Real Talk Studio

👩 Meet Sarah, a leader of managers at a scaling tech business. She has vast technical knowledge but struggles with giving feedback to her team. Recently, the performance of her team lead, Alex, has significantly dropped. Her anxiety spikes when thinking about addressing the topic.

Sarah is not alone. 

70% of employees are avoiding difficult conversations at work.

And the traditional classroom solutions do not help.

💥 What if instead:

Sarah had the confidence, clarity and competence to lead the conversations employees value most at work. Becoming the best coach her team has ever had. 

🤖 That's what we do:

Our AI learning platform makes difficult conversations easier.

Using realistic RealPlay, Sarah can practice specific conversation skills, and get immediate feedback.

These tools help Sarah feel confident and ready to have the conversations that matter most.

Try a roleplay now:
https://www.realtalkstudio.com/

🏆 Can you top the leaderboard?

Founder

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

In this global role, I focus on improving the experience of 100k+ new hires annually across diverse employee bases, including retail branch, trading, technology. Leading a product team, my focus is on the day 1 experience. Reducing the amount of time spent by employees requesting access and the time it takes to become productive.
 
Responsibilities include:

- Defining the product vision for an exceptional new hire experience, transforming from “it’s good enough” to a more ambitious vision, that connects with the business purpose to “make dreams possible”
- Increasing investment to execute on the onboarding strategy, gaining product strategy buy-in from a globally diverse stakeholder group, across many lines of business.
- Conducting user research to gather data-driven insights to understand the new hire experience and identify areas for improvement.
- Coordinating changes with cross-functional agile teams to ensure improvement opportunities are delivered in a timely and high-quality manner.
- Identifying improvements to vendor SaaS platforms such as Microsoft 365, Service Now, Oracle HCM.

Executive Director - Product Director - Employee Experience

I worked across the Employee Experience organization as a Product Coach to help teams discover the right opportunities and develop an agile plan to execute.

Responsibilities included:

- Coached product teams and product managers on their journey towards becoming self-organised, high trust, collaborative groups.
- Performed the Product Lead role on an interim basis to demonstrate best practice and mentor suitable candidates.
- Designed and implemented organizational changes required to create a highly collaborative, customer-focused culture that can deliver with a shorter lead time.
- Championed product management as a profession, educating leaders on various frameworks, models and approaches, to ensure the right thing is built in the right way.
- Identified development needs across the organization and devised workshops that addressed the learning needs of each group.

Executive Director - Employee Experience Product Strategy

Developed an internal Employee Request and Self-Help tool to support all 250,000 employees on scenarios such as password reset, distribution list management, software delivery etc. Developed in .NET and Angular.

Responsibilities included:

- Develop features across the platform both front end and backend API’s
- Build a framework to perform continuous integration and automated testing at all levels of the stack leveraging libraries such as N-Unit, Jasmine, SpecFlow (BDD), Selenium, Protractor
- Build deployment pipeline to support continuous deployment using Jenkins and other internal tools.

Associate - Software Developer and Scrum Master

Defectives

Founder and Organiser of the Defectives. A Testing focused community for the North of England. We host events where teams of software testers compete to find the most defects in a range of online and offline applications.

Join our LinkedIn Group here: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Defectives-3736966

Shop Direct

eCommerce Engineering Manager for one of the UK's biggest online retailers. Shop Direct has eight online brands including www.littlewoods.com and www.very.co.uk which achieve over 700,000 hits  a day.

» Client Responsibilities include:

Supporting Seven Scrum teams throughout the Sprint process including Sprint Planning, Scrum of
Scrums, Impediments, Demo's and Retrospectives.
• Mentoring and supporting Sprint Testers and Software Test Automation Engineers within the Sprint
Process(On and Offshore)
• Ownership of Test Automation Strategy to ensure appropriate technical test solutions are implemented
to achieve the desired business benefits.
• Monitoring Continuous Integration Pipeline for any “Red” Build/Deployment/Test stages.
• Managing AWS hosted Test Environments to achieve optimum availability and uptime
• Supporting Developers with Test Driven Development(TDD) Framework to ensure desired Unit Test
Coverage is achieved and test failures at compile time investigated.
• Ensuring adequate information available to Product Owners and Business Stakeholders
• Identification of required test resources and subsequent recruitment. Including engaging with third
parties(IBM, EPAM, Rullion) CV screening, Interviewing and final candidate recommendations to
client.

eCommerce Engineering Manager | Agile | Continous Delivery | Cloud

National Trust

Managed all phases of testing for an upgrade to the Horizon Property and Finance Management system which deals with all the Trusts Properties and Land assets. The system also deals with the billing and financial management of all the Trusts tenants.

