Human Led: value derived from working life.
Helping people realise their professional ambitions through performance coaching aimed at improving capability and realising value.
Supporting companies to realise value by creating bespoke tools for their employees to be engaged, happy and fulfilled people at work.
Being fulfilled drives people to be more effective and productive in their places of work (MacLeod & Clark, BIS 2009).
Leveraging agency performance data, facilitating leadership conversations and building value in people’s lived work experiences, success can be measured through increased engagement, empowered leadership, an uplift in team cohesion and operational effectiveness.
Giles Vigor-Robertson
I have worked with creative businesses since 1994, completing a wide variety of commercial projects. I’ve built teams, exited business shareholders, Coached Leaders in Growth, supported teams through structural challenges, supported leaders in downturn economies and helped founders put deals together to sell their businesses.
I’ve worked extensively with C-suite and Senior Leaders. Examples include:
- helping a Global Head of New Business for an entertainment brand, find new resolve and overcome “imposter syndrome”
- acting as a commercial sounding board with an agency CEO
- working as a discreet day-to-day coach with a CPO of a top tier Global Design Agency
- building confidence in a newly appointed Managing Director for a U.S. based company
- helping to rationalise commercial priorities with a fast tracked Executive Creative Director against challenging business targets
In addition to coaching senior executives, I continue to work with more junior team members on skills development challenges, and I serve as a Mentor for the Brixton Finishing School.
There are a number of specific areas I can help you with your business and team.
Business Coaching & Advisory
Understanding the challenges a business faces and offering an objective, market informed view of how it might meet those challenges through a human lens. Examples include:
- Sense checking your commercial model
- Understanding skills sets & gaps within teams
- Appetite & energy levels of the business
- Building an employer brand
- Sounding board for unknowns as they arise
- Driving DEI into hiring & team structures
“I highly recommend Giles for his invaluable coaching and commercial guidance; his creative thinking and holistic perspective prompted us to make commercial changes resulting in tangible business improvements. His approach is always customized, personalised and ethical, making him an exceptional choice for personal and professional development for both senior leaders and teams.”
Using a behavioural data approach to measure success
Using a fifty plus sample of agency performance data norms collected annually from 2018 we can model best-in-class business management approaches around key business metrics, including:
- Engagement
- Managing People
- Strategy & Leadership
- Working Life
- Diversity & Inclusion
Using these data points, it’s possible to plot agency performance against best-in-class agency performance metrics or for example against specific agency, leadership or restructuring objectives.
Management, Executive & Performance Coaching
Working for a business to understand and mitigate specific challenges they might face with individual team members who are struggling with performance.
Helping people overcome barriers to business impact.
Understanding and then working with team members innate preferences
- Unblocking reasons to act
- Creating tools & frameworks
- Building values driven skills sets
- Increasing personal value & self-belief
“Giles is a fantastic coach. Not only is he an active listener, he is clearly passionate and invested in my individual growth. I feel I have a champion on my side, reassuring me of both my potential and accomplishments. Giles has a performance mindset, which is needed at any management level. He is objective, always giving sound advice and is a guaranteed safe space for me personally.”
Career development coaching
Partnering with individuals over a longer period of time for on-going professional enhancement.
- Sounding board sessions to solve live workplace challenges
- Discreet personal performance discussions
- Career progression check-ins
- A safe place to discuss sensitive issues
- Active encouragement towards physical fitness
“Giles has a remarkable talent for building a rapport that makes working with him not only productive but also lots of fun. His ability to adapt his coaching style to match individual needs ensures that every session is both impactful and engaging. Giles and I began working together as I was newly promoted into a senior role. With Giles’ support and coaching he has helped me navigate complex challenges and situations with confidence. He has fundamentally shaped and contributed to my personal and professional development.”
Mental Health First Aider
Working with business leaders and/or HR teams to help them identify performance issues affecting individuals that may have deeper causes, which may require greater professional support.
- One-to-one mental health check-ins
- Maudsley Certified Enhanced Mental Health First Aider
Making sure people feel safe at work is something I take to heart. Assisting people with finding the right resources is critical. In my view, it doesn’t make business sense to expect people to ‘make do mentally’ when there’s so much help and support out there to allow people to thrive and contribute to business life.
Bespoke Project Consultancy
Commercial projects
The wide variety of business challenges I have take on can include team sizing, creating skills matrices, competitive market analysis, establishing and setting up creative agency propositions, raising debt finance, exiting and sale of shareholdings, introducing commercial Partnerships etc.
Support services
I have a network of specialist finance, HR and legal contacts that often support my clients often long after my involvement.
“Giles and I were introduced by a mutual friend way back in 2010. Over the last 5 years we’ve had much greater contact, working on a variety of business challenges together. Although first and foremost Giles is a people person, his role is underpinned by his strong understanding of how businesses tick. Both culturally and from a financial perspective.
Many times he has shown how working with him as an integer between Board & Leadership has given me valuable insight into how to manage difficult & sensitive conversations, helping me land my part of the puzzle effectively.”
A few Client areas:
Creative Agency, Luxury Goods, Strategy Consultancy, Entertainment, Insight & Market Research Agency
A few Former clients:
Sony Masterworks, EY, Jing Tea, Saffron, Yonder, The Futures Company, The Value Engineers
Method, Ideo, McKinsey, Moving Brands, Deloitte, Interbrand, Engine Group, Publicis Group,
IPSOS, Wolf Ollins, M&C Saatchi.
Location.
Most of my work tends to be confidential and requires active listening with no distractions. I am available to work on-site in a quiet meeting room or remote from my home.
Get in touch
I’m always s happy to chat through a nutty challenges, please feel free to drop me a line.