Speakers at Leading Through Life Storms
Hello and welcome! I founded Damsel Not In Distress® in 2023, to empower people to thrive after big life challenges, that is to Sing After The StormTM.
Having graduated top of the science faculty at St Andrews University and achieved a maths doctorate, I embarked on a successful 15-year career. I became a senior civil servant and charity leader despite enduring several life storms: including PTSD from a traumatic hospital stay, two forms of OCD, chronic anxiety and insomnia, tough work situations and, overshadowing it all, an emotionally abusive and alcoholic father.
I kept showing up at work and achieving successes and promotions, but the toll on my health was high. Like many others, my instinct was to keep pushing through, but over time I discovered better ways to honour my needs.
I’m passionate about supporting and encouraging you to find the treasures at the other side of your life storm!
Theme 1: Finding inspiration in real life stories
Dame Clare Moriarty
CEO at Citizens Advice & former Permanent Secretary in UK civil service
2019 - a year like no other
Clare is Chief Executive of Citizens Advice and leads the national charity and network of local Citizens Advice charities across England & Wales. She was previously a civil servant for 35 years, latterly as Permanent Secretary of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2015 to 2019, and of the Department for Exiting the EU until its closure in January 2020. After leaving the Civil Service, Clare chaired the Health Foundation’s Covid-19 impact inquiry before joining Citizens Advice in 2021. She is the senior independent member of Westminster Abbey’s Board, a trustee of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Treasurer of the History of Parliament Trust.
Hetti Barkworth-Nanton CBE
CEO at Ploughshare Innovations and Chair of Refuge
From dying to thriving through an onslaught of tsunamis
Hetti has had a career leading financial, commercial and transformational change across large blue chip organisations, and is now privileged to be the CEO at Ploughshare and Chair of the Board at Refuge, the largest provider of specialist domestic abuse services in England. Hetti's experience covers the airline, utilities and telecoms industries. In the last 10 years of her private sector career, she brought her expertise and collaborative leadership skills into the telecommunications industry, being responsible for delivering the commercial model for Openreach on its establishment, and the transformation of the Vodafone UK Enterprise business, which works with many of the large UK businesses including public sector such as MOD.
Richard Calvert
Director, Higher Futures Ltd
How to be a supportive leader who still gets things done
Richard is an experienced public sector leader, with a background in policy, strategy and organisational change. After spending much of his career in Whitehall, Richard worked in higher education as COO and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Sheffield Hallam University, leading substantial operating model redesign, as well as campus redevelopment and portfolio diversification. Richard is now one of the Directors of Higher Futures Ltd, which advises and supports the higher education and skills sector on strategy, leadership and change. Richard is an active executive coach and mentor, and a member of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council.
Tricia Donnelly
CEO at The Mungo Foundation
What resilience has really looked like in my storm
Drawing from her early life experience where she witnessed and felt first-hand the impact of health and social inequality, as well as from a health and social care career that spans three decades, Tricia recognises the critical nature of social care when it comes to supporting people to flourish, to live the life they want, and to realise their potential. A strategic leader, Tricia brings a vision of community and citizen empowerment and wholeheartedly believes that through the delivery of personalised service, people can be empowered to improved health, wellbeing and self-agency.
Clare Francis-Slater
Director, Diversity Days Everyday
The power and necessity of a pause and reset
Clare is an educational consultant. For over twenty years, she worked mainly in primary schools, but also within many other educational settings including secondary schools, colleges and universities. She has founded her own consultancy organisation, Diversity Days Everyday, which supports organisations to be more inclusive and embed diversity. She has worked with many of her local schools, the University of Derby, Developing Teachers Schools Academies, the NHS, Leeds City of Culture 2023 and the Arts Council on various projects. She is the author of The Little Book of Balm for the Broken Soul, published in 2023. She wrote this after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018.
Paul Hargreaves
CEO at Cotswold Fayre & Flourish
Why adversity helps develop great leaders
Paul is one of the leading voices in the UK encouraging and inspiring businesses to make a positive impact on the world. He believes that businesses should be Forces for Good, which is also the title of his first book. Paul’s main role is as CEO of Cotswold Fayre, a multi-award-winning speciality food and drink wholesaler supplying over 2,000 retail, mainly rural sites in the UK. The company diversified in June 2021 by opening Flourish, its first foodhall, restaurant and home and lifestyle store and opened a second store in 2024. Paul speaks at conferences across the UK and Europe about compassionate leadership, personal development and sustainability. Paul inspires other business leaders with practical stories and lessons still being learned.