» Client Responsibilities Included:

● Introduction of Testing best practices and processes to the organisation.
● Planned and devised Test Approach for all phases of testing including SIT, UAT, NFT, Data 	Migration, Cutover.
● Managed User Acceptance Testing with Property Managers and Rural Surveyors across 	multiple locations.
● Trained and Mentored team of Business Analysts on Testing methods, techniques and tools.
● Daily reporting to Project Management.

Test Manager

Nationwide Building Society

Worked on a large Data Migration project following the acquisition of Portman Building Society. Responsible for managing all Defects raised through testing and ensuring a quick and accurate resolution. Held regular meetings and delivered daily and weekly reports to management on defect statistics.

Defect Manager

Worked for the UK's largest Home Shopping retailer as a Test Analyst. Projects included Corporate Name Change, telephone speech recognition and Customer Futures Project which re-engineered the customer ordering process both online and via telephone. Each project required analysis of business requirements, creation of test design documents, development and execution of test scripts to validate requirements and clear reporting on progress to management. All testing on each project was delivered within the set deadlines.

Software Test Engineer

Curious about whats possible when you ask more, tell less.

👩 Meet Sarah, a leader of managers at a scaling tech business. She has vast technical knowledge but struggles with giving feedback to her team. Recently, the performance of her team lead, Alex, has significantly dropped. Her anxiety spikes when thinking about addressing the topic.

We equip you to help Sarah solve challenges like this.

- 70% of employees are avoiding difficult conversations at work.
- 53% of employees are handling "toxic" situations by ignoring them.
- 55% of people are scared to discuss diversity and inclusion at work.

And the traditional solutions are not helping!

💥 What if instead:

Sarah had the confidence, clarity and competence to lead the conversations employees value most at work. Becoming the best coach her team has ever had. Without spending hours in the classroom, unable to recall what they learned when it matters.

🤖 That's what we do:

We've built an AI learning platform that makes difficult conversations easier.

Sarah can practice specific conversation skills and get immediate feedback.

She can also use RealPlay conversations to simulate the conversations she fears the most.

These tools help Sarah feel confident and ready to have the conversations that matter most.

Try a demo now:
https://www.realtalkstudio.com

Toby Sinclair

Lately, I’ve been hating working from home.

Every day feels the same - grey skies, cold cabin, and:

The creeping temptation to crawl back under the duvet and hibernate.

So I’ve started exploring a few co-working spaces.

And my favourite so far?

Fraser House Hub, Lancaster.

It’s not the:
- free coffee
- beautiful building
- affordable pricing

(though all three help).

It’s the people.

Especially Rory Southworth and Kathleen (Kay) Parker

Who somehow manage to make every visitor feel like an old friend coming home.

And as a bonus, it's full of tech companies.

So it’s easy to bump into brilliant people like Will Faithfull over coffee.

Shame it’s just too far to be there every day.

🏡 Anyone else struggling to work from home?

😴 Any tips to stay motivated?

#coworking #lancashire #founder

Create AI Video Roleplays for Training | ex-JP Morgan Chase Director

Coachtech Ltd

Supporting organisations and individuals to increase their impact and alignment.

• Advising around good practice coaching governance and management frameworks, establishing internal coach pools, sourcing external coaching providers, managing technology, and increasing impact, and quality assurance.
• Coach and facilitator, having designed and delivered global coach and leadership development programmes, CPD events and workshops, and coaching and coach supervision programmes.
• Subject matter expertise includes coaching technology, internal coaching and coach supervision, leadership development, the Level 5 Coaching Professional apprenticeship, and technology risk and benefits management.

Founder; leadership coach, consultant, coaching supervisor

AIcoach.chat

Supporting the development of an AI coach enabling truly affordable access to coaching at scale within professional and ethical boundaries.

Co-Founder

Chiltern Music Therapy

A founding member of the Trailblazer Community at Chiltern, providing ad hoc internal coaching and advice.

Trailblazer Committee Member

CoachHub - The digital coaching platform

CoachHub is an award-winning global leader in digital coaching, offering digital access to more than 3,500 coaches in more than 80 countries, speaking more than 65 languages.

