Our Team

Maree brings 35 years of experience in education, leadership development and consulting. She started her career as a teacher and faculty head. Maree then worked as a senior education officer in a Catholic Education Office responsible for professional learning, curriculum development, school reviews and audits. Her broad-ranging experience has included university lecturing, management of an RTO, and most recently serving as Associate Director of Executive Education for the Australian Catholic University (ACU), responsible for ACU’s provision of professional learning to executives in private, public and NFP sectors. The ACU’s Future-Proof Education MBA which Maree managed was recognised as a ‘finalist’ in the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Awards 2020. Maree is passionate about fostering multicultural understanding and has had success in supporting Indigenous Australians to fast-track and expand their careers through enhancing their professional learning.

Denise has 25 years’ experience of designing and delivering a range of services and programmes for schools at local, regional and national levels. Before her current role for BTS Spark, Denise worked for ten years as Head of Education for two national grant-making foundations, leading a number of innovative education initiatives and grants programmes, and supporting a network of sponsored academies and associated schools and colleges. Previously Denise held leadership roles for a national youth development charity and an Education Action Zone, and founded Inspire, an education-business partnership working with schools and colleges in the London borough of Hackney. Denise has an MSc in Change Agent Skills and Strategies.

Alyssa Gallagher is an education author, leader and speaker. She has extensive experience leading schools and districts to revolutionize learning for students. Under Alyssa’s guidance Los Altos School District became a nationally recognized leader in education innovation with her work featured in Forbes, Wired, The Economist magazine and on CNN and CBS’ 60 Minutes. After two decades working within k12 education, Alyssa led the global leadership practice for The Wiseman Group, co-designing executive development strategies to enable leaders to become better ‘multipliers’ of their people’s talent. Alyssa has worked with a wide spectrum of leaders, ranging from early career professionals in her local school district to seasoned executives in Fortune 500 Companies. Alyssa enjoys working with leaders to design strategies that leverage the capability, creativity and intelligence of everyone on their team.

 

Sean is an education leader, speaker and author, with nearly three decades of experience in education, both in the US and globally. With a strong background in education reform and wellbeing, he has driven policy change, implemented initiatives, and developed educational leaders, to enhance the social impact of education. As Senior Director of Global Outreach at ASCD, Sean launched and grew the ASCD Whole Child Network to 1,800 members, 350 school districts and 56 countries. He is a Social & Emotional Learning expert for NBC Today, advisory member for OECD’s Future of Education & Skills 2030, a founding member of the UNESCO Chair on Global Health & Education. He has written for the Washington Post, Huffington Post, EdWeek, and is a frequent keynote speaker.

With degrees in psychology and social sciences, Cathy offers over twenty years’ experience working in the fields of leadership development, psychometric assessment, organisation development, facilitation and counselling. Her professional background and well developed organisational skills enable her to program manage complex projects with ease.

Cathy is highly committed to ensuring that our many programs are delivered efficiently and effectively, and all participants receive a personalised service. Her professional approach makes her highly sought after by our clients. Cathy also brings a deep understanding of psychometric tools, with her own accreditations in Hogan, MBTI, Genos Ei and Ravens. She can advise schools on relevant programs and match them with suitable coaches.

Amelia has worked in the education sector for over ten years working closely with schools, colleges, universities and third sector organisations. She is an experienced programme manager and facilitator and is committed to ensuring that our education programmes are delivered efficiently and effectively. She enjoys supporting schools to find solutions to match their needs and working with them to launch their programmes. Amelia has qualifications in careers guidance, an interest in psychology and youth development and is passionate about the benefits of coaching. Alongside her role for BTS Spark, Amelia continues to provide careers advice for young people and their parents.

Ross’s 40 years of service to Queensland schools gave him experience in both urban and rural schools across the state. His caring leadership style was appreciated by many, as he rose from assistant and deputy principal roles to principalship of a large state high school. His 25 years in educational leadership roles culminated with his work as assistant regional director for the North Coast region. Ross has a passion for supporting the next generation of school leaders to build their people leadership skills, and is committed to ensuring that everyone can access the right support, however remote or isolated their school is.

Gail has forged a lifelong career supporting Northern Territory schools. She pioneered Department of Education programs for schools to integrate technology and to improve literacy. Her most recent principalship saw her leading a school that was architecturally designed for co-teaching where she also introduced a hub for inclusive practices which became a model of best practice; the school’s enrolments doubled during her principalship. Gail’s leadership practice has been strongly influenced by her training in cognitive coaching.

