beautifully with and within nature to gain insight and awareness.”
Paul Jefferies, Executive Coach - Pebble Associates UK Ltd