Accepting three principals — Q4 2026
The room changes when you do.
Executive coaching for founders, first-time CEOs and the leaders behind them. One hour a fortnight, twelve months, and a measurable change in how your team experiences you.
1,400+
Coaching hours
86
Executives coached
PCC
ICF credentialed
“
She is the only person who tells me the truth before the board does.
CFO — Series C fintech
Six months in, my exec team stopped managing me and started arguing with me. That was the point.
Founder & CEO — climate hardware
I came for a promotion plan. I left with a different way of running a room.
VP Engineering — public SaaS
Northwind Energy
Halcyon Bank
Arden Health
Volta Robotics
Meridian Rail
Juniper & Co
Fieldwork Labs
The Calder Trust
What I believe
Most leaders do not need more advice. They need one room where nobody needs anything from them — and someone in it who will say the thing their team has stopped saying.
Helena Marsh — coaching since 2013
Who I work with
Four kinds of principal.
How the work runs
Four moves,
in this order.
01
01
Listen
Before we meet I interview six to ten people around you. You get the unedited themes — what they say when you are not in the room.
02
02
Choose
We pick two or three behaviours that would change the most if they changed. Not ten. Not a personality transplant.
03
03
Practise
Fortnightly sessions built around real meetings in your diary: the board paper, the hard conversation, the offsite you are dreading.
04
04
Measure
Short 360 pulses at the start, midpoint and end. The people around you tell us whether it worked. We adjust until they say yes.
Ways to work together
Three engagements.
No packages.
First-time CEOs & new MDs
The First Hundred Days
Land the role before the role lands on you.
14 weeks
£9,600
The First Hundred Days
A focused engagement for the first quarter in a bigger seat: reading the board, resetting the team you inherited, and deciding what you will be known for.
Six 90-minute sessions
Stakeholder map & 360 interviews
Board-readiness rehearsal
Messaging between sessions
Founders & sitting executives
The Principal Year
One hour a fortnight. Twelve months. A different room.
12 months
£2,400 / month
The Principal Year
The core engagement. We work on the three or four behaviours that decide how your team experiences you, and we measure them — before, midway and after.
24 fortnightly sessions
Three 360 pulse surveys
Two shadowing days
Quarterly sponsor check-in
Unlimited short calls
Executive teams of 5–9
The Leadership Bench
Coach the team that has to carry the strategy.
6 months
From £38,000
The Leadership Bench
Team coaching for the layer below the CEO: how you disagree, how you decide, and what happens in the room after the CEO leaves it.
Team diagnostic
Four off-site days
Individual sessions for each member
Operating-rhythm redesign
Evidence
Measured by the people around you.
Every engagement is scored by the principal's own team, before and after. These are their numbers, not mine.
92%
of sponsors renew or refer
+31
average shift in team trust score
13 yrs
of fortnightly rooms
CFO — Series C fintech
From the numbers person to the second voice in the room.
Promoted from finance director eight months before an IPO process. We worked on presence with the board and on letting a strong team be strong.
+41
team trust score, 12 months
9 of 9
direct reports retained
Founder & CEO — climate hardware
A founder who stopped being the bottleneck.
Forty people, every decision through one inbox. A year later the exec team runs the week and the founder runs the next three years.
62%
fewer decisions escalated
2.3×
revenue, same headcount
VP Engineering — public SaaS
Promoted twice in eighteen months.
Technically brilliant, politically invisible. We built a way of being heard in rooms where the loudest voice usually won.
2
promotions in 18 months
+27
engagement, 140-person org
Chief Executive — hospital trust
Leading eleven thousand people through a merger.
Two cultures, one winter. The work was about tempo: what to decide this week, what to refuse to decide, and how to say both out loud.
11k
staff through the merger
−18%
senior turnover
In their words
What principals say when I am not in the room.
Names are shortened at clients' request. References are available after a chemistry call.
05 voices
“
She is the only person who tells me the truth before the board does.
Priya N.
CFO — Series C fintech
“
Six months in, my exec team stopped managing me and started arguing with me. That was the point.
Tomas R.
Founder & CEO — climate hardware
“
I came for a promotion plan. I left with a different way of running a room.
Dana K.
VP Engineering — public SaaS
“
Helena does not give advice. She asks the question you have been avoiding for a year, then waits.
Sir Alan W.
Chair — national charity
“
The 360 was brutal and she made it useful. My team noticed the change before I did.
Marguerite L.
COO — retail group
Meet
Helena
About
Twenty years inside rooms like yours.
Before coaching I ran operations for a 900-person business and sat on two boards. I know what Monday morning feels like after a bad Friday board meeting — and I know most of it is fixable.
Helena Marsh
Insights
Notes from the corridor.
Before you ask
Straight answers to the usual questions.
Anything else, ask on the chemistry call — that is what it is for.
What happens on a chemistry call?
Who pays — me or my company?
How is coaching different from mentoring or therapy?
How do you measure whether it worked?
Do we meet in person?
How soon could we start?
Accepting three principals — Q4 2026
Start with
twenty-five minutes.
No deck, no pitch. You talk, I listen, and we both find out whether I am the right person for the next year of your working life.
Book a chemistry call
Executive coaching for founders, first-time CEOs and the leaders behind them.
Helena Marsh