CLIENT TESTIMONIALS
I have benefited from Katie's coaching for over 4 years now - a time that has seen significant development in my career and life outside work.
Although initially supported by my company, I now engage Katie in a private capacity as I know the value she brings in my development and success.
I first benefited from Katie's coaching as a newly appointed Director, when we worked on my communication and influence skills in the context of senior stakeholders. Her ability to offer really insightful feedback and challenge as well being able to draw on a broad kit-bag of tools and techniques to help hone my capabilities was invaluable.
In parallel with this, Katie developed and facilitated a program to work with my new team and I to establish our vision, goals and self-awareness, helping to achieve our ambition to be a 'high performing team.' I have no doubt that Katie's work with us played a significant role in our effectiveness and success.
Katie’s support was then instrumental in helping me develop my career and, particularly, building my confidence to make a significant change after more than 15 years with one company. Katie's coaching played a major part in my successful transition into a new role. I also benefited hugely from being able to draw on Katie's network of associates who supported me in CV development, interview technique and contractual engagement.
I have continued to benefit from Katie's coaching as I have grown in my new, substantially larger, role and tackled the challenges and seized the opportunities that inevitably arise in operating at a senior level in a global organisation.
I have no doubt that Katie's support and challenge has been instrumental in my progress towards achieving my career and life goals over the time we have worked together. I have no hesitation in recommending Rowland & Associates generally and Katie specifically to anyone looking for coaching support for themselves or their team.
The coaching and assistance I have received from Katie has been really beneficial in helping me develop myself and really take control of my career.
I have been working with Katie now for over 6 years; now the meetings are on a less frequent basis but continue to help challenge and support my development. My career and development has helped me move through various senior roles, including helping me make decisions like moving to China as the CEO, to coming back to the UK and becoming Operational Claims Director and now UK Operations Director.
I have significantly grown in confidence and this has driven real delivery in my role. The safe nature of the discussions allows me to open up but Katie has been really helpful to push and get me thinking and making my own decisions, the mix of asking the right questions mixed by models to help me has been really helpful.
As a leader it is important that I continually look to improve my own performance, understanding the impact I have on my people and the business. I have been working with Katie on a 1-2-1 coaching basis for over a year and in that time she has challenged and supported me in a way that has dramatically improved the impact I am having.
Creating confidence in myself, my coaching with Katie has allowed me to be bolder and more risk taking in my business decisions; more assertive and clear in my leadership style; and I have improved my work life balance and had my best year in my business performance, winning external awards and internal recognition.
Katie is an excellent coach. She is tough and demanding, insightful, intellectual and an excellent teacher. If you have the desire to improve yourself she will bring it out in you and not let you off the hook. Truly excellent to work with, professional and friendly, yet she will test you every step of the way! Katie is, in my 24 years at work, the best coach I have ever worked with. A huge thank you Katie.Working with Katie over the last three and a half years has been invaluable to the developments in my career. My role has evolved considerably over the period, and at each change I have been able to work through key situations and find options to face new challenges with her help and support.
In our sessions we have covered everything from a stressful house purchase, relationship problems and health issues to strained working relationships, difficult management situations and raising my work profile.
The coaching has helped me in very real and practical ways, and definitely assisted me in progressing my career.
Katie's encouragement and objective feedback helps me explore the motivations and aspirations in every aspect of my life.
The total attention I get from Katie during our energising sessions gives me the opportunity to realise my full potential, to the benefit of both my career and home life.
It's the most productive use of a company's training budget I've yet experienced.
I've been working with Katie for 4 years now. In those four years, my career progression has been superb - I've gone from being a group head to Trading Director of one of the UK's leading newspapers.
Her coaching skills are second to none and I have recommended she work with all senior management across the operation
The essence of our working together was the need I had for organising and prioritising in my daily business activities. Katie’s excellent personal style of coaching, which is a fine balance between challenging and nurturing, combined with great knowledge of the tools available, enabled me to quickly and completely rethink and re-organise the way I worked.
The business results since October, when our coaching relationship began, are excellent – we are 30% over target and 70% ahead of last year. I feel far better equipped to look at problems, decide upon the best possible outcome, and then achieve it. I have a deeper-rooted feeling for where I am going with the business and how we are going to get there.
Because I now offer more focused leadership, team morale is much better and the staff can follow my solid lead more easily. I make better decisions more quickly, giving a new momentum to everyone’s efforts.
We are currently planning for our next financial year and I am approaching this knowing very much better what I want to achieve, what resources will be needed to achieve this, and feeling confident that I can present the strategy and the results it will obtain. This is a great change from making a budget and hoping we could achieve it."
