Executive Coaching
Helping you develop and grow in your career
Cressida Hamilton
Executive Coach, Armstrong Wolfe
About Cressida
Cressida is the founder and CEO of Chryse Coaching and Consultancy Ltd. Based in London, Cressida works with individuals within large corporate organisations, small to medium enterprises and entrepreneurs around the globe to help them increase their effectiveness both personally and professionally.
History
Prior to devoting herself to Chryse Coaching, Cressida enjoyed a 26-year career in financial services where she worked in various roles within investment banking and finance including leading large 3000+ FTE Operational teams as well as operating as the HSBC Bank PLC Group Chief Administration Officer (CAO) in 2019.
Experience
Cressida has broad experience within multiple industries including finance and professional services, retail, and not for profit. Her key coaching expertise centres around helping individuals at D, MD and C-Suite level build confidence in order to improve their business performance and be successful within their organisations. Cressida works with clients on career transitions, obtaining promotion and stepping up to C-Suite level. In addition, Cressida has worked with various organisations to help them embed coaching as a leadership tool.
Cressida trained as an Executive Coach with the Institute of Human Development (IHD) in 2007 and she also has an MBA (parts I & II) from Henley Management College. Cressida has coached clients at HSBC, Bank of America, UBS, Community Services Volunteers, Guild, Cancer Trust, IHD and Barrow Accountants
Find your brand. Build your confidence.
Having a clear personal brand and being able to confidently communicate that brand to others is a necessary skill in today’s world. It enables you to grow your self-belief, build a set of allies and sponsors who can help you advance your career and truly differentiate yourself in a competitive environment.
What is Coaching?
Coaching is a bespoke, 1 to 1 interaction between coach and client specifically designed to accelerate the success of the client engaging in the process. They work with individuals to help them gain self-awareness, achieve their development objectives, and unlock their potential.
Coaches provide a confidential and supportive sounding board for the client, ask questions, challenge assumptions, help achieve clarity, provide resources, and sometimes, where appropriate, provide advice.
“For the first time I felt that someone understood my frustration, had stood in my shoes and knew how to help me”
Not for profit Executive
Benefits of Coaching
The Institute of Coaching state that over 70% of individuals who receive coaching benefit from improved work performance. We know from experience it brings results.
As a result of coaching, individuals have increased self-awareness, greater confidence, improved capability and better communication skills. Executive Coaching in particular supports clients through career transitions, helps them build their resilience in times of change and enables them to become better leaders.
The individual benefits because they build performance and unlock their unique value and the organisation benefits through increased loyalty and retention as well as an overall increase in department and team capability.
“Cressida had the ability to challenge me harder than anyone I know yet also make me feel supported, heard and powerful”
Female leader
Our Coaching Specialisms
Our coaches have a wealth of experience and offer particular specialisms and areas of skill and expertise that organisations can leverage. Although not limited to, typical assignments of our coaches include the following:
COACHING FOR PROMOTION OR ‘STEP-UP’ IN ROLE
With the requirement for employees to take on more in their organisations and/or wear multiple ‘hats’, we are increasingly finding our clients coming to us for support to enable them to be successful in this respect. Our coaches have experience operating in large, complex roles across the globe so understand the change and step up that is required of employees in this position.
At Armstrong Wolfe our coaches work with the client to support them in understanding what is required in order to be successful in their role. We support our clients in building the relevant skillsets and where appropriate to help bridge any perception gaps that may exist between employee and organisation. Our clients finish their coaching with greater ownership of their career, enhanced business performance and greater resilience and self-confidence.
CAREER CHANGE OR REDEPLOYMENT COACHING
Given the high levels of change and transformation organisations are currently facing, employees are increasingly finding themselves looking for new opportunities. As the Chief Operating Office continues to evolve and adapt, this includes individuals within the COO space. We recognise that organisations want to retain their talent as much as possible so we offer coaching for individuals who find themselves looking for a new role. This offering is additive to standard outplacement services and is specific career coaching to support clients seeking to move from one role to another either on a permanent or interim basis.
Our coaches use their many years of experience to provide support and guidance for those facing career challenges or considering a change in role. We know it can be a challenging but also exciting time for our clients. We enable them to build the tools and techniques they need in order to find an alternative role, increase their awareness of their behavioural strengths and give them techniques to communicate these effectively and we support them in building a CV’s and external social media profiles that enable them to best portray their unique value and stand out from the crowd.
SKILLS AND CAPABILITIES COACHING FOR ASPIRING COO’S AND BUSINESS MANAGERS
We know that the jump from business manager to COO can be big. COO roles can vary greatly from function to function, organisation to organisation so the road from business management to COO isn’t always straight forward and linear. As some of our coaches are former COO’s and business managers they know what to expect when going from one role to another.
Our coaches work with the client to support them in understanding what is required in order to be successful to make that move from business manager to COO. We support our clients in building the relevant skillsets and where appropriate to help bridge any perception gaps that may exist between employee and what the organisation wants from them as a potential COO. Our clients finish their coaching with a clear understanding of what it takes to be a COO, enhanced business performance a strategy for further build out of their skills sets and greater resilience and self-confidence.
CONFIDENCE AND PERSONAL BRAND COACHING
Being successful in your career is not just about working hard and getting the job done. You have to be your own marketeer and communications team and in order to do this successfully you need confidence and a strong understanding of your personal brand. Because we work with so many COO’s in markets and Asset management, we know how important it is to have an understanding of your brand and to be able to confidently articulate your brand in order stand out in the workplace.
Our coaches have experience in confidence coaching and personal brand work. Through tried and tested coaching tools, they will support you in building your confidence, helping you navigate situations you find challenging in the workplace and work with you to support you in building a brand that is unique to you that you can communicate effectively to your stakeholders and sponsors.
Our coaches are fully trained and have extensive experience in the business either as former COO’s, leaders of large global teams or HR. We believe that our unique selling proposition is in providing coaches who have recruited, led and managed a wide variety of teams and who have held commercial roles in large organisations, often in the C-Suite. They have been in the clients’ shoes and are therefore uniquely positioned to provide understanding and support of the key issues faced.
How Our Coaching Works
Depending on the nature of the coaching our Executive Coaching services vary in length. Typically, our coaching assignments take the following form:
A free, no obligation ‘chemistry session’ designed to help our coach understand the client, understand what they want to get out of the coaching and determine the success criteria. In addition, this session is designed to help both coach and client assess the ‘fit’. If our coaches do not believe they are the right fit for the client they will not take on the assignment. The meeting duration is typically between 30 to 45 minutes.
Coaching packages vary according to the size and the complexity of the assignment and the outcomes required. Some of our shorter redeployment support coaching can be completed in 3 session packages. Confidence work and career transition coaching typically take place over 6 to 8 sessions in order to effect change. Sessions typically last around 45 to 60 minutes. The duration of the package, sessions and session frequency is discussed and agreed as part of the chemistry session but most of our clients see their coach every 2 to 4 weeks.
Full virtual support for the client is given throughout the duration of the coaching engagement via email and/or zoom. So if you sign up for an 8 package session seeing your coach once every month, you will get support for the entire 8 month process.
Become a Member
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