My role was to lead CoachHub's global consulting approach, designing and implementing policies and procedures to optimise quality, consistency, and efficiency. I was required to engage in frequent, ongoing interactions between the coaching lab, coach relations, marketing, sales, and product teams, as well as externally through establishing new go to market approaches, strategic commercial partnerships, and collaborating with clients on service delivery, with a particular focus on large and complex multinationals.

In addition, the role included creating a wide range of digital marketing content, and speaking at events for a range of audiences around the world.

Global director of consulting

Grant Thornton UK LLP

Leading the coaching services offering for Grant Thornton, providing clients with:
* 1:1, team and group coaching from the largest employed pool of accredited coaches of any UK coaching provider
* coach development, including coaching skills workshops, Apprenticeship Levy funded programmes in partnership with BPP, EMCC EQA / EIA coach accreditation, team coach accreditation with David Clutterbuck, coaching supervision, and a variety of CPD events and activities
* coaching advisory services, spanning everything from coaching purpose and governance through supplier management, use of technology, quality and risk assurance practices and return on investment design, evaluation and monitoring

Hosting regular public events featuring some of the most exciting and best-known people in coaching to share their thoughts and experiences, and facilitate networking opportunities for those who lead coaching within  a broad range of organisations.

Head of coaching services

BDO UK LLP

A key member of the Financial Services Advisory team, involved in a wide range of engagements. Responsible for the ‘Culture and Coaching’ and ‘Innovation Assurance’ service lines, and the primary contact to the specialist Technology Risk team.

Financial Services Advisory

KPMG UK

Part of multiple delivery teams working with a broad range of Financial Services clients to deliver technology risk services including business continuity advisory, IT internal audit and supporting s.166 Skilled Person Reviews.

Financial Services Technology Risk Consulting

Responsible for the management and delivery of around half the UK portfolio of IT internal audit services.

Technology Risk and Advisory Services

Uxbridge High School

Responsible for working with young people with learning and behavioural difficulties.

Ran an after-school DJ Technology class for Year 10 students, which led to performances in front of the whole school and parents.

Teaching Assistant

As a coaching thought leader and consultant I offer expertise and innovation that revolutionises coaching strategies and approaches. With a deep understanding of cutting-edge technologies, including AI, blockchain and the metaverse, I provide bespoke services to coaches and organisations that go beyond traditional coaching methods. I empower individuals and teams to leverage the power of technology to enhance engagement, maximise impact and observe measurable results.

Working with me is an immersive, collaborative experience that combines industry-leading knowledge with a passion for coaching and a commitment to continuous improvement. I love pushing boundaries to unlock new possibilities for growth and transformation, with a mature approach to using technology.

My experience includes building robust internal coach pools, optimising purpose-led, accredited coach development programmes, implementing quality assurance and ROI systems, managing and delivering supervision and CPD programmes, and delivering executive coaching. With a deep understanding of the coaching landscape and a pragmatic approach to the business context I help my clients navigate the complexities of the digital world to stay ahead of the curve.

Recognised as a CoachingTech Pioneer by evoach, I founded the Coachtech Collective and AIcoach.chat. My work has been featured in the Daily Telegraph, Forbes.com, Coaching at Work and Choice magazine, and I've had the privilege of speaking at renowned conferences and events worldwide.

I bring a comprehensive understanding of risk, governance and regulation, having chaired the Coaching Professional apprenticeship and served on advisory boards for EMCC Global, ICF UK, Telegraph Media Group and Chiltern Music Therapy. I have conducted a range of board effectiveness and governance reviews, with a particular focus on financial services and complex multinationals.

Organisations partner with me to gain a trusted adviser to unlock the full potential of coaching, leverage technology to increase performance, improve the maturity of existing management processes and cultivate a culture focused on purpose-led, systemic, next generation leadership. Individuals work with me to have challenging, highly creative coaching conversations that use technology and cutting-edge leadership practice to optimise their impact across systems and generations.

Sam Isaacson

I don't remember this moment at the Äripäev conference with Eesti Supervisiooni ja Coachingu Ühing | ESCÜ | Estonian Supervision and Coaching Association | ESCA but the camera doesn't lie?

Consultant working with organisations and the coaching profession 〣 Co-founder of AIcoach.chat and founder of the Coachtech Collective 〣 Author 〣 Futurist 〣 Dad to four boys 〣 Tabletop miniature wargamer

A final call for registrations for the Digital and AI Coaches' Conference before early bird pricing lifts at the weekend! The full agenda (link in comments, apparently that's what the algorithm wants us to do now) is a fantastic, diverse lineup of experts from around the world and it's going to be a wonderful time together.

