My name is Catherine Harris and I am the founder and principal coach of Direction Finders Coaching and the Stokey Maternity Coach

As a certified coach and a lawyer who has worked in the City, both in private practice and in-house, I bring a unique blend of empathy, experience and skill to my coaching work. I trained at Linklaters, moving to Barlow Lyde & Gilbert as a litigator shortly after qualification and then to Allen & Overy before moving in-house to the Financial Services Authority, where I managed a large team in the Enforcement Division. As a solicitor-advocate specialising in banking, insurance and financial services regulatory work, my experience has brought me into contact with a variety of sectors. Having managed a multi-disciplinary team at the FSA I also have wide experience of working with professionals of all types.

My interest in coaching started with trainee solicitors and realising that I had an unusual ability to enthuse and empower others to find their way through difficulties. I received some coaching myself at pivotal points in my career and found it immensely valuable in helping me refocus and adjust to change. I chose to develop this further through studying for a diploma in Life Coaching with the Institute of Life Coaching and have been accredited as an Associated Certified Coach by the International Coach Federation (ICF) since 2010. Since 2008 I have worked part time as a lawyer and part time as an internal executive coach for the Financial Services Authority, coaching a variety of individuals at levels from administrator to head of department and gaining several hundred coaching hours of experience. I have been instrumental in setting up the maternity coaching programme at the FSA since my return to work following the birth of my first child. I am a qualified facilitator (Level 1) and administer the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) tests to individuals and teams within the FSA, though increasingly I also use this in my general coaching

I set up the Stokey Maternity Coach service in 2011, in my local area of Stoke Newington, because with the highest concentration of children under 5 in Europe, I saw a real need for a coach who could help women navigate the greatest transitions of their lives and come out the other side confident, fulfilled and renewed. As a working mother myself, I understand that support is the greatest gift a mother can give herself and the Stokey Maternity Coach can help with this. In addition, I am one of only two accredited facilitators of Personal Renewal Groups for Mothers for Renee Trudeau & Associates in the UK, offering coaching sessions to groups of mothers.