When I first started working with Katie I was struggling to get the balance right between work, personal and family. Since working with Katie I have made significant progress by understanding the core issues, identifying things I could do to improve, setting targets and then addressing them. I have made substantial progress and this has not only made me feel that I'm managing myself better but also is rubbing off on my impact on my management team and helping them improve their balance and performance.
Not only have I made my life balance better but I have also become more productive at work by focusing on the key issues. All this has been achieved when life at work has been more pressurised than ever before.
Katie is an outstanding business coach who helped me make significant changes in my professional life. When we started working together, I was doing well at work but at a great cost to my home life and sanity, with long hours and bad habits taking their toll.
Nine months later, my husband couldn't believe how much I'd changed. I was taking regular exercise, sleeping better and always leaving the office at a sensible time. I was really enjoying life again.
And rather than having to make sacrifices at work, that year I got my first ever 'outstanding' performance rating - directly attributable to Katie's influence. She is very positive and supportive, whilst at the same time relentlessly focussed on results and not settling for anything less than excellence.
Katie is an outstanding business coach who I have known and worked with for 15 years. Katie is experienced at working at Board and Executive level and has the attribute of challenging and supporting those that she works with. Katie couples an enthusiastic approach with real passion for her work and she has an ability to share that energy.
Katie's approach is outcome focused and she works with her clients to develop their thinking, challenging options, always pushing for a breadth of thinking and consideration of different options. However although results driven her style is supportive and friendly and clients find it easy to open up to her and support can continue outside of the core session. Each meeting will end with an agreement of next steps and actions to provide an ongoing focus.
Overall one of the very best coaches I have worked with!
There is no single formula for success, no magic bullet. Successful Executives whilst schooled have often developed their own personas and ideas about leadership and management, inspiring and driving people in different ways.
As an Executive Coach Katie Rowland doesn’t attempt to change what has made you successful. In the first instance she enables you to understand it, to harness it; then to consider if it remains the most effective and productive way for you to operate. Finally she provides tools and techniques to approach situations and decision making in different ways. This is all done in a very client centric manner, without dogma or excessive theorizing, always focusing on the individual or business goal at hand.
Katie expects and demands action. She is not passive in her approach, the client is asked to provide demonstrable examples at each session of their development. She encourages clients to analyze their behaviours and consider their own success criteria from both a situational and business perspective. She provides the client with a safe space to reconsider their actions and determine if they delivered the most effective business output.
I have found Katie’s approach and tool kit particularly useful for the modern collaborative working environment, where group buy-in and stakeholder influencing - aligned to strong emotional intelligence, are key to delivering organisational and business growth.
Throughout my career I have used Executive Coaches, firstly at Business School and then in the course of my employment. However, Katie is the one who has made the strongest impact on me. She has supported me in maintaining my inner drive and ambition whilst moving away from an, at times, overly confrontational style. At the same time she has enabled me to understand better my core key skill set which means that I can structure my team and organisation to exploit these skills whilst supplementing areas in which I am not so strong.
Long story short, I decided to leave my employer ahead of officially working with Katie but she kept in touch and when I moved to my new position as Chief Strategy Officer for a high growth Fintech I decided that working with Katie would be invaluable in providing the support I needed in my new position.
Despite a number of great achievements over my career I was heavily lacking in confidence and was carrying a lot of “baggage” with no real plan on where I was going. Katie provided me with lots of practical tools and approaches and focused a great deal on self empowerment.
Having worked with Katie for almost a year, I am a totally different person and people comment as such. I am much more positive, have a greater balance in life and approach challenges with a fresh perspective. I really look forward to our sessions and believe I have gone from strength to strength. Katie is a bundle of energy and enthusiasm backed up by a huge amount of practical and highly effective techniques and I would strongly recommend her as a coach. My only regret is not meeting her sooner.
Katie Rowland has been working with Metro as an executive coach to our most senior people for 4 years. During this time many of them have moved to positions of even greater seniority as a result of their accelerated personal development supported by Rowland and Associates. Katie successfully adapts her style to the widely differing personalities and challenges of the individuals on the Board.
As a result they have all been able to become more effective through her coaching, and have made even more significant positive impacts on the business.
I have been working with Katie in both a Group and Brand capacity for about 3 years now. In that time she has challenged me both personally and professionally and proven to be a truly great coach.
In terms of support with my Brand colleagues Katie always uses great judgement and intuition to solve problems, resolve issues and move the team forward. She uses great tools to do this with a number of emotional intelligence exercises and examples that really encourage honesty and openness within the teams.
