OPTIMUS COACH ACADEMY 

CEO and Founder of Optimus Coach Academy supporting people to: 
•	Supporting leaders and managers to develop coaching skills and capacity 
•	Training individuals in coaching (ICF, EMCC and AC accredited courses) 
•	Developing existing coaches expertise through a wide and varied CCE (continuing coach education) and CPD program including our monthly membership the coaching hub 
•	Supporting corporates to develop wellbeing with a focus on Neuroscience and Psychology through training, coaching and bespoke solutions.

Overseeing the strategic direction of Optimus Coach Academy including partnerships, operations and delivery we provide a suite of training solutions and coaching expertise for both individuals and organisations.

Course director for all programs: developing and approving course content, quality and development planning for training faculty, training all staff members, responding to feedback and ensuring curriculum remains fit for purpose.

Founder and CEO

Transformational and performance coach 

I work with individuals and organisations who want high level professional coaching support focused on personal and professional growth.

My approach is evidence based, solutions focused coaching using a variety of methods tailored to the individual to support :

- Self awareness and clarity : enhancing communication and relationships 
- Improved decision making and problem solving by creating constructive thinking environments 
- Higher levels of well-being using Positive Psychology based principles 

These allow you to be more personally and professionally effective.

My coaching approach is to work with the whole person :  I combine over a decade of senior leadership experience with 7 + years of entrepreneurship having built multiple teams, turned around cultures and had my own personal journey with wellbeing and stress management.

My coaching experience spans over 13 years working with individuals, leaders and business owners : the common themes have been personal performance, communication, leadership effectiveness and wellbeing.

Often clients work with me as they know they want to feel better and work in a more effective way yet they have been stuck in an overwhelm cycle or have felt like they aren’t showing up in a way that’s working for them and those around them.

My approach is practical and supportive: I'll help you to identify areas to focus and support you to have clear ways forward. My coaching is solutions focused : you’ll come away with a fresh perspective on where to go next. 

To get in touch email ruth@ruthkudzi.com

Transformational Coach

Coachie

The world's fast on demand, self selection, employee driven coaching platform. 

Helping every employee fulfil their greatest potential.

Head of Training

The Parent Village

Trustee

Ruth Lydall Consulting Limited

Consultant within the education sector, projects included:
- Developing coaching programs for students and staff
- Project managing website redesign and online marketing strategy

Consultant

Deptford Green School

In my 5 years in this role I:
- Coached and developed new teachers and middle leaders to improve their performance 
- Increased exam results in the subjects I managed by up to 20% 
- Developed partnerships with other schools to share best practice 
- Had responsibility for operations, marketing, recruitment and behaviour 

I was on a fast track program to become a Head Teacher where I got lots of training in leadership development and then coached and mentored other senior leaders through this organisation. I realised that this was where my passion and strengths were - coaching others and helping them develop. Many of the people I coached are now Head Teachers.

Assistant Head Teacher

Copland

This role was part of my Future Leaders training and my first placement as a senior leader.

In this role I helped develop a coaching and mentoring program for teachers who were failing and was able to help many of them turn around their performance.

Deputy Head Teacher

London Borough of Newham

In this role I worked with local and larger businesses (Westfield, LendLease) on creating programs where they could collaborate and where students had experience relating to the world of work. 

I was in charge of project management, budget management, marketing, branding, coaching and training. 

I enjoyed the more commercial aspect of this role and partnering with businesses of various sizes to develop effective projects.

Ashmole 

Head of Vocational Department 

Bacon's College

Business Studies Teacher 

Ruth Lydall

I set up my own business working as a recruitment consultant sourcing candidates for other companies

Freelance Recruitment Consultant

CEO and Founder of Optimus Coach Academy where we 
- Train individuals to become certified coaches through our Accredited programs (AC, ICF, EMCC) 
- Develop coaching capacity for leaders and managers through training in coaching skills within organisations 
- Train internal coaching teams to develop their coaching skills with a focus on Psychology & Coaching.   

ICF Master Certified Coach & Coaching Psychologist who focuses on solution focused coaching using Positive Psychology and Neuroscience informed approaches.

Best-selling, Author of How To Feel Better and Is This It ?

Podcaster : The Path to Success, The Coaching Hub, How to Feel Better

Speaker focusing on Wellbeing, Coaching mindset and The Power of Self-Awareness. 

FOR ORGANISATIONS 

We work alongside organisations in the public and private sector (recent clients have included healthcare, charities, education, FTSE 100, Fortune 500 and SMES)  to support you to develop coaching capacity enabling your leaders to be perform better, communicate more effectively and solve problems more readily. Our courses can be delivered in-house or through cohorts focusing on Coaching skills, Psychology and Neuroscience so people understand themselves and others and can be more impactful in their roles. 