Tara O’Brien is a founding partner and facilitator for BTS Spark. She joined BTS Spark in 2019 when it expanded its presence into North America after spending 17 years in education as a teacher and principal. Having worked in a variety of schools across the United States, she understands both the complexity of individual organizations as well as the universal demands of educators. She’s also a mom of two teenage kids, so she’s passionate about supporting the adults who are impacting and influencing our children. Tara has presented at numerous conferences and webinars as well as co-written articles on wellbeing and educational leadership. While Tara lives in the US, she has deep ties to Canada as her extended family has lived there for generations. 

Victoria started teaching in Austria on a Fulbright fellowship before going on to build her education career in the San Francisco bay area. She was a member of the founding administrative team that opened Basis Independent Silicon Valley in San Jose, and she went on to serve as principal at Meira Academy. She brings several years of experience coaching teachers as well as co-founding a principals’ support group. For the last five years she has served as an accrediting member with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. Victoria is motivated by the challenge of supporting other school leaders to do their best work.

Jenny is an experienced leader, workforce planner, executive coach and strategist. She combines her experience in education with her studies in coaching and leadership to help others reach their potential. Jenny brings 30 years’ experience in educational leadership roles, including successful principalship and systems leadership roles. Jenny is accredited with the Institute of Executive Coaching and Leadership Performance Profile, holds a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment and is an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation. Jenny brings expertise in strengths based coaching, organisational psychology, narrative coaching, integral system and goal theory, crucial conversations, brain theory and immunity to change.

Helen is highly sought after for her deep expertise in how to apply coaching to the school context, as she can draw on her experience as both a school principal and as a professional leadership coach. Helen’s passion for making a difference to children’s lives was the driving force behind her successful career in education. As principal, she led the merger of two neighbouring schools before moving to work for several years in regional office.
Determined to build the capability of adults more effectively, Helen qualified as a Professional Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation (ICF). She has since amassed over 1000 hours of coaching experience and has facilitated workshops regularly for over 20 years. 
In 2017 Helen was voted by fellow coaches to serve as President of her local ICF state chapter.
 

Trained initially as a teacher, Judy is a professional leadership coach, counsellor, trainer and education consultant with over 35 years’ experience in the education sector. Her career in education spanned teaching, adult education, training, consultancy, student services, family support and education policy. Judy has a Master of Educational Studies, Certificate IV in Training and Assessment, Diploma in Leadership Coaching and NLP, and is a graduate of Leadership WA. Judy has coached a wide range of education leaders from WA, SA, Victoria, the NT and NSW. She is passionate about closing the education attainment gap and is proud of her award-winning work with indigenous communities in the remote Kimberley region.

Harley is an experienced and high level, goal-oriented executive coach and facilitator. He has an international business and marketing leadership background, with previous responsibility for budgets of up to $250m. Harley has been coaching with us since 2007 and also runs his own coaching and counselling practice. He holds professional qualifications in both coaching and counselling, as well as a Masters in Adult Education. In addition to his coaching work, he is an experienced facilitator who consistently delivers powerful workshops on a range of topics including Mentoring, Difficult Conversations and Coaching Skills. Harley’s work has spanned education departments in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and WA.

Kevin is a highly experienced Facilitator and Executive Coach. His work draws upon insights gained first hand through his 35 years’ business experience, 12 years specifically as a coach, consultant and facilitator within leadership development. He focuses upon coaching senior leaders in education and business that have a passion for creating positive change in their organisations. Kevin is well known for his work in the education sphere and has coached and facilitated many Head Teachers and School Leaders. Kevin has Post Graduate qualifications in Psychotherapy and ICF Coaching qualifications in Executive Coaching which he finds helpful in all aspects of facilitation and coaching but particularly in relation to self -awareness and his approaches to individual accountability and challenge.

Juliette has been coaching in education for 11 years and has worked with leaders in the classroom, school leadership teams, heads of school and academies and leaders of Multi-Academy Trusts. Juliette's coaching approach balances compassion and rigour. She works with the client as a whole person encouraging them to take into account their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual states and the bearing these have on their professional performance. She works towards the client operating with integrity, believing this to be key to the sustainability of their success. Juliette has a MSc in Change Agent Skills & Strategies and a post graduate Diploma in Leadership Mentoring & Executive Coaching from the Institute of Leadership & Management.

Helen has coached more than 30 education leaders over the course of 2 years and understands that education is a complex system and effective leadership is critical to the success of the school. She is passionate about the coaching BTS Spark provide school leaders and the difference it makes to their attitude,performance and wellbeing. Helen is experienced at working with MATs, supporting senior leaders and their teams in developing quality leadership partnerships enabling them to collaborate more and be successful in the delivery of their visions and plans. Along with other qualifications, Helen is an Accredited Professional Executive Coach through the Academy of Executive Coaching.

