Our Team
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Our Team
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Elaine Akester Julie Hickton Catherine Midgley Liz Wilson Emma Conway-Hyde
The emintell team has almost a century of combined experience in HR, executive coaching, team coaching, organisational & leadership development and legal experience. All the team members have held senior leadership and management positions themselves and this experience reflects our ability to understand your context and requirements, quickly and professionally.
It is this high level of expertise in our people which sets us apart, together with our agile and personalised approach.
Elaine Akester MC EMCC Accredited Master Practitioner in executive coaching
Elaine is emintell’s founder and leader and has been coaching organisational clients for the past 18 years. She has particular interest and expertise in senior leadership development, which has grown and developed over her coaching career and within her business and legal careers, spanning over 30 years. It is this genuine curiosity in leadership themes, combined with her prior business and legal experience, that contextualises the coaching and leadership development experience and services which she, together with her highly experienced coaching colleagues, offers to every emintell client. Elaine has a range of international experience including with cross global teams. She has also developed and delivered a highly regarded women’s leadership development programme on multiple occasions in the Gulf Council Countries, over several years.
As well as conscious leadership development, Elaine specialises in organisational and team resilience and psychological wellbeing. Together with her coaching colleague Julie Hickton, Elaine co-developed a contemporary and effective model and framework, Optimal, which provides a relevant framework for both exploring and growing individual, group, team resilience and wellbeing.
Elaine’s extensive experience in executive and leadership coaching culminated in her attaining Master Practitioner accreditation with the European Mentoring & Coaching Council (EMCC). The Master Practitioner is the highest level of coach accreditation available in the world today and held by less than 5% of coaches working professionally worldwide. She is a regular contributor to Coaching CPD events delivered on behalf of the EMCC and speaks credibly and engagingly on a range of themes connected with leadership, women’s leadership, emotional intelligence, resilience and psychological wellbeing.
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Elaine combines the objectivity and incisiveness of a trained legal mind with a master expert coach’s insight and skills, who is operating at the top of her profession.
“I’m dedicated to releasing leadership excellence and impact. My approach is driven by a positive belief in the ability and potential of those I work with to resolve the issues they face. What differentiates master level expert coaches from others is their ability to understand the client context and challenges quickly, creating high levels of trust and credibility seamlessly. Crucially they have the ability to coach at a deep level, adeptly, quickly and professionally to support the client to achieve outcomes beyond what they thought were possible. That’s the gift myself and my team offer those clients seeking a truly transformational and stretching coaching experience.”
Julie Hickton
Julie is passionate about working with individuals and teams to achieve their potential. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a senior leader and HR specialist in successful corporations, including Marks & Spencer, the Mico Group and Eaga plc.
A master-level executive and leadership coach with an extensive range of professional qualifications and skills, Julie’s positive motivational personality creates purpose and enjoyment for clients across private and public sector organisations.
She specialises in personal and team resilience, emotional intelligence, positive psychology, leadership and organisational development – supporting senior leaders in the NHS, education, manufacturing, travel and construction sectors. Clients love Julies inspirational and joyful approach to her approach, underpinned as it is with extensive knowledge and relevant experience.
Julie is also a published author having written “The Tree of Resilience”, on a subject in which she is a key thinker and practitioner. She is also is a highly accomplished speaker, especially on the topics of emotional intelligence and resilience. Julie and Elaine have collaborated extensively, designing and delivering growing resilience and wellbeing programmes, using their Optimal model. Julie is a very important member of the emintell team.
Catherine Midgley
Catherine has over 30 years’ business experience, working for the first 10 years as a retail buyer before training as an executive coach in the late 90’s. Catherine worked in leadership development at Boots HQ, supporting internal leaders develop their leadership skills and competencies. Catherine operates as a master level executive and leadership coach with extensive experience in coaching, resilience, and leadership development. Over more than two decades, she has worked with hundreds of senior leaders, managers, and professionals, within the private, public, and professional services sector. Client Projects include work delivered at Samworth Brothers, Nottingham Trent University, EON, Tarmac, the NHS and the British Library to name but a few.
Her coaching style is insightful, caring, challenging and outcome focused. Catherine also has a special interest and ability in supporting mindfulness in clients and she co-authored a book on this subject entitled “The Mindful Approach to Working Life”. Catherine is a hugely valuable member of the emintell team and always provides client outcomes over and above expectation.
Liz Wilson
Liz is an experienced coach, mentor, supervisor and facilitator working with a variety of clients from C-suite to first line management in public, private and third sectors, as well as personal clients. She is accredited to PCC within the International Coach Federation, specialising in coaching leaders and high potential individuals. She is also a mentor and coach-supervisor, working with new and experienced coaches to raise and sustain professional standards and ethics within the coaching profession. She supports coaches to attain ACC and PCC credentials with the ICF. She also works with younger people building esteem and confidence to build leaders of the future.
Liz is co-author of a coaching best-seller: Emotional Intelligence Coaching, now translated into 9 languages. Over her coaching career, Liz has trained, mentored and supervised over 1000 coaches, bringing her experience and love of learning to develop competent, inspired and authentic coaches. Liz has partnered with several organisations to deliver in-house coach training; building capability and capacity within public and private sector organisations who want to build a coaching culture.
Emma Conway-Hyde
Emma provides our administrative support at emintell and has over 20 years’ experience as an administrator and PA. She is the lynchpin of our business, keeping us all highly focussed and organised. A friendly, organised and efficient member of the team, always ready with a smile and a good idea, Emma is involved in a wide range of emintell’s business activities and client facing work and has extensive experience in her field.