Linda Mason
Higher education consultant, mentor & coach
How to be a supportive leader who still gets things done
Linda is an experienced strategy and planning professional with over 20 years' experience in the Higher Education sector. She has director-level experience establishing and leading high performing teams working on strategy development, performance and risk management, governance, and compliance, and strategic change. She worked as Programme Director for the Sheffield Hallam London campus development, taking the programme from initial idea, through full strategic business case and into programme implementation. Linda is now Principal Consultant for Higher Futures Ltd, which advises and supports the higher education and skills sector on strategy, leadership and change. Linda is an active mentor working towards her ILM 7 Coaching and Mentoring qualification.
Niran Mothada
Senior leadership trainer
Leading through and learning from my grief journey
Niran is an accomplished executive leader with corporate leadership experience in the civil service and local government. She has operated in multifaceted and sensitive political environments and led under intense media, public, and regulatory scrutiny. Her expertise spans strategy, policy, operations, resilience, programme delivery, and leading large-scale change and transformation. She is accustomed to navigating complex organisational structures and building consensus across diverse partnerships to deliver national and regional strategies and operations. Having recently left the Greater London Authority, Niran is developing her career as a senior leadership trainer and non-executive board member.
Fayana Richards
Financial wellness coach
Rooted in the reframe: Redefining my values and self-worth through discomfort and disappointment
Fayana is a financial wellness coach dedicated to helping high achieving women develop an aligned relationship with their money and mindset to achieve their goals, reduce debt and build wealth. She is an accredited financial counsellor and holds certification in the Trauma of Money Method. With a PhD in medical anthropology and a Master of Public Health, she approaches financial wellness through a holistic lens that prioritises her clients’ health and wellbeing throughout their work together.
Theme 2: Building your leader's storm toolkit
Leon Clark
Organisational consultant & leadership coach
Your emotions as data to navigate your storm & the workplace
Leon empowers leaders to create trust-driven, high-performing teams where people thrive. As an NHS GP, he saw firsthand how relationships - not just strategy - drive change. To develop this learning further, he studied systems-psychodynamics on a practical master's course at the Tavistock Centre and Essex University, refining his ability to navigate complex team dynamics. With a global outlook and deep curiosity, Leon helps leaders move beyond individual performance to build cohesive, resilient organisations. Working with him cultivates workplaces where trust fuels success.
Maggie Rose Cunningham
True Colours Coaching
Rekindling your magic: 5 pathways for tough times
You were never meant to dim your magic. As a child, Maggie saw the world in technicolour - alive with meaning beyond the eye. But she learned to hide that part of herself. She built a successful career where intuition and magic were unspoken taboos. Yet, despite the success, she burned out - twice. The problem wasn’t her magic; it was suppressing it. The gifts she had tucked away - intuition, deep insight, and energetic awareness - weren’t distractions. They were her key to thriving. Now, she helps high-achieving leaders reclaim their magic. She guides them to trust their inner wisdom, integrate spiritual intelligence, and lead from wholeness. Success and soul were never meant to be separate.
Amanda Devaure-Croft
The Mindful Style Coach
Style as shelter: Mindful dressing to weather life's storms
Amanda transforms getting dressed from stress to self-care. As a former human rights campaigner, she dismissed style as frivolous until MS forced her to leave her career at 39. Getting dressed became one of the few things she could control, revealing its power to shape our energy and mindset. Feeling overwhelmed by traditional style advice, she created the Style Freedom approach - helping women feel good on both high and low-effort days. Her unique methodology blends mindfulness and neuroscience to turn dressing into a way to nourish and resource yourself for whatever your day brings. Amanda's rebellious, compassionate coaching proves that our wardrobes can be an anchor amidst life’s storms.
Jen Le Marinel
Coach, trainer, facilitator & wild guide
Live wild: harnessing our wild wisdom to navigate life storms
Jen founded Wildfire Walks in 2017, having transformed her story of burnout and depression in the corporate world into a new experience of living in tune with nature. Since then, she has been committed to adventure, rediscovery, and exploration of how to live a life more in tune with our innate ways of being whilst balancing the realities of modern living. She has run more than 50 retreats and multi-day trainings. Her flagship year-long programme, BeWild, has supported individuals and professional services businesses for the past four years. She is a keen wild adventurer, walking solo from Land’s End to John O’Groats in 2017, and living and working with the San Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert.
Mark R. McLaughlin, MD
Neurosurgeon, coach & author
Dismantling fear in the storm so we can lead and serve others
Mark is a practising board-certified neurosurgeon, a national media commentator, author of the book Cognitive Dominance: A Brain Surgeon’s Quest to Out-Think Fear, and acclaimed keynote speaker. He is the founder of Princeton Brain and Spine Care where he practises surgery focusing on trigeminal neuralgia and cervical spine surgery. He is also a thought leader in performance enhancement and physician hospital relations. His interests extend beyond medicine and speaking engagements. He coaches youth wrestling and he co-founded and funded Trenton Youth Wrestling, a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing inner city boys and girls with skills gained through wrestling and working with mentors.