Chris has been coaching in the field of education for 6 years and has supported over 50 education leaders. Chris started his Education career teaching at secondary schools across all age ranges and abilities. He then moved onto Management Consultancy and was a Partner at Capgemini where he grew their Children’s Services, Education and Skills practice three fold. Chris holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, a Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced Executive Coaching and has previously been the UK President of the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. As an active member of the community, Chris is the Treasurer of a major conservation society in Brighton.

Louise has twenty years’ experience in the education sector with over a decade in senior leadership roles, including two successful headships. Her professional coaching experience includes 10 years developing coaching for performance improvement in the education sector, including introducing and implementing programmes of coaching across teams, conducting research into the use of coaching to improve professional learning and performance, and transforming organisational leadership and performance management structures. Her work is informed by an understanding of the complexities of developing teams, of optimising personal resourcefulness and of achieving sustainable organisational improvement.

As a lifelong learner and personal growth enthusiast, the core principles underpinning Louise’s coaching are the belief in each individual’s capacity for growth and transformation, a deep respect for the individual experience of pressure and challenge, and an empathetic compassion for each individual.  Her coaching accreditations include certificates in problem focused counselling, coaching and training, in positive psychology coaching and in stress management. Her education qualifications include a PGCE, NPQH and MSc in Learning and Teaching.

For Anne, coaching is about discovery, awareness and choices. She has over ten years’ experience coaching across a range of industries, including education. She was a member of our team that coached some of the first National Leaders in Education (NLEs) for the National College of School Leadership and has since worked with many more senior school leaders.

Anne’s passion is for helping people to discover their purpose and value and to be the best they can be. She quickly establishes connection and rapport with individuals and prides herself on a high level of integrity and trust. Anne particularly enjoys supporting people to explore and develop personal resilience techniques and helping them to manage their own emotional state and choices that emerge from this. She operates with authenticity and brings a balance of warmth, purpose and lightness in her approach.  Previously Anne worked in people development with a large organisation. Anne is also an experienced facilitator and has delivered workshops in the education sector for both young people and adults.

Karen has worked in education for over 20 years and has been a teacher, senior leader and specialist leader in education. Prior to becoming a coach Karen was Director for the primary phase of the Rutland Teaching School Alliance. Her professional coaching experience includes work as an internal coach and facilitator for a multi academy trust, as well as experience coaching multiple school leadership teams and individual leaders.

She has coached executives and senior leaders and those with high leadership potential. However, increasingly she has been able to encourage leaders to give access to this process to the whole team, believing that the benefits of coaching should be for everyone.  She is an accomplished facilitator and develops a strong rapport with participants.

Karen regularly uses strengths-based development to work with individuals to unlock their potential, and employee engagement initiatives to help teams align in the pursuit of high performance.  She brings clarity, purpose and compassion to her coaching and facilitation work. Karen is a certified Gallup Strengths Coach.

Jo has many years’ experience of working in learning and development and consultancy roles, and has coached over 600 leaders, including many within the education sector, from middle leaders to executive heads.  Jo is also an experienced facilitator, with strongly grounded insight into what it takes for individuals to transform, and lots of experience in partnering people to make those changes.  She has also delivered multiple webinars for large groups of school leaders.

Jo knows what it takes to transform our leadership and make the changes that will have the most impact for us, those we lead and the organisation. She is passionate about helping people and organisations do just that, using a holistic approach to her coaching which considers the whole person and system, to create both personal and professional growth.

Jo is known for her ability to build and grow trusting relationships by partnering with a genuine curiosity and empathy, balanced with gentle yet robust challenge when needed, to help shift perspectives and create a new understanding. She specialises in supporting individuals to find their true leadership identity and purpose, understand how to live and lead like that in practice, and to enable those around them to thrive and drive higher and sustainable performance.

Jo is an accredited Associate Certified Coach (ACC) with the International Coaching Federation and also holds a NLP diploma and accreditation to deliver the Human Synergistic Life Styles Inventory.  As well as a coach, facilitator and working mum, Jo is also an entrepreneur and school governor. 

Jean is a highly experienced Executive Coach who has coached well over a thousand people over the past twenty years, including leaders within the education sector. She frequently leads our transformational development programmes with clients, including facilitating coaching masterclasses and our coaching capability workshops.

Jean’s passion is to support others to optimise personal effectiveness and fulfilment. Working at individual, small or large group levels, she harnesses an ability to see innate potential, to understand what blocks its manifestation, and what can enable and accelerate it. Always with the organisational context in mind, Jean has a wide and eclectic toolkit, builds mutual trust quickly and deeply, and promotes rich learning and ownership in her clients.  Jean has worked abroad frequently, as well as in the UK with multi-national groups, and has thus developed a commensurate sensitivity to cultural nuances.  Clients tell her that she asks ‘killer questions’, really ‘gets’ them, has a great balance between supporter and challenger, stays one step ahead and brings an acute insight and perception to her work.  