The platform went live today and we've already seen attendees connecting with one another and research projects being shared, so now's the best time to get in to make sure you see everything that's going on!

Some of the incredible speakers we'll be hearing from are Jonathan Passmore, Prof. Dr. Sandra Julia Diller, Dorota Karas, Panos Malakoudis, Darren Leech, Anna Unwin, Scott Hardie, Tatiana Bachkirova, Julia Bend, Rebecca Rutschmann, Toby Sinclair, Catherine Breslin, James Durrant, David Tee, Joel Monk, Michael Hudson, Dr Naeema Pasha, Dr Rachael Skews, CPsychol, Colin Cosgrove, Fiona McBride, Navid Nazemian, PCC, Rachel Hawley, Claudia Day-Benedetti, Adina Tarry, Dr. Terrence E. Maltbia, Susan Caesar and Professor Peter Hawkins. Every one of them is fantastic and worth following in their own right.

#coaching #conference #technology

Absolutely brilliant to get to be a part of the City HR Association conference yesterday in a beautiful and Christmassy venue! 

A privilege to share the stage with so many influential and knowledgeable people, and to have wonderful conversations getting to know some new folk - and reconnecting with old friends - throughout the day. 

The overall themes from the day were pretty consistent: 
- we should be experimenting with technology
- we could get better at building investment cases and demonstrating business benefits
- AIcoach.chat is a great place to start (ok, that was just me that said that but I'm sure everyone was thinking it) 

Thank you so much to everyone for making me feel so welcome, and a special thanks to Nikki Squelch, Meena Anand, Louise Brown, Sai H. and the rest of the team for pulling together such a fantastic event. 

#hrtechnology #coaching #coachingtechnology

A recent Reddit post, set of LinkedIn comments and a conversation with a coach led to this stream of consciousness. I see so many AI tools I find myself attracted to trying out, and am discovering that probably they're not the ones that will actually make the most difference.

Like many things everything's connected, and this is probably a good reminder that in the five years since the first thought I had (included in this article and in How to Thrive as a Coach in a Digital World), my conclusions haven't changed and the world hasn't changed that much, despite AI painting everything a different colour.

What do you think, anyway? Have I nailed something that's common to all coaches, or just laid out my own failures on public display?

#coaching #salescoaching #digitalmarketing

View newsletter: Coaching with Sam Isaacson

I did a lot of thinking about the impact of technology on coaching in 2020, and one thought repeatedly came to me: There isn't as much of a direct cor

Open article: An AI tool coaches actually need (but probably not what you think) by Sam Isaacson • 7 min read

An AI tool coaches actually need (but probably not what you think)

Only one week left before the early bird discount disappears for the Digital and AI Coaches' Conference happening online in February 2026 - it will still be brilliant value for money after 30th November but it's worth getting in now!

Joining us on 13th February will be the person named by CEO Today as the World's Number 1 Executive Coach, Navid Nazemian, who will be sharing his insights on the changing nature of leadership under the disruptive influence of AI.

The conference platform is almost ready, and you can expect a whole range of resources and networking opportunities to be made available through it - don't miss out!

https://lnkd.in/eQDtZYAf

Jonathan Passmore

#coaching #onlineconference #aicoaching

Open article: Digital and AI Coaches’ Conference by isaacson.uk

Maybe our resistance to new technologies isn't because of what it does that's unhelpful, but because of what it reveals about us.

Every time we introduce a new piece of technology we end up having our relationship with risk and reward exposed. And while AI presents new issues, I wonder if it hasn't actually created new ethical problems but instead simply makes our old ones impossible to ignore...

Is AI the world's brightest spotlight, pointing straight at our blind spots?

In this article I've pulled together the 3 hidden categories of tech problems we never talk about, but urgently need to - and why the biggest problem with AI is quite possibly...us.

As always I'd love to hear your thoughts - what ethical tension in technology do you think we're still pretending isn't there?

#coaching #technology #coachingethics

Every sort of technology provides us with benefits, and also introduces new problems. Getting that balance right is critical. While time tends to allo

Open article: The massive problem with AI by Sam Isaacson • 8 min read

taplio

The Battle

Toby Sinclair

Sam Isaacson

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreToby Sinclair's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreSam Isaacson's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Toby Sinclair

Sam Isaacson

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Toby Sinclair's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreSam Isaacson's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreToby Sinclair's LinkedIn Performance