Kathryn Perera

CEOs and Directors; Public Sector (UK and international); non-profits; Executive Teams and individuals.

(1) Leading the co-design and facilitation of the first National Maternity Summit in the English National Health Service (NHS).

(2) Co-Leading the Faculty of Future Vision, a CEO-level, cross-sectoral leadership development programme delivered between London (UK) and Boston (USA) with some 250 alumni.

I aim to be open and deeply curious in each interaction with each client. I believe that the ‘fit’ (in terms of energy, style and values) between us is as important as the care and expertise we each bring to the work. I am highly collaborative – I see my role as creating the conditions for collective intelligence (none of us is as smart as all of us) in service of having an impact on what the client values most.

I’m fortunate to have a career that has spanned many boundaries. Over the past 25 years, I’ve worked as a community organiser, strategic facilitator, an educator and leadership development specialist, and as a Director in the English National Health Service (NHS). I’ve even stood for elected office (at the UK General Election 2010). My experiences are driven by a deep curiosity about how change happens – both ‘within’ us and in our interactions with our wider context.

Alongside my professional practice, I’ve made time to stay involved in academic work, mainly to create the time and space to reflect deeply on my practice and then improve it. To this end, I have been a Fulbright Commission Scholar at Harvard University, an advisor to the History Faculty at Oxford University, and I’m currently a guest lecturer at the UK’s newest degree-awarding institution, the London Interdisciplinary School.

Colleague

For me, ‘work’ and ‘life’ are pretty integrated. So, in other aspects of my life I enjoy my roles as a Trustee of the Leading Change Network (global community organising hub) and a non-executive Director of Act Build Change (a UK-based social enterprise that builds power with people so that they are better able to make positive change in their communities). I’ve also started to write, with ambitions to publish a book in the next 2-3 years. And I live with my husband and beautiful children in Furzedown, a small and community-minded corner of south London.

My core practice centres of Executive and Board-level development. Alongside this, I offer executive coaching, though this is more usually aligned to a bigger scheme of work that develops a team or organisation. I enjoy working with others as part of a team, so I am unlikely to take on commissions to do standalone coaching or one-off development sessions.