Hi! I'm Ben
I am a leadership & performance coach and visiting fellow on leadership at King's Business School, London.
Leading is a brave choice. Leading is increasingly complex. Leading our own lives, leading others, leading teams of teams and businesses. It's hard.
Inwardly, leaders need to dial up self-awareness which can be confronting.
Outwardly, the essentials are vision, communication and decisiveness. Clarity.
Let me be your 'Oppo'.
We've got lives to lead, big and worthy problems to solve and businesses to build, and we're going to need to inspire and enable others to get it done.
So, I'm on a mission to build better leadership so that leaders build better businesses.
What's in my pockets?
Your coach is just as influential as the coaching.
Choosing your coach is important.
>> Intel
"We all carry rocks & rockets."
I do an exercise with all of my coachees called 'what's in your pockets?' It helps identify the rocks that you carry with you, and also the rockets of potential and superpower we might tap into.
The Juice
Following 10 years as a professional actor I went into e-commerce recruitment at a hugely exciting time of direct-to-consumer transformation, helping to build the first £1Bn UK online team at RS Components, as well as placing the team responsible for McDonalds digital experience transformation, in-store ePOS and App.
Biotech
Moving from e-commerce I landed in another frontier-tech environment, Biotech. Following a record £320m Series-A I was responsible for scaling Immunocore globally, circa 80 hires/year with an award-nominated EVP and employer-brand initiative. At Immunocore, I began to broaden my HR experience - leading on HR-tech as well supporting on a culture transformation project, leadership development programme and performance management.
I qualified as a Performance coach in 2019.
Oxford Spinouts
I have continued to build a career in highly-technical and regulated environments - joining the founding leadership team of Osler Diagnostics, an Oxford Sciences Enterprises (OSE) spin-out. As Head of People, from series-a to an £85 million series-c investment round and a £200m valuation, I scaled Osler to over 150 people bringing 41 nationalities and experts in biochemistry, electrochemistry and microfluidics to the UK.
Private Equity
Following a secondment to the broader OSE portfolio as an advisory and operator in 2020 - I went to New York, US in 2022 and joined Motive Partners, a $4Bn PE fund specialising in Fintech. I spent the next two years in private equity, working with investment teams to put talent at the heart of value creation plans as well as strategic HR advisor to PortCo's.
I have supported Monzo, Oxford Science Enterprises and Grayscale (US) in an advisory capacity.
In 2024 whilst supporting the acquisition of Businessfourzero by global search & consulting firm Heidrick & Struggles as People Director, I setup Oppo Coaching.
>> Target Acquired
Wannabe leaders
New leaders
Forced-to-be leaders
Lonely leaders
Lost leaders
All leaders are all of these at some point. Sometimes, more than one at the same time.
I have always been fascinated with leadership.
I have worked with leaders of all kinds: from multi-national billionaires to twenty-something founders, as well as technical experts thrust into leadership. I have worked in highly technical and regulated environments such biotech and fintech, as well as private equity, utilities and infrastructure, events and the creative arts.
Coach > Endurance Athlete > HR Leader
Authentic, ethical and commercially astute leadership has always been a challenge, it's now more nuanced than ever.
That said, we over-complicate it. That's what humans do to justify our own cleverness. We get in our own way.
Keeping things as simple as possible will require your deepest thinking. To protect your vision, to communicate with clarity and be decisive when making the tough calls...
...You're going to need an Oppo.
As your 'Oppo', I'm here to hold time and space for you. Sometimes to be silent and sit in the sh*t with you, sometimes to ask the stupid, or pokey questions; but always to meet you where you are and listen intensely.
Personally, I am husband and dad and live in South Oxfordshire. I am an endurance athlete notably captaining the only civilian team to beat the armed forces in the 180-mile London-Cardiff 24-hour relay race.
"I have lived, and continue to live life to the max. I have always pushed myself in every way, I enjoy that pressure and challenge. I've done the hard-yards on myself physically, psychologically and behaviourally.
I would say I am a combination of high-philosophy, military rigour, systems thinking, boundless energy and northern straight-talk.
Through the (many) scars and laughter lines of lived experience, allegory and metaphor my gift is to simplify the complex, with humour. From biochemistry and the conceptual philosophies of the human experience I aim to illuminate actionable ways forward and craft with my coachees, visceral authorship of their own journey."
>>ENDORSE<<
Shaun, Client
We found the centre of me today. And from there we focused the attention on my forward trajectory
Yasmin, Coach
Ben stands out as truly exceptional. His mind is razor sharp and fast. He brings the perfect blend of intellectual rigour and emotional intelligence to his work.
Liliana, Client
Ben has the most intelligent sense of humour. He can really listen and help others achieve sustained excellence and maximum performance.