Contact

Mobile
+44 (0)7816 8989800

E-Mail
joy.harcup@praesta.com

<  Back to Coaches

Joy Harcup

“Joy is both empathetic and incisive. She has a knack of getting you to the nub of the matter and guiding you to find your own solution-based answers. This has enabled me to be more effective with my time which is critical to the successful running of my business.”

About

Joy has coached hundreds of leaders to help them develop their own distinctive leadership style. She works with CEOs, Directors, Partners, and other senior executives, to build their self-awareness, resilience and strategic focus. To create a mind set and take action to be successful leaders in the ever changing work environment. 

Experience

Since 2005, Joy has worked with senior leaders in blue chip multinationals to startups, professional service firms, public and third sector organisations. Her particular areas of coaching expertise include: strategic thinking and innovation, board dynamics, managing organisational change and influencing, mental resilience, change of role (including promotion or retirement), personal effectiveness and life balance. 

Clients describe Joy’s coaching as “insightful”, “balanced”, “politically aware”, and stretching. They say she’s approachable and perceptive - good at putting them at their ease, with a dash of humour at times! As a result, clients can talk honestly and openly about issues, focus on the wider picture and priorities, and are challenged and supported to think and act differently.

During board/team coaching, team members report feeling in “safe hands” and that Joy has the ability to draw out pertinent themes and support commitment to change.

Professional Expertise

Originally qualifying as a City lawyer in commercial dispute resolution, she then held a management role at an award winning international law firm. Joy has also chaired or sat on Boards in the educational and not for profit sectors. In these roles she has personal experience of undertaking strategic reviews and overseeing change programmes. 

She’s co-authored academic research on how coaching individual leaders also benefits the performance of their teams. She has also co-written a book on board relationships, due to be published by Routledge. Based on 40 interviews, it’s a practical guide to the art and psychology of managing boardroom dynamics in various sectors – The Secret Life of Boards. 

Joy has been at the forefront of the movement to professionalise coaching in the UK. She’s a former President of the UK Board of the International Coaching Federation (ICF). This is the largest global coaching professional body with over 50,000 members worldwide. She was also a member of the Government’s Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) panel for Coaching and Mentoring, and has sat on Global ICF governance committees. Previously she was short listed for Coaching at Work magazine’s External Coaching Champion Award. 

Education, Qualifications, Professional Positions

• MBA (Distinction), Bath University and LLB (Hons) (Sol), Leicester University. 

• Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

• Graduate of the Advanced Corporate Coaching Programme of Coach U Inc and has a Certificate of Coaching Psychology from CIPD, and in Systemic Team Coaching.

• Certificate in Board Dynamics with the Tavistock Institute.

• Past President, and Director for 6 years, of the UK Board of the ICF. Former Member of the Global ICF Accreditation Governance Review Committee, and the Global ICF Ethical Review Steering Committee that produced the revised Global ICF Code of Ethics.

• Co-author of academic research, published in Management Learning: If I Learn Do We Learn? The Link Between Executive Coaching and Organisational Learning.  

• Co-author of the book: The Art and Psychology of Board Relationships – The Secret Life of Boards. 

• Governor for over 10 years at local state schools, including Chew Valley Comprehensive School, near Bristol, UK. 

• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Selected Client Companies

Baker McKenzie
Bath University 
British Council 
Burgess Salmon 
DAC Beachcroft 
Farrer & Co 
Glaxo Smith Klein 
Hitachi 
HM Treasury 
Home Office 
Houses of Parliament
Linklaters