A powerful coach who is a real master at this art. Very practical, relevant and enjoyable workshop. Thank you! An absolutely excellent day, delivered by an expert facilitator.
Katie has a great style, is open and sharing of her vast experience and expertise. Balances the learning and fun elements of coaching to ensure a high powered and energizing coaching course.
You make it look simple. I really can’t wait to practice it.
Two great sessions – great grasp of coaching gained and good opportunity to apply learning in practice sessions.
Katie’s style is flexible and taps into what we want to do and what we consider of value.
This was an excellent coaching workshop. It was set at the right level and went at the right pace. It’d highly recommend it.
Katie’s energy, enthusiasm and expertise makes for a really dynamic and action focused session. I felt exhausted in a positive way!
Fantastic! The right amount of challenge, support and focus in a really non aggressive way. Very professional.
Absolutely excellent – a real pro – it is my goal to become as proficient as this at some point in my life!
On a personal level Katie has made a real difference to my career through her coaching and support. Her style is informal yet professional, challenging yet supportive and above all honest and insightful. Through our coaching Katie has encouraged me to take risks, increased my inner confidence and really supported my development towards a varied and flexible career.
I never cease to be amazed at how flexible Katie can be in the adaptation of her style and her breadth of knowledge – she is someone who I will continue to work with for the foreseeable future.
I feel extremely lucky to have Katie as my Coach. I have been a private client of Katies' for over two years and the work we have done together has had an extremely positive impact on my career and life in general. I have grown professionally and now understand my work preferences and the environment that plays to my strengths.
This has had a profound impact on my career choices and most importantly I really appreciate my work life balance.
I enjoy working with Katie and admire her informal yet very professional approach to coaching. Her depth of coaching knowledge, ability to flex her coaching style and her true passion for making a difference to peoples lives and careers comes through in our sessions and the support she gives me as a client.
I have found in Katie a person who I can completely trust. She is always up-beat, positive and inspirational, I never leave our phone calls without a huge smile on my face and the feeling that I am going to climb Everest in the afternoon!
I find our "chats" enlightening, often provoking thoughts and theories that have lain dormant for a long time. Katie’s questions make me look at my life and myself in a new way - with confidence.
She pushes me in areas that I need to be pushed and allow me to share thoughts and feelings that I’ve struggled to keep inside. The relief I feel afterwards is quite amazing and I am now achieving things that I had only hoped for.
Katie has been my coach for nearly 6 months now. I began coaching at a time in my life where I'd reached a cross-roads and had a clear idea of where I wanted to be but unclear as to how I could get there. Katie appeared at the perfect time and has emerged as the perfect coach.
We work brilliantly together and I really feel we're like a team but most importantly she's on my side. I've found Katie to be refreshingly and unremittingly honest. This has made our partnership very safe because I trust Katie's feedback, which is always sharp and sound.
Katie has the gift of enabling me to unravel the fog in my thinking. She always maintains the answers lie within ourselves and in a really skilful way, Katie helps me tap into my own resources. Therefore she doesn't provide easy answers or ready solutions but by asking the right questions she guides me to find them for myself.
I think the excellence of any artist ...creator ...professional is manifest in the apparent simplicity with which they carry out their task. Katie is an excellent coach. She is professional, intelligent, honest, challenging, dynamic, compassionate, but the most significant quality is that Katie is profoundly optimistic and therein lies her coaching magic.
I worked with Katie over a period of several months. During this time Katie helped me to focus, find my true values and have the courage to tackle some of the issues I had hidden in the far corner of my closet. Specifically, I was having problems in my relationship, ultimately deciding if this was the right thing for us or not. Katie helped me to really look at the relationship in detail, to analyse the issues and to determine if it was possible to work through these. More importantly, by working through the issues in a logical process the worry and stress evaporated leaving a calmer environment, which in turn had a great effect on the relationship. We are now amazingly happy and building a positive future together.
Katie also helped me to re-evaluate my career. I wasn't satisfied at all in my current role. Katie, through the use of several techniques, helped me to identify my true values. Having identified these it was much easier to take a true look at my job and decide if it was offering all that I required. As a result I pushed for other projects enabling me to work in areas I truly had a passion for.
Her approach immediately puts you at ease and provides a safe place for discussion. The coaching she provided on an individual basis has given me valuable self awareness and the ability to gain greater perspectives in terms of managing relationships, prioritising, strategic thinking, influencing and confidence.
I had the best sleep last night, I felt so relaxed!