Sarae Pratt
Coach & trainer
Going from empty to full
Sarae is a seasoned coach with over 22 years' experience in developing and empowering individuals. With a background in HR and talent development, she has worked with middle and senior managers across professional services, education and the public sector. As a Certified Women's Leadership Coach and self-professed learning geek, she brings a holistic approach to her training and coaching business. Her expertise lies in helping individuals cultivate holistic skills, body and mindset growth for sustainable success. With a passion for personal and professional development, her transformative journey inspires others to embrace their true selves and find joy in all aspects of life.
Philippa Robinson
The Bold HSP
Taming your negative thoughts in the storm
Philippa is a lawyer, a life coach, author and podcaster. She has worked in the legal sector for over 30 years and became a certified life coach in 2020 after her biggest life storm yet. She lives in Bristol, with her husband, two teenage sons and Bob the dog, where she is a partner in a small law firm and a life coach for sensitive and empathic women who want to stop feeling frustrated and find their joy. During her own personal transformation, through healing childhood trauma and learning to love and live for herself, she arrived at her soul mission to guide people to be the truest versions of themselves because she believes that is where the joy is in life and it's the greatest gift we can give ourselves.
Susan Sutherland
Executive life coach
From gaslight to inner light in a life storm
After nearly 30 years in corporate, half in the C-suite, Susan left her day job to have new experiences. She launched her coaching and consulting practice in 2017. She supports senior leaders, executives and, increasingly, emerging leaders, as they navigate complex careers and lives while being fully human and amazing leaders. She has lived through a number of life storms, and the wisdom from those experiences deeply informs her work. She and her spouse live partly in San Franscisco, and partly in rural South Africa where many guests come to rest and reconnect with nature with them at Mvemve GrootPoort Lodge.
Theme 3: Cultivating skills and workplace culture
Mark Foster
Former Group Chief Executive, Accenture & Chairman, IBM Consulting
Adaptive consistency: how to lead & support others through life storms
Mark had a nearly 40 year career in management consulting, first with Andersen Consulting/Accenture and then with IBM. In both organisations, he led major global business units ranging from $4bn to $47bn in scale and 15,000 to 240,000 in numbers of employees. He had Executive Officer P&L responsibility and led through periods of growth and transformation in positive and challenging market contexts. He was also a founding Commissioner for the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (2011-2015). He is now Chair of Chichester Festival Theatre.
Graham Allcott
Author & founder, Think Productive
The quiet power of kindness at work
Graham is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is the author of multiple books, including the global bestseller How to Be a Productivity Ninja. His latest book, KIND: The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work, focuses on why organisations with kinder, more human-centred cultures are ultimately more successful. He is the founder of Think Productive, one of the world's leading providers of training and consultancy, with offices in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands. Despite an intolerance of failure elsewhere in his life, he is an Aston Villa season ticket holder and avid Toronto Blue Jays baseball fan.
Anne Archer
Thinking partner & coach
Anchored leadership: Connecting authentically in times of overwhelm
Anne is the founder of Anne Archer Associates (2007) and a trusted advisor to leaders who strive to excel without sacrificing what matters most. With a wealth of experience in empowering high-achieving professionals globally, she combines strategic insight with actionable guidance to help leaders thrive professionally and personally. Her proven methods transform overwhelm into clarity, enabling leaders to navigate their multiple roles with confidence and purpose. Her mission is simple: to help leaders lead boldly, live fully, and inspire others to do the same.
Dr Lizzy Bernthal
Release Your Potential Ltd
Rise with resilience to lead through life's storms
Lizzy is a resilience specialist, confidence and leadership coach, international speaker, and best-selling author, accredited by the International Coaching Federation. A former Lt Col in the Army, she served 25 years as a health professional, leading teams in 18 countries, including Afghanistan. She holds a PhD in Resilience and was awarded Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2017. She helps leaders cut through boardroom noise, moving from self-doubt to impact and influence. She was named Sustainable You Business Leader of the Year. Featured in The Times, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, and more, she contributed to the Amazon bestseller The Top 10 Traits of Highly Resilient People.
Wendy McCristal
The Mental Wealth Company Ltd
Weathering life's storms: wellbeing habits for busy professionals
Wendy has 32 years' experience in navigating engineering design and manufacturing, consultancy, business management and ownership. After burning out from a senior position in a large multinational consultancy, and six months' recovery, Wendy established the Mental Wealth Café, encouraging conversations about mental health and wellbeing in the workplace. Fast forward to now, Wendy's company, The Mental Wealth Company Ltd, has been working for over five years with organisations which want to support their staff to thrive at work using practical "a-ha!" collaborative thinking, "I get it!" training and embodied coaching techniques.