Jean holds the Institute of Leadership & Management Level 7 Diploma in Leadership Mentoring & Executive Coaching, and a range of other qualifications, including in NLP, Firo B and the Leadership Circle profile for individuals and team culture.

Over the past 20 years Dominique has coached and delivered training to hundreds of leaders, from graduate trainees to senior executives, as well as to teenage mothers and young people in schools. Her background includes time as a further education lecturer as well as in the service industry and corporate world. This experience has given her a deep understanding of the complexity of issues faced by leaders at each step of their career.

Dominique adapts her coaching to the specific needs of her clients, building on their strengths to help them move forward, and favours
a holistic and culturally sensitive approach.  Dominique brings her authenticity, light touch, sense of humour and a wealth of knowledge and tools to each coaching session. 

She is a fully qualified and accredited professional certified leadership coach (PCC) and facilitator, with qualifications including a diploma in performance coaching, NLP practitioner accreditation, a psychology degree and PGCE. She has worked with many school leaders, where much of her work involves helping leaders to clarify their vision, improve collaboration and find creative and practical ways of effecting positive change.

She is an award-winning leader with over 30 successful years in broadcast media sales. During her corporate career, she worked her way up from sales assistant to general sales manager positions including Direct of Market Development. She has held board positions with non-profit organizations, including Vice President of the Alliance for Women in Media-Chicago, the Black Women’s Expo Advisor Panel and Mentoring programs with the Morgan Park Boys and Girls Club and SBCOC’s Women of Influence/Sister 2 Sister Ministry. 

As a leader and coach, Alan has extensive expertise in leadership coaching both experienced and first- time people leaders and working cross culturally. Alan coaches leaders across all industries and has coached education leaders with BTS Spark since 2019. Prior to his coaching career, Alan held numerous positions in the trading industry ranging from trading assistant to full-time trader. In addition to his role as a trader, Alan also served as a risk manager for up to thirty traders. As a risk manager, it was Alan’s responsibility to coach these traders daily, helping them sustain the high level of performance that the trading industry requires. 

Judy works with leaders and their teams in Executive Coaching, Organization Development, Team Development, Change Management, and Group Facilitation.  Her clients range from education leaders to Fortune 500 High Tech and Biotech companies. Prior to founding her consultancy in 2003, Judy worked in Organization Effectiveness and Management Development at Cisco, Octel/Lucent, Accenture, and American Airlines.  Much of her work focused on enterprise-wide change management initiatives (e.g., culture change, M&A), performance management and leadership development.

Cindy Rogan resides in Bellevue Washington where she develops and facilitates cutting- edge workshops and effective coaching for teams, leaders, and individuals. Cindy has been a leader in education, team training and coaching for over 30 years. During her extensive career in public service, Cindy has brought her unique combination of insight, humor, and reflection to a variety of teams and leaders including executives and senior leaders, public and private school leaders, school leadership teams, central office leaders, police officers and labor union leaders. In her private practice with clients, Cindy focuses her efforts on the client’s identified needs as they pursue their personal goals and desired outcomes.

In her previous roles as Executive Director of Schools in the Bellevue School District, and as a school principal, Cindy worked closely with leaders, boards, teachers, parents, and teams to meet the shared goals and initiatives of the organization. Utilizing a deep understanding of change management, resource utilization and performance benchmarks, Cindy brings her understanding of strategic management to her work with clients. With her expertise as a leader in multiple settings, Cindy understands the unique challenges leaders face, daily. From unique and dynamic human resource issues to challenging contexts related to contract negotiations, she is positioned to bring her empathy, compassion and understanding to best meet the leader’s needs.

Daisy is an experienced Leadership coach. She helps leaders to create a high performing team culture by supporting leaders to bring their best self to work and lead their teams with greater effectiveness. She is also an Intercultural coach helping organizations to advance their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Daisy started her career in the Retail Banking Services, where she learned the importance of customer-centricity that drives a positive customer experience. Since becoming a coach, Daisy has coached across all industries and especially enjoys coaching education leaders with BTS Spark.

An explorer at heart, with a passion to make a difference, Heather is inspired by our collective potential to lead inclusively with purpose and humanity to create a better way forward. A Master Certified Executive Coach (MCC) and facilitator, with 30 years of leadership experience, Heather has partnered with hundreds of leaders within global Fortune 50-500 companies, on the key mindsets, competencies and practices needed to be impactful in our complex and ever-changing world. Heather has coached and consulted around the globe in the areas of leadership development and sustainability strategy, in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and South America. Warm, authentic, insightful, and challenging, Heather’s ability to draw out the best in leaders has made her a sought-after executive coach and thought partner and an impactful group coach and facilitator.