About Lisa
I'm Lisa, Executive Coach, Facilitator, and founder of Arena Coaching.
- EMCC Senior Practitioner
- Accredited MBSR Teacher
- Denison Culture Model
- 360 Leadership Tools
My career started in corporate life. I studied business, went into agency marketing, then moved into product management in tech. I ran teams. I ran projects. I ran P&Ls.
The pivot came in a Leader as Coach training session at Telefónica. Where some of my colleagues found it hard to resist giving answers, I noticed I had curiosity instead. I felt I was unlocking something for the other person, and we were both getting a lot out of it. That was the moment I realised what I wanted to do. In 2012 I started Arena Coaching.
Why this works
The work runs on one conviction: we all deserve great work, work that is purposeful, meaningful, and crafted with intention.
Not because that sounds nice on a website. Because life is short. It isn't a dress rehearsal. We have one chance at these things. Work is most of life, so work has to be worth showing up for.
What "the Arena" means
The name comes from Brené Brown's Daring Greatly and Roosevelt's The Man in the Arena speech. But the Arena, the way I mean it, isn't heroic. It's wholehearted.
It's being in the game, not sitting in the cheap seats. It's being all-in with the people you work with. It's the small moments as well as the big ones. And it's making sure that, somewhere in there, work is also play.
How I work
Warm but focused. Practical, not theoretical.
I'm not interested in slogans, theories no one uses, or training that doesn't change behaviour. I'm interested in what you actually do differently on Monday morning.
Most of what I do sits in three places:
- 1:1 coaching: for people who are stuck, plateauing, stepping up, or asking is this it?
- Team coaching and facilitation: for teams that need to work better together.
- Leadership and culture work: for organisations that want strategy to live in everyday behaviour, not on walls.
Credentials, lightly
I'm an EMCC Senior Practitioner, an accredited MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) teacher, and certified in the Denison Culture Model, 360 leadership tools, and a long list of other things, trained, in my own words, within an inch of my life.
Credentials only matter if they translate into work that makes a real difference. The thing I love is helping people, teams, and organisations close the gap between the work they have and the work they'd love.
If that's the work you want to do, let's talk.
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