I started off our session feeling anxious and worried about my upcoming exams and everything in general. I never honestly thought this would work like it has done. I feel incredible. You are amazing at your job! It has worked wonders. I'm now feeling so optimistic, and that is all down to you and your havening. I might have one more session in the next couple of weeks, however, I feel I have let a lot off my chest and I feel amazing for it!
I honestly don't think I could thank you enough for what you've done for me. You have helped me and changed me into a more positive and happy person! I am so incredibly thankful!
Over the course of the past year a series of events led to intolerable levels of stress and anxiety, which threatened to overwhelm me. I am the kind of person who would typically just plough on, and try to deal with it, using exercise to try to unwind. However, I was lucky enough to meet Katie, who recognised the symptoms, and suggested I try Havening.
I had never tried any alternative therapies and have to say I was absolutely staggered by the results. Through Katie's skilful facilitation I was able to process my thoughts, and unlock some very powerful deep-rooted emotions, in a safe environment. Ultimately this process resulted in me being; clear on the underlying cause of the issues, provided an outlet for my emotions, rebuilt my reserves, and left me feeling stronger and more able to cope with tough situations in a controlled way.
Katie has been a friend of mine for over 10 years and I have been watching with interest as she has embarked on her Havening training and course.
My son has a low self-esteem so I listened with particular interest as she explained the Havening technique and how it could potentially help.
We gave it a go and he has had 4 sessions over the last 6 months. My son was incredibly positive about the experience and used the techniques he'd been taught to help him through events he would normally have found stressful with great effect. He was positive about the system and felt it was really working for him.
The most recent session was prior to a senior school entrance exam, which he was extremely anxious about. During the build up to the exam he started to show concerning behaviour, beyond tears, and was talking in an extremely negative manner.
Katie and my son met for a session the night before the exam. He woke in the morning with 'normal' nerves and walked into the exam room with confidence. During the exam he used the Havening techniques he had learnt. He came out of the exam hugely positive, which is incredibly unusual for him. He was happy to talk through the experience (again highly unusual) and sighted Havening as having been pivotal to his ability to get out of the house on the morning of the exam and into the exam room.
I would thoroughly recommend Katie and her Havening technique.
As someone with heaps of baggage and a complex history, who has tried (and been disappointed with) various forms of treatment (CBT, counselling etc), I am sceptical of most alternative therapies and was unconvinced that I would feel many benefits from a havening session.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
I can't quite explain what happened in the session that clicked, but one thing for sure is the huge benefits that I have felt as a direct result of just one session. It is like a big weight was instantly lifted from my shoulders, and for the first time in my life I am seeing things from a much more positive and pragmatic perspective. It has had such a massive impact on how I control various situations I find myself confronted with and made me much more able to articulate and express my opinions when needed.
It takes courage to allow yourself to let go of all sorts of pent up emotions, but the feeling of liberation once you've taken that step – the rewards are just magical.
My appointment with Katie was my first experience of Havening. She had explained the theory to me beforehand and I felt comfortable knowing what to expect when we met.
As we started the session a painful memory came to me and I was in tears straight away, my cat who I had had for 19 years had become ill and had to go to the vets to be put down, I hadn't realised that all the time since I had felt guilty that I hadn't been able to take her as I was so emotional about it. Katie applied the Havening touch to my arms and worked through the feelings with me. Within minutes the intensity of this emotion lessened and I remembered more of the nice sweet moments and less of the end of her life. I left the session feeling relieved and as I drove home I was smiling a lot. A great burden felt lifted.
Over weekend the feeling remained, and I shared the story many times. Even talking about my beloved cat would normally have me in tears but each time I told the story I remembered the nice times not the end. The reason I'm so impressed with this change is my cat died in 2008 and time hasn't really healed how I felt, but in one session of event Havening I felt so differently.
I am happy to recommend Katie and her Havening practice as my first-hand experience has been dramatic in the best possible way.
Katie's has introduced me to havening, which is a technique I am gradually bringing into my routines. Havening is a gentle, immediate and highly portable way to calm my mind and its anxieties, bringing a deep, soothing interior peace that is reminiscent to the feelings of meditation.
While I have not yet explored fully the benefits of the havening technique, my initial experiences of it confirm for me that it is a very useful tool, and one that I want to make a habit as a response when my mind jumps into anxiety.
On the day of the session, Katie immediately put my daughter at ease; she created an environment that made my daughter feel she could tell her everything that was on her mind. She was incredibly understanding, calm, and caring. I heard my daughter open up to her and tell her things that were new to me. She is a total natural with children and young people. For the rest of the day my daughter was very chilled, and has remained far calmer since, with a quiet confidence that she can handle stressful situations now. We are looking forward to booking with Katie again for a ‘top up’ session.
