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Heather Dawson
My focus is to help senior executives with their personal leadership, business strategies and working effectively with their Board, team and organisations.
Experience
Heather has over 15 years experience as a business coach to senior leaders and 20 years as a marketing professional, strategy consultant and business owner.
Heather has worked with over 250 executives in the private, public and charity sectors. She also leads the firm's Board Effectiveness Practice. Her particular focus is helping executives develop their leadership strengths, hone their business strategies and work effectively with Boards, their teams and external stakeholders. Her work includes
- Being a thought partner or sounding board for senior leaders by providing challenge, clarity of thinking, space for reflection and insights from her experience
- Helping new leaders step into their roles on multiple dimensions including leading executive teams and becoming a Board Member
- Working with leaders on their personal impact and influencing skills
- Supporting CEOs and MDs who need to re-align organisational expectations and strategies in changing marketplaces
- Coaching senior leaders through restructuring, mergers and acquisitions
- Working with senior civil servants in central government
- Helping partners in professional service firms step up into leadership roles
Board Effectiveness
Heather has led Board reviews for FTSE 100 and 250 companies including an international bank, a UK regulated company and an international property company. Reviews for unlisted companies have included a UK based construction company, a building society, and a consumer goods company.
Professional Expertise
Born and educated in Canada, with an early business career in marketing, Heather was Director of Marketing in a consumer goods company before joining McKinsey & Company. There she focused on corporate and organisational strategy for retail and consumer goods companies in Canada, the United States and Europe. Heather then established her own consulting company, helping leaders of mid-sized companies develop competitive strategies. This work included mergers and acquisitions, divestitures of divisions and re-organisations in several industry sectors.
Heather switched the focus of her career in the early 90s and joined The Alexander Corporation as a coach and client service director. After completing her Masters in Change Agent Skills and Strategies at the University of Surrey she became Director of Professional Development of McKinsey & Company in the UK and a faculty member for internal leadership programmes. She restarted her coaching career in 2001 and is a founding partner of Praesta Partners LLP.
Education, Qualifications, Professional Positions
BA Honours Business Administration, Western University, Canada
MSc in Change Agent Skills and Strategies, University of Surrey, England
Contributor to “10 Things that keep CEOs Awake at Night”
Author of two Praesta articles - “Thriving in a Faster Faster World” and “Coming into leadership”
Selected Client Companies
Client sectors include professional service firms, investment banking, retail banking, retailing, property and real estate, public sector, telecommunications, financial credit, consumer goods, mining, oil and gas.
