Grow your creative business, with the leadership, people and culture to support it.
As your business grows, your leadership has to grow with it.
I work with founders and leaders of growing creative businesses to help you stay ahead of the people challenges growth creates — strengthening your leadership, developing your managers and building a culture that can support where the business is going.
Growth changes what your business needs from you
What worked when your business was small, will not always work as it grows. There are more people to lead. Managers need to take greater ownership. People need clarity. Trust matters more when you cannot be involved in everything.
Your role changes too. You are leading the business while also navigating the decisions, conversations and people challenges that come with growth - often without much space to think about any of it.
I help you stay ahead of those challenges, so your leadership, people and culture can grow alongside the business.
Sound familiar?
Everything still seems to come through you
Your team has grown, but decisions, questions and problems still find their way back to you.
You are trying to lead the business while also being the person everyone turns to when they need an answer.
Your managers need to step up
The people who were brilliant at their jobs are now responsible for leading other people.
They need to give feedback, delegate, manage performance, motivate their teams and handle difficult conversations - often without ever having been shown how.
Your role is changing
The way you led the business when it was smaller may not be what it needs from you now.
You might need to let go of things you have always done, lead through other people and spend more time thinking about where the business is going.
Coaching gives you space to work out what your changing role needs from you and the kind of leader you want to be as the business grows.
Your people need more clarity
Informal ways of communicating and working can become stretched as more people join.
People need to understand what’s expected of them, who makes which decisions and where they have the freedom to act without asking you first.
We can create greater clarity without adding unnecessary layers or bureaucracy.
You want to protect the best of your culture
Growth changes culture.
The aim is not to keep everything exactly as it was when there were five of you. It’s to be intentional about what you want to protect, what needs to evolve and the kind of business you want to become.
You want to stay ahead of potential people challenges
You do not have to wait until something goes wrong.
We can work on leadership, trust, engagement, wellbeing, management and culture before small challenges become much bigger ones.
Sometimes nothing is particularly wrong. You simply know the business is changing and want to make sure the way you lead it changes too.
A trusted partner for the people side of growth
I am Chantel and for more than 18 years, I have worked alongside founders, MDs, CEOs and leadership teams navigating growth, change and the realities of leading people.
Today, I bring that experience together to give founders an experienced thinking partner outside the day to day.
Someone who:
Gives you space to think.
Challenges you when you need it.
Brings practical people experience.
Helps you make better decisions about how you lead your people and your business.
How I can help
My work brings together leadership coaching and strategic people support.
Sometimes you need space to think.
Sometimes you need an experienced perspective.
Sometimes you need practical advice about what to do next.
Sometimes you need someone independent who knows your business well enough to ask the question nobody inside it is asking.
That might mean coaching you as your role changes, developing your managers, creating greater clarity, strengthening trust, engagement and wellbeing, or protecting the best of your culture as you grow.
I adapt my approach to what you and your business needs, but my aim is always the same: - to build the leadership, people and culture your creative business needs for where it is going, not where it has been.
What is taking up your headspace?
Maybe everything still comes through you.
Maybe you are thinking about how your managers need to develop.
Maybe your own role is changing.
Maybe the culture feels different as the business grows.
Or maybe things are going well and you simply want to make sure your leadership and people practices keep pace with the business.
You do not need to know whether you need coaching, people advice or something else, just tell me what is happening for you and we can take it from there.