Hi, I'm Tom — I don't believe you should have to accept feeling lost, undervalued, or resigned to how things are. Not in your career. Not in your personal life. Not in your relationships. And not from people who ask more of you every year while giving you less.

I trained as a coach in 2019 and launched my first business just weeks before COVID changed everything. I battled it out for 18 months before that plan went on hold. But the pause led somewhere I didn't expect: into higher education and academic libraries, where I spent years seeing passionate people trying to make a difference, trying to help students and colleagues with ever decreasing resources.

What I learned from my experience couldn't be learned from a textbook. I watched what constant, disorienting change does to people — to leaders having to make calls they never wanted to make, to teams struggling to find their way, and to great colleagues left picking up the pieces. I watched confidence erode. I watched people quietly accept less: less certainty, less recognition, less hope for what came next.

I also learned a lot about myself. In this period, I finally understood why so much had felt so hard: I was diagnosed with ADHD. I'd lived with it undiagnosed for most of my life, and without support, I had to find my own way through things that could have been much easier. But that fight motivated me to build the skills — in psychology, in coaching, in empathising with people — that now shape everything I do. It's also why I've never been able to stay quiet when I've seen people treated unfairly, even when not speaking up would've been easier. And whilst I didn't always make the change I wanted at the time, I made a positive impact in unexpected ways.

For example, after my diagnosis, I was vocal in sharing my own ADHD story with colleagues and speaking up for changes in support of neurodiverse people. One colleague — someone with only weeks left before retirement — told me I had helped her finally understand challenges she'd faced her entire career. She finally seemed at peace with herself and ready to start a new stage of her life with a new understanding of who she was. Sometimes, raising your voice reaches people in ways you never expected.

That's the belief I kept coming back to: people deserve better than to feel powerless in the face of circumstances they didn't choose. So I chose to step back out of the sector — not away from it, but to a place where I could help it differently. I returned to coaching, this time armed with everything I'd learned about what people in organisations like universities actually need.

Today, I work with leaders, teams, and individuals across and beyond higher education who are navigating exactly this kind of pressure. If you're a leader who's been handed difficult decisions and even harder conversations, I help you find the confidence to make the calls and still bring your team with you. If you're part of a team trying to find stability after loss or restructuring, I help you rebuild that footing. And if you're simply trying to find your own way through a sector that's asking too much, I offer a confidential, compassionate space to think it through — no judgement, just a human ear.

You already have more of what you need than you think. Sometimes you just need someone who's been in it to help you see it.

I offer team and 1-1 coaching and workshops on a variety of topics, including leadership skills, building confidence, understanding yourself, and finding direction. I offer a limited amount of pro bono coaching to people who need it, because standing by people who feel powerless in the face of circumstances they didn't choose matters more to me than billing every hour.