Our Team

Denise has over 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.

Melissa studied Production for Live Events and Television, which lead to a career spanning over a decade at several large cultural institutions, including a long tenure in the Education department at Shakespeare’s Globe. Melissa is an experienced programme manager, coordinating and delivering a wide range of outreach projects, fostering strong collaborations with educators and leaders at national and international level. Previous to BTS Spark, Melissa also worked as a Project Manager in social research. She is committed to driving positive outcomes and creating meaningful impact in her work.

Sarah brings 14 years of marketing experience across the training, arts, e-commerce, and hospitality sectors, specialising in digital marketing, brand strategy, and content marketing. Born in Germany and raised in Indonesia, Sarah later trained as a dancer in Singapore before settling in Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Communications from the University of Sydney. With a background as a performing arts teacher, she brings a lifelong passion for learning and development. Drawing on her global experience and creative roots, Sarah brings a thoughtful, purpose-driven lens to her work in raising awareness amongst education leaders of BTS Spark’s not-for-profit professional learning services.

Linz started her career in the newspaper industry moving on through roles in magazine design, advertising and varied design work before joining BTS. At BTS, Linz creates self-paced digital learning content on many platforms including Canvas, Momenta, Changr, BTS Coach and Sounding Board. She has been involved in the design of several hundred leadership programs for education clients and school systems, ensuring that online learning, coaching and workshop sessions are integrated into a seamless blended learning experience for participants. Adaptable, highly organised and capable of working under pressure to tight deadlines, Linz has a practical approach to problem solving. She enjoys the challenge of maximizing the user experience and seeing projects from concept right through to completion.

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.