HR and organisational design for scaling companies without a full-time hire.
When growth starts to outpace structure, I help startups and scaleups build people strategies, structures and leadership capability to drive performance.
Practical and people-first, I offer high-level expertise without the overhead of a full-time hire.
Translating strategy into operational reality for scaling companies.
Are you seeing performance gaps or facing team capability issues?
Fractional or Interim: Here's where I add value ...
Sometimes a business has been running for a while but the team can't quite articulate what makes them different. It sounds simple, but when you're deep inside the business, it's genuinely hard to see clearly.
I facilitate focused workshops with your leadership team to work through the fundamentals: who you're for, what problem you solve, and why it matters. We get into the detail. Your customer journeys, what you deliver, where the friction is. The output is a sharper, shared understanding of your value proposition that the whole team can get behind and build from.
Organisational Strategy | Getting clear on your value proposition
Organisational Design | Reviewing how your teams are set up to deliver
Growth often means the way you originally organised the business no longer reflects how work actually gets done. Roles overlap, decisions slow down, and nobody's quite sure who owns what.
I work with your leadership team to take a practical look at how your operating model supports, or gets in the way of, delivering to your customers. How teams are organised, where the handoffs are, and what needs to change. The goal isn't a perfect org chart - it's making sure your structure is fit for where the business is heading next.
One of the most common challenges I see in growing businesses: you promote the people who helped you get here, and then find they're struggling in roles that now require a different set of skills. It's not a reflection on them; the business has simply moved faster than their development has.
I work with these leaders directly by working on the real challenges they're navigating right now. It's practical and experiential. Building their capability in context, so the learning sticks and they can see the difference it makes.
Leadership Development | When your people need to grow with the business
Leadership Capability | Building a shared way of leading
When a leadership team comes together whether through growth, restructure, or a change in personnel, the technical skills are usually there. What takes longer to develop is the trust, the shared language, and the collective understanding of how to lead together effectively.
I work with new leadership teams to get that foundation in place early. Using Insights Discovery diagnostics, we start by helping each person understand their own leadership style and how they're likely to show up under pressure. The work doesn't stop at self-awareness. We use it as a springboard to get into the bigger questions: What does good decision-making look like for us? And what's the vision we're actually trying to lead towards together? These conversations are harder to have without a structured space to have them, and they make a real difference to how a team performs.
Executive coaching for leadership development and building team effectiveness.
Reflect. Challenge. Change.
Individual coaching
Dedicated time to explore where you are and where you want to get to. For new leaders or those navigating more complex roles. Online, US/UK/EU time zones.
Career development, Leadership, Performance
Team coaching
Increase your team's effectiveness by curating your own sessions facilitated by a certified coach. You bring your goals; your team brings collective wisdom. Online, US/UK/EU time zones.
Team coaching, Peer learning, Leadership
People and organisational development — with 20 years of real experience behind it.
With extensive consulting experience across organisational design, leadership development and change, I bring both strategic perspective and practical delivery to your business on a fractional or interim basis. I'm equally at home shaping a people strategy with an executive team as I am designing the job architecture or running a leadership programme that actually shifts things. I prefer clarity over complexity and like to get things done.
Having cofounded ventures of my own, VirtualPeer and Beta100, I also understand the decisions that come with building something from the ground up and translating strategy into operational reality. From startup to scale-up. Technology, finance and creative sectors, I enjoy working alongside purposeful, collaborative organisations where people and performance matter equally.
Impact at a glance
70->127
Building to scale
Establishing foundations for growth
Alongside the Executive team, led the organisational design and leadership development agenda for a multi-regional data centre company during a period of scale. Building the people infrastructure and capability it needed to grow and perform.
£3.7m
Cost restructuring
Operational restructuring at NatWest
Supported senior management identifying restructuring opportunities and managing staff consultation. Delivered £3.7m annualised savings.
100
Diversity & inclusion
Women in Leadership
Co-designed a 6-month programme for 100 women across 3 cohorts covering business acumen, personal leadership and action learning. 20% promoted to senior roles. CIPD D&I Award finalist 2016.
400+
Executive coaching
Coaching individuals and teams
ICF-credentialed coach with 400+ hours. Clients include Wise, Abrdn, Ocado, Kingfisher, NHS and Education Scotland. Topics: complex stakeholder relationships, building confidence, enterprise and strategic thinking.
17,000
Transformational change
People & performance in Bhutan
As a VSA volunteer, led design and implementation of a new job classification system and performance framework for 17,000 civil servants across six workstreams: recruitment, L&D, performance, promotions and reward.
50+
Building Community
Democratising access to coaching
Founded VirtualPeer during Covid — offered facilitated peer coaching groups on leadership, career change and burnout. Grew to 50+ members in one month.
What Leaders Say
“May gave me the space to explore ideas and scenarios but we never lost sight of my broader goals. Her guidance helped me grow as a leader, communicator and decision maker.”
— Nicholas Downes, VP Global Vendor Management, Cision
“May was fundamental in developing the RBS Women in Leadership Programme. The community of women leaders it created still exists today.”
— Clare Hill, Head of Business Banking, NatWest
“May's coaching helped me identify clear actions to drive strategy and accountability. Our conversations always bring clarity, structure and insight.”
— Jacintha Hamilton-Love, PRODUCT DIRECTOR, WISE
"May's ability to unpick complex challenges is invaluable. She's smart, perceptive, and fun to work with. May has excellent techniques which helped me to self-reflect, build stronger relationships at work and find positive outcomes. All of this enriched my personal development and career."
— Naomi longworth, global communications & content director. top employers institute.
Let's talk.
Got a question, interested in collaborating, or looking for an experienced consultant-coach? I'd love to hear from you.