Megan Stachini
Founder, Intrinsic
The secret to overcoming burnout in a storm
Megan is an entrepreneur and owns multiple businesses. Megan set up her first company as a single mum. She has grown the business to around £1 million turnover so understands what it takes to build a business from the ground up. Megan suffered burnout in 2020 and has since created a company that works with business owners to create a fulfilled life both in business and at home without regrets. As a mum of two, Megan understands the importance of time, freedom and fulfilment.
Theme 4: Gaining specialist storm insights
Dr Ritz Birah
Consultant counselling psychologist
Rewiring our brain & reconnecting with ourselves after burnout
Dr Ritz is a consultant counselling psychologist and the founder of Reflect with Dr Ritz, a transformative journalling service blending psychology and neuroscience. With over a decade of clinical experience, she focuses on habit formation and journalling. Through her online journalling platform, she offers accessible, bite-sized psychological insights delivered via WhatsApp, helping individuals develop sustainable habits and navigate life’s challenges through self-reflection and mindfulness. Her work draws on the latest research, creating practical tools that build emotional resilience and mental clarity. She is an expert speaker and co-host of The Therapy Floor podcast.
Lauren Chiren
Founder, Women of a Certain Stage
Successfully navigating menopause at work
Lauren is an advocate, speaker, and educator dedicated to normalising the conversation around periods to post-menopause in the workplace and beyond. As the founder and CEO of Women of a Certain Stage, she leads a team of expert associates in equipping organisations with the knowledge, tools, and strategies needed to support and retain top talent at every life stage. To date, she has helped over 2,000 executives, celebrities and athletes, trained over 200,000 people, and partnered with over 400 FTSE and Fortune 350 employers. Her previous career saw her in senior leadership roles across service industries and financial services, where she successfully led global transformation programmes.
Liza Collins
Executive leadership coach
Reclaiming your power and calm when facing bullying at work
Liza is an executive leadership coach with over 25 years' experience leading transformation and building healthy, high-performing teams in the NHS. Her work is trauma-informed and underpinned by the latest research and evidence-based practice in psychology and neuroscience. She is passionate about creating compassionate cultures and human-centred processes where all staff can thrive. A researcher and author, in 2002 she wrote "The NHS: Can it create a harassment-free environment and non-bullying culture?". She encountered a toxic bullying culture in 2019, which has deeply shaped her perspective. Her new book, The Physiology of Bullying, will be published later this year.
Andy Elwood
Specialist in psychological safety & mental health first aid
Stranded in a blizzard: three lessons to navigate life's toughest moments
Andy's training business specialises in psychological safety, keynote speaking and mental health first aid. He is a rescue helicopter veteran, or ‘dope-on-a-rope’, who rescued people from sinking boats, burning oil rigs, mountain falls and Afghan battlefields. Currently, he is creating tools for business leaders to assess their wellbeing strategy and high-performance teams. Andy shares secrets from helicopter rescue, which help leaders to improve high-performance teams and individuals to build their resilience and better mental health.
Laura Howard
The Contented Workplace Company
A woman's guide to leading through the storm
Laura's passion and professional purpose is making work work for everyone – leaders, teams, and customers. After a twenty-year global career in the private and public sectors, including ten years as a senior leader, she qualified as an organisational psychologist in 2022. This led her to launch The Contented Workplace, fulfilling her ambitions for everyone to be their best and bring that best to work. She remains dedicated to research and teaching as an associate tutor for Birkbeck College (University of London). Her work is data and evidence-driven; as a previous people leader, her expertise has been forged in real-world experience.
Helen Jeffries
Senior civil servant, UK Department for Health & Social Care
Building autism acceptance in senior leadership
Helen is a senior civil servant in the Department of Health and Social Care. Prior to that, she worked in the Cabinet Office Covid Task Force. Seven years ago, she was diagnosed autistic, and she thought this was a total barrier to career progression as she couldn’t see any openly autistic senior civil servants. National crises gave her progression opportunities so now she is seeking to be that role model. She actively campaigns for more understanding and acceptance of autism. Her aim is that all civil servants should know that they are almost certain to have autistic colleagues, and that all autistic civil servants should feel confident being themselves at work.
Click the links above to learn more about our expert speakers and connect on social media!
© Damsel Not in Distress Ltd,
Company no. SC770248, All Rights Reserved
Damsel Not In Distress ® is a registered trade mark