Two of our core programmes are : 
•	Leader / Manager as coach 
•	Developing coaching skills 

Optimus Coach Academy provides:
•	Coaching Diplomas and coaching skills training (ICF, AC, EMCC)
•	1:1 Coaching 
•	Team Coaching Programmes
•	DISC personality profiling + training 
•	Workshops focused on wellbeing, communication and team effectiveness 
•	E-Learning Modules 

FOR INDIVIDUALS

We offer:
•	Fully accredited ICF Diplomas at Associate & Professional level 

To find out more click here https://optimuscoachacademy.com/coach-training/ 

ABOUT RUTH 

My background is in recruitment / people development and education where I helped to embed coaching skills and a coaching culture in a number of schools. I am one of only 2000 MCC coaches in the world (the highest accolade from the ICF) and have:

- One of the most highly regarded coach training schools in the UK which has trained over 1000 individuals 
- An award winning, established and well regarded coaching practice 
- Experience of working with individuals and corporates across sectors 
- Project based experience developing and leading coaching cultures

PLUS personally I have been featured in national and international press, have a top rated podcast and have written two best-selling books as well as spoken on stages in the UK and internationally.

Today I found out my kids have been learning about racism and anti racism at school (I know I’ve been informed by them on an email somewhere!)

It was chatting to my daughters about it and they both thought it was good yet it wasn’t that in depth. Their insight “we already know about this but I think it’s so good other people do too”. 

We’ve had to have many conversations with the girls over the years because of the world we live in and what they’ve experienced and we’ve experienced as a family (my husband is of Ghanaian heritage and my children are mixed race).

I’m so happy their school has decided to do this. It’s a bit of a ray of hope in the world we live in right now.

Ruth Kudzi MCC, MA

CEO of Optimus Coach Academy, Speaker, Best-selling, Author, Podcaster, ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC) 

FOR ORGANISATIONS 

We partner with organisations to create coaching led organisations, high performance teams, train their employees to become ICF qualified coaches, and provide evidence-based training to all employees covering a range of subjects that include introduction to coaching, understanding human behaviour, high performance, decision making skills, emotional intelligence and neuroplasticity. 

We work with senior leaders to advise on best practices from the coaching world to support their leaders and managers to hold coaching conversations with their staff. 

Two of our core programmes are (sponsor an employee or we can provide and run in house for you):
•	Professional Coaching Diploma 
•	Associate Coaching Diploma 

Optimus Coach Academy provides:
•	Coaching Diplomas
•	Coaching For Leaders Programme 
•	Executive  & 1:1 Coaching 
•	Group/Team Coaching Programmes & Away Days 
•	DISC personality profiling 
•	Workshops 
•	E-Learning Modules 

FOR INDIVIDUALS

We offer:
•	A fully accredited ICF Professional Coaching Diploma with over 125 hours of learning 
•	A multi disciplinary evidence-based approach including Neuroscience, Positive Psychology, Transactional Analysis, Somatic Coaching & Emotional Intelligence so you have a deep and varied knowledge of how to support your clients 
•	Personal and business mentoring to build your coaching capacity and develop your coaching skills for your career or business 

We start training in September, January / February and May each year and keep cohort sizes to a maximum of 20 to find out more click here https://optimuscoachacademy.com/coach-training/ 

ABOUT RUTH 

My background is in recruitment / people development and education where I helped to embed coaching skills and a coaching culture in a number of schools. I am one of only 1800 MCC coaches in the world (the highest accolade from the ICF) and have:

- One of the most highly regarded coach training schools in the UK which has trained over 500 individuals 
- An award winning, established and well regarded business and leadership coaching practice 
- Experience of working with individuals and corporates in the public and private sector 
- Project based experience developing and leading coaching cultures

PLUS personally I have been featured in national and international press, have a top rated podcast and have written a best-selling book as well as spoken on stages in the UK and internationally.

CEO of Optimus Coach Academy | Coaching skills training integrating Psychology & Our Holistic Coaching Framework to support more effective communication, decision making & relationships | Key note speaker | Author |

It's 17 years this week since my dad died although I was grieving him for a lot longer.

Officially my dad died due to alcoholism: it destroyed his liver, it destroyed him.

Yet, what I've realised is : he died due to trauma and to undiagnosed neurodivergence.

His alcohol use was his way of coping.

Growing up with a parent who is an alcoholic is not easy. It taught me empathy and it also made me realise I can't fix anyone (I tried!). It made me focus on the good times and also the qualities which really made my dad him.

He was a kind, loving man. He was funny and intelligent and challenging.

Each year I reflect and I wonder what would have been different if he'd engaged with support? 

Grief is always there, for what could have been and for all these years when there has been a gap: weddings, christenings, celebrations. 

My learning is that we never really are the same after losing someone so close, we also never really lose them: he is still with me in so much and I see myself in him. 

It's also that we never really know someone's struggles even when they are so close. 

At times my dad was the closest person in the world to me: we went travelling together multiple times, he was the person who was most protective of me when some pretty horrendous things happened, his cuddles were the best.

In many ways he was my hero and he made me realise that heroes can be flawed (and in fact always are).

I'm sharing this to share my own experience and hopefully to help others alomh the way.

This week I've had five enquiries from organisations and it's only Tuesday:

For one, we're delivering a "private cohort" of training which will support people to become ICF accredited. We often do this adapting our diploma to a mixture of in person and online training.

For one, we're in initial talks to support their leadership development program with evidence-based coaching skills through workshops and training.

For two we're working with the organisations to support their leaders with coaches: we have a lot of very talented coaches on our books so we often do this.

And for the final one they want me to do a key note around thriving during challenging times.

We don't speak that much about the work we do with organisations OPTIMUS COACH ACADEMY and this is a reminder we need to!

I’m celebrating myself today 

This year I’ve become consistent with my exercise again.

I’ve always exercised but somewhere around 2021 with Covid, a house move and Optimus growing hugely I became less consistent.

I’ve had a personal trainer once a week and twice weekly Pilates but I wasn’t consistent in between. I was the worst student !!

I realised I was not getting the results I wanted so I stepped it up at least 2 additional workouts a week. My daily walk being a non negotiable.

And I feel and look different.

Alongside my ramped up exercise I started to be more mindful of my eating : I’d been doing so many different things over the years and I wasn’t focused on health. 

And I started taking lots of supplements.

This for me is all about health because I plan on doing all I can to feel great and be around as long as I can : we all know some things we can’t control, Im doing what I can to control those I can.

Walking into the weekend full of appreciation 

This week has not been what I expected however it's been full of so much goodness: 

- A lovely long gym and spa session 
- Catching up with 2 close friends
- Pumpkin picking with the family (the place we went to was serious - never been before)
- Great new sign ups for our courses
- Getting things sorted behind the scenes including 2 new hires (one who used to work with us) and sorting out a lot of those jobs which needed doing 

Lots of things didn't go quite as planned: my mum and kids were stuck in traffic for 9 hours on Wednesday after a huge accident on the M25: hoping all involved are okay 
We had to reschedule a family photoshoot 
I've got toothache

I could go on!
The thing is it's so easy to focus on all the things which don't work out : sometimes we can learn from these other times we have to go to acceptance. 

Since I've started purposefully focusing on the things which have worked it's helped me change perspective : it's been 10 years in the making tbh!

Next week we've got our workshop week and I'm looking forward to showcasing our training : if you haven't registered you can here https://lnkd.in/dJyQnZNh

We were very blessed to spend the summer in Brazil 

One of the highlights was visiting the Amazon : many of the people we spoke to shared how the government are prioritising protecting this incredible place.

And today deforestation has fallen by now than 55% in 2023-2024 it was at its lowest level in 5 years saving as much CO2 as France emits in a year.

This has brightened up my day.

The Amazon is an incredible place : feeling hopeful it will be restored one day to its former glory

This week I've been talking about story and narrative in coaching: the stories that we tell ourselves and the stories we can help clients re-write.

I told myself a story for many years about why I didn't run a business. I'm a qualified Business Studies teacher so you can imagine how many times my students asked me "Why don't you have a business Miss?"

When I was at University the people who started businesses all came from wealthy backgrounds and were all men. The examples we learned about on our course were mainly men too (Anita Roddick was a standout who wasn't!). I had been telling myself a story for so long "I can't do this because of x and y"

And yet I was doing "little businesses" on the side. 

It took giving up that story of who I thought I was and who I thought I wasn't to start my business. 

What stories do you need to let go of?

We run an advanced neurodiversity training at Optimus and every time I teach it I reflect.

How often do we judge someone for things which may well be down to neurodivergence ?

The person who appears “rude” as they avoid eye contact ?
The manager who speaks over others ?
The friend who responds to your story with something similar ?
The team member who questions when things change ?
The person who seems “emotional”?

I could go on.
So many things I see on LinkedIn each day or I hear people say about others makes me consider if they understand about neurodivergence.

Those people who find themselves labelled as rude, dominant, overbearing, disengaged: what if it was due to brain differences ? What if you sought to understand rather than judge ?

I believe if we did have more understanding it would mean we’d have much more effective relationships.

I know personally when I got a diagnosis it changed a lot for me as a lot of things I’d been beating myself up about for decades made sense.

I’d love to know your opinion

I never saw myself as a perfectionist..

I'm messy and can be disorganised yet in business I'm uber focused on the customer experience and I love things to be as good as possible.

This means today when I got up I went on a mission with something behind the scenes that design wise wasn't doing it for me.

My focus on supporting the customer and ensuring we always deliver I know can make me seem like a control freak : I'd say I'm passionate and love to deliver.

Tbh I think my focus on detail has helped me to succeed although it doesn't spread to everything that I do!

Where do you see yourself uber focusing in your professional life?

What is going to really change the way that you lead?

Coaching skills may well go a long way... 

It's really interesting to me how many organisations pay for their employees to go on coach training courses so that they can lead more effectively and we've seen a significant shift in this over the last 24 months.

The reason is we're in a pretty uncertain period if we look at good old PESTLE I think we can all easily think of political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental influences that are creating this situation.

Due to these pressures leaders are looking at how to support their teams more effectively and coaching skills can be helpful. 

If you're interested in finding out more you can check out what we offer OPTIMUS COACH ACADEMY with the link below.

I just had coffee ☕️ with a friend and we were talking about coaching and what we are seeing in the industry 

Many organisations are looking at building more effective cultures where communication, safety and transparency mean there is more innovation and more effective decision making. 

We know that the combination of low employee engagement, economic and political uncertainty, lower levels of wellbeing and AI has created lower levels of trust and safety and created cultures which aren’t effective.

This is why models which include training, coaching and advisory elements are helping to support effective cultural change developing coaching skills and leadership capacity.

Drop me a DM if you want to discuss how we can support your company with these programs

And... We're back !

After a pretty consistently inconsistent period I'm back with my weekly youtube content.

Why? well, this platform secures us clients every month and has grown with very little input from us over the last couple of years so it makes sense to water the grass!

And, I love video : I find recording youtube videos in one day so much easier than other types of content: I think it works with my brains hyperfocus and as there are people there when I film I don't feel like I'm talking to myself which I can do in other formats.

To watch my first of the new videos which is all about the difference between coaching and therapy click below and I'd love you to subscribe to my channel too!

Okay I might not always have full make up and lashes on when I get up first thing (I don't need you to see the reality!)

Yet journalling is one of the things I love to do when I have quieter mornings

It's a way of getting clarity on what I'm thinking 
It's a way of connecting with myself 
And it's self expression 

I'm often surprised by what I write as things can still sneak up on you even if you're a "master" coach and have lots of coaching, supervision and therapy: we all have blind spots!

What is your experience of journalling? are you a lover or loather or is it something which is on the list but you never really get to?

What is the line between sharing your experience and vilifying someone ?

It’s a hard one and many of us have got this wrong multiple times 

Today part of Mary Earps autobiography was revealed and her comments about Hannah Hampton have been magnified.

Mary has a right to her opinion and perspective : she was obviously hurt and upset and felt that the way Hannah acted didn’t align with her own values.

Now with her comments it feels Mary has been vilified for sharing them and it makes me think how easily we take sides or judge.

It makes me reflect on how there are always so many truths. It can feel good to share things and let’s be honest sometimes we share from a place of hurt.

I know many of us have said and done things we wish we could take back and I wonder if Mary may feel this for her words and Hannah for the behavior mentioned. No one is perfect, we’re all falliable and sometimes we get things wrong : let’s remember that we all make errrors of judgement.

I hope that both Mary and Hannah have lots of support around them right now.

I'm really excited to be running a workshop focused on the brain and how we use neuroscience in coaching.

For me the more we can understand about our clients brain and nervous system the more effective we can be in supporting them. 

This is really the crux of what we teach at OPTIMUS COACH ACADEMY and I'm sharing more at 1.15pm today, if you register below you'll also get on replay.

I love being a trustee for The Parent Village and supporting the work they are doing

It’s Trustee’s Week! 
Time to show off our often behind the scenes Leaders who are vital in making the magic happen.

All are parents, all have careers as business owners, or public service and some are blending both.

All sharing their time, energy and skills as part of The Parent Village’s aim of supporting parents to feel more equipped and less alone. 

Through peer-led and evidence-based parenting support.

Offering one to one coaching or groups. 

And training communities of parents to lead and empower support for each other that improves parental confidence and mental wellbeing.

Our Trustee’s and board advisors guide our strategic direction and offer us skills and expertise to help us building strong foundations for our village to grow. 

Thank you
Samantha Coles 
Iona McArdle FRSA 
Angelena Hindocha 
Rachel Stern 
Catherine Manser 
Caroline Cookson 
Ruth Kudzi, MCC, MA, PGCERT 

And our team who supported board with their real life expertise
Emelia Kuagbela 
Yvette Walker 

 
#trusteeweek
#trusteeweek2025

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