Lead from your strengths and continue to grow into your ideal role.
Sean Spence
Hi, I'm Sean Spence
Where do you come from?
Having travelled widely and lived in the UK, Hong Kong and now Australia, Iā€™m often asked where I come from. The short answer is Ireland. I grew up in Belfast and thereā€™s still an echo of that accent in my voice.
The longer answer is that my work has been shaped by a range of environments, disciplines and experiencesā€”each of which informs how I now work with senior professionals, partners and leadership teams.
My early training was in physics at Oxford, followed by accounting with PwC and executive search with Russell Reynolds Associates. I have worked in more than 30 countries across a wide range of industries and professions, often in situations where organisations are under pressure to perform, evolve or reset direction.
Over time, I have also experienced significant losses and changes that have shaped how I think about leadership under pressure and the long arc of professional life. This has led me to focus less on short-term role transitions and more on how contribution, authority and judgement evolve over decades.
Most organisations are not broken. But they are often not functioning as effectively as they shouldā€”particularly at senior level. My work identifies what is getting in the way of top team effectiveness and finds ways to resolve issues so that individuals, teams and firms thrive. That means clearer decisions on complex issues, strong alignment across the executive team and sustained success.
More about Sean
I began working with senior professionals in 1999. Since then, my work has spanned CEOs, executive teams, partners in professional firms and founders, often across big transitions where expectations are shifting and the fundamental shape of their role is changing.
I work through personal capability, role imperatives and organisational reality. That means engaging directly with the issues that affect how leaders think, decide and act, especially when they take on more responsibility and they have expanded their authority and influence.
I work alongside individuals and leadership groups on the issues that most affect performance. This embraces the ways complex issues processes such as governance and strategy are not quite working but remedies are difficult to name or resolve. My style of individual coaching allows the most important and elusive issues to emerge and drives to new insights and pointed action.
My international experience and multidisciplinary background inform this work, but always in service of practical outcomes: clearer decisions, stronger alignment and more effective execution.
Alongside this, I continue to work with partners on career strategy and Continuationā€”supporting the evolution of their contribution over time in ways that align individual capability with the strategic direction of the firm.
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