About Us

Our Focus

We work with individuals and organisations at high stakes moments of change.

We understand that corporate activity like mergers and acquisitions, transformation programmes and restructures require a lot from specific leaders in the organisation. We specialise in working with leaders at these transition moments to navigate from where they are now to the new north star.

We’re excellent at unearthing a clear vision and values, working alongside leaders and the business to determine the best strategy and then leveraging the leadership talent in the organisation to achieve it.

This is why our main services are working with management boards and leadership teams at their offsites and strategy days, then providing 1-1 or group coaching support as change is executed.

We’ve also supported senior leaders who have taken on new roles, been made up to Partner, held accountability for significant budget, are returning from maternity leave or are exiting the business – all key transitions with clear return on investment.

About business owner and coach Kat Hutchings

Corporate career

Kat’s corporate background is rooted in Financial Services – over 12 years she held various roles across front and head office at a FTSE 100 Bank. Spending 6 years as a front office corporate banker taught her consulting skills and commercial acumen. As a Relationship Director Kat worked with CEOs and CFOs of large businesses to understand their strategy, aspirations, finances, operations and management team to ensure that lending was the right decision for both the client and the Bank.

Kat led teams across Customer Experience, Conduct Risk, Onboarding and latterly Coaching & Consulting. Her London-based coaching team was responsible for 1200 leaders across the commercial and wealth businesses. Kat was part of two Executive management teams as a trusted advisor, coached Executives, ran team effectiveness programmes and through her team delivered leadership training and embedding programmes.

During Kat’s banking career she qualified as a Coach and set up a private coaching practice (Kat the Coach Ltd, now trading as High Stakes Leadership) in 2017. She left to focus solely on her coaching practice in early 2021 and spends most of her time with clients in Financial Services and professional sectors like Law.

What does this mean for you? Kat brings a wealth of commercial experience and a deep understanding of business drivers and strategy. She is comfortable in boardrooms, both as a member and a presenter and quick to understand your leadership role. As well as these business-led conversations, Kat will work well with your HRD too – she knows how to design, deliver and embed leadership development initiatives. Kat builds and invests in long-term relationships.

“Kat is a wonderful listener, with a stunning right hook: the ability to land profound and challenging questions at the right time. She oozes empathy and takes time to understand context and drivers. I came to trust her as being fully on my team, knowing that she was committed to my development and my success.”
— coo

Coaching Credentials

Kat is an accredited Professional Executive Coach with the Association for Coaching and a Master NLP Practitioner. This means she has had high quality training, provided >1000 hours of coaching, delved deeply into her coaching approach, sought feedback and worked closely with a supervisor. She has studied neuroscience, mindfulness and resilience, often bringing these insights to her coaching.

Kat invests every year in her development as a coach and has had a range of great experiences that influence her coaching. She’s studied a Diploma with the Association of Executive Coaches, masterminded with international coaches in LA, discovered Tai Chi in Goa, meditated at the Royal Albert Hall and learned about neuroscience from some of the best somatic, embodiment researchers in the world.

Her recent interests have been completing a certificate in coaching supervision, studying mindfulness from an organisational perspective and investing more in group coaching.

What does this mean for you? You’re working with a professional coach who is highly credentialled and skilled. You benefit from tools and techniques from multiple schools of thought – science, eastern wisdom, re-wiring beliefs, creative & design thinking.

Coaching Philosophy

To support more leaders to positively disrupt their organisations. We enjoy working with people who stand for something - people who see an opportunity to make a difference and take it.

We can be and do more than one thing:

▲ Organisations can be profitable AND achieve this in an ethical, sustainable way

▲ We can focus on business AND respect people and culture.

▲ We can run an offsite focussed on strategy AND take a relational approach.

▲ You can be part of a large organisational system AND be recognised for your unique contribution within it.

What does this mean for you? Kat is very comfortable working with multidimensional people. She doesn’t think everything is either/ or. She is skilled at helping clients create multiple options and examine situations differently. Kat helps people bridge the gap between where they are now and their bold intentions for what next.

Beliefs that inform Kat’s coaching

▲ We will co-create a safe, open and expansive environment that helps you remember and grow your talent, confidence and impact

▲ While we’re focussed on your leadership, Kat is interested in you as a whole, unique human. There aren’t any ‘off limits’ topics – anything you bring is welcome here

▲ She is interested in YOUR ideas, inquiry and insights but is also open to providing examples of what other leaders have done in your position if you want input

▲ Kat will kindly challenge where your words and actions differ or if she sees an opportunity to raise awareness and see different perspectives in support of you and your goals

▲ Coaching is a 200% relationship – both coach and client need to be ‘all in’ and invested in working together

▲ We can get creative and experiment. Bringing different tools, techniques and ideas challenge us to think differently. The agenda is yours.

And the rest...

I believe in long-term systemic impact, one action at a time. One way I live that in my business is to plant trees for every client and organisation that I work with. I do that via the Woodland Trust in the UK and One Tree Planted internationally.

I care about the coaching profession and contribute by working as a Lead Assessor for the Association for Coaching. I assess coaching applications from Foundation through to Master Coach, helping to keep professional standards high and the profession diverse and welcoming.

I’m joining a Board of School Governors in my local community to further extend my Board experience and give back.


Things that bring me joy:

Learning

Family

Wine Tasting

Trees & forests

Exploring