Penny Shapland-Chew

Penny Shapland-Chew, personal and professional coach

I work with clients to develop their self-awareness, confidence, interpersonal skills and effectiveness.  People find greater satisfaction in their work and are more motivated, more engaged with company brand and purpose and more able to manage change. Companies get the best out of the people they employ and are more likely to keep them.

There is always an inner game being played in your mind no matter what outer game you are playing. How aware you are of this game can make the difference between success and failure. Tim Gallwey

I work 1:1 with middle management to executive level clients. Recent work includes: a new CEO making an impact in the first 6 months; preparing a woman for a new board position; a departmental head needing more flexibility in managing relationships with different stakeholders; working to integrate departments; working to develop a new manager’s leadership capability; managing change; managing a situation which had seemed stuck.

My style has been described as ‘calm’, ‘challenging but supportive’, ‘motivating and ‘solution-focused’.

Clients include: Penguin; Curtis Brown; English Pen; The Literary Platform; Unbound; Save the Children; London Sinfonietta; Cause 4; Future Leaders; Clore Social Leadership Programme, Apples and Snakes; Essex County Council and self-employed writers.

I trained as a coach with Coaching Development Ltd, accredited by the International Coach Federation. I have monthly supervision. I am a member of the International Coach Federation, a fellow of the Institute of Leadership and Management and a business member of the Association of Business Psychologists.

I began my career as a librarian, because reading gives people power through knowledge and insights into our own and others’ worlds.  I worked at the heart of The Reading Agency, as operations director, as the company grew from £200k turnover to £2million in its first 4 years.  I now work there part-time as coach and HR director. I was a founder member of Free Word, www.freewordonline.com; I am a director of Excellence in Local Government and Health, www.elgh.org.uk, supporting corporate management in the public sector and I am a mentor on both Kingston University’s publishing MA course and Coaching Development Ltd’